Over is a story taken from a collection of stories (Half a Rupee: Stories) by Gulzar, and offered here as an independent read, from part three. This part consists of three stories and they are about this border between the two sides, a border that may or may not be the one fixed at partition, since the first war in 1948 tore away more than half of Kashmir. The whole part might as well be named LoC, as the first story is.
LoC refers to line of control, the border between India and Pakistan that is not the one legally awarded but one post many incursions and wars when India was not able to push back the invading Pakistan, due mainly to international pressure for India to let go.
This part three about LoC is about how relationships on the two sides are more complex, with not only families that were split apart at partition but old friends that ended up on different sides, and have only love for one another while they are fighting skirmishes and battles regularly or otherwise, especially when there is a politician visiting the border or someone from across the border fires at Indian posts.
Over is about a situation where a film unit with Gulzar visits a border village for filming, and the contrast of realities of the border with the normal life expectations of a civil population from a mega city. The title is from the habit of one soldier who ends every bit of his conversation with "over" because he is more used to speaking with someone on his two way transmitter, and this is days or rather decades before cellphones were available to general populace anywhere.
The film heroine wishes to try shooting, and wonders what will happen if she shot someone accidentally, or if the army post across the border thought they were being shot at. The film unit is in difficulty re toilet, especially for the female contingent, because there is no provision of proper toilets - everyone at the border including the village and the army post is huts without permanent construction, and the unending desert is convenient with no lack of places to be used for toilet, but the film unit is delicate in that they wish for one with a door that can be closed so their female colleagues are not inconvenienced.
And then there are various people whose home is across the border in Sindh, left wholly in Pakistan now after partition. They are nostalgic for the home, the village. But while one might cross the marshy salt desert that forms a large part of desert at this place, and not be in danger of being shot at, one might really be more in danger of being lost and dying of heat and lack of water.
One such film worker does attempt and is lucky in finding a man atop a camel to take him across and bring him back, for he is local and does that regularly - his camel knows the way. He has a wife on this side and a lover on the other that he had to flee because people there were about to kill him, and now the two lovers are married to other people and have two children each, but these visits continue. The wife on this side wishes he would bring the lover over, and assures the visitor the two women would find a way to live together, just so the man can stay put in one place.
So over is just as much about various local people going over as about military people saying "over".
Sunday, March 30, 2014.
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