Swayamvar is a story taken from a collection of stories (Half a Rupee: Stories) by Gulzar, and offered here as an independent read. It is from part five, which is about Naxalite movement in India, so named after the small rural place Naxalbari in West Bengal (east Bengal is what is now called Bangladesh, the half that split away from motherland in '47 at partition and then had to seek independence because faith based nations don't necessarily work when all other bases are diverse and diversity not acceptable to basis of the nation).
Swayamvar is the second story from part five, and it is about a suicide bomber on her last couple of days and what she might have thought or felt during her last hours.
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Why Gulzar is so fascinated by someone committing a suicide bombing planned for a murder of a national leader is a good question, and not in the sense the phrase is used in US either - the answer is not too far to find, perhaps, only thinly veiled. He made a film about this particular act as did another well known film maker and neither film did well in India, at least not outside the state of the other film maker which happens to be where such a murder was perpetrated not too long ago, which gave such inspiration to these two and perhaps more people to not only try to "understand" but portray it on film, and here in writing published under a name attempting to give it a rightful form.
Swayamvar - and the right sound rather than a particular spelling is relevant here as in every case where a Sanskrt based name is used - is, literally, act of choosing one's bridegroom, "vara" or "wara" or "var" (sound rather than spelling, again, since all Sanskrt based scripts of India are phonetic, unlike any Mediterraenean script including Roman), and this choice is not merely a choice but the whole word Swayamvara used to be a ceremony where various candidates were invited so the bride could choose after looking at every one and being informed by a friend walking with her at the inspection of candidates.
Here the world applies only in that the suicide bomber has chosen this destiny for herself, but other than that using this word is a hideous caricature of the word, the concept, and even the very culture of the nation.
After all Swayamvara holds the concept of consent of both integral to the process - the bridegroom chosen has to be present to the ceremony by his own choice, and this implies he is willing to be so chosen. Whereas in any murder and particularly one of a national figure, whether by suicide bombing or any other way, the victim is unaware of his future to begin with, and of the intentions of the murderer as well, much less willing to submit to them.
So this is more comparable to the Romans sport of throwing political opponents to beasts to be devoured rather than a bride making a choice from amongst willing and eager candidates for a bridegroom.
But any such admission of reality would go against the twisted romanticisation of a suicide bomber of a national figure in a democracy, and if one does not romanticise it how does one fool readers or film viewers into accepting, buying and helping the author and film maker profiting by it - so the fraud of naming it as this one does. Or is it worse than that?
Often enough one does see regimes where a drastic way out is needed to benefit the general populace barely living under a yoke of despots, only, in reality this even mythologised here took place in a democracy and the victim was at that point not a figure of authority as much as possibly of hope for better rule for people and more likely betterment of his own persona that could have come in a few hours with a visit that never did get made.
If this murder in reality had not happened that day, another day might just have brought about a transformation for the better for the person and the nation, but this was not to be allowed by those that had ordered this murder, since India in turmoil was indeed desired by such powers behind that murder. Which by the way is to say it was far from a woman making a choice for herself - she had been fed some propaganda to the hilt and was in all likelihood unaware of just why this was ordered, paid for, pushed as agenda on the organisation that undertook the physical execution of the orders and the murder.
But then perhaps it is not reality that concerns this author and film maker, or the other one that glorified suicide bombing with a romantic hero that follows the suicide bomber to death forsaking his lovely bride to be; perhaps they are both motivated by politics of revenge perpetrated by those that waging politics of forcing their own agenda on the nation and the world, rather than working for people. So fraud and romanticisation and fooling people it is.
Their films for this purpose, however, flopped.
And deserved it.
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Gulzar to some extent and Sahir Ludhianavi to a far more committed extent were leftists - Sahir was about to be arrested for h in his chosen or default home in the other part of India as it was before independence, and had to escape to India as it is post independence, and yet he said it was lucky for Mumbai to have him, rather than admitting he was lucky he could get away and not be arrested to spend life in jail, rather than the respect and fame and prestige and satisfactory work he had during his life in India. Gulzar in that tradition sympathises with a suicide bomber who plans to blow up a prime minister, and writes a story and publishes it, apart from a film or more he made on the topic.
Wonder if they had courage enough to battle for Malala and her ilk. Easy to target a democracy, especially one that does not penalise you for being in minority politically.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014.
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