Half a Rupee is a collection of stories named after the story
with that title, which appears later on, and the collection is sorted
into several groups of three or four stories each, stories about
different topics generally of interest to the writer.
Gulzar
to some extent and Sahir Ludhianavi to a far more committed extent were
leftists - Sahir was about to be arrested for his leftist political
commitment 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 or in
any other way.
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The
first part is about somewhat well known people as far as Indian
intelligentsia and media go, Kuldeep Nayar and Bhushan Banmali and
various far more famous film persona from Mumbai - poets Jaan Nisaar
Akhtar and his sone Javed Akhtar whom they called Jaadu (magic), and
their friend Sahir Ludhianavi, and more. Interesting, and with twists at
the end to give one a pause if not a tear.
Both Gulzar and
Kuldeep Nayyar - the latter a famous journalist - were from the part of
India that separated at independence, and this story is about longing
for a lost home where they were thrown out of while young, with riots
and massacres that those fleeing escaped although they lost a great deal
including their homes and any right to return or even visit. They seek
to band aid this pain with visits to border on the independence day,
rather the midnight of the day changing from the day of independence of
one to that of the other, since Jinnah set that of his part to one day
prior to that of India. But this vigil at the border at midnight is a
lonely one with no one on the other side - those that would come are
prevented by the government of Pakistan for fear a friendship might
develop and threaten the government agenda of keeping separate and at
war.
Kudeep Nayyar relates to Gulzar and the latter to the
readers about a grave of an unknown muslim saint - pir - that was under a
holy pipal tree which the former's mother recalls with nostalgia and
more; the tree she venerated as per her beliefs and the pir was her
confidante when she needed to speak of her heart's tears. Nayyar
attempts to visit the grave because he had a vision of the pir telling
him he - the pir - was cold, and his mother asked him to cover the grave
with a shawl, but neither the grave nor the tree are to be found, and
only reluctantly one current occupant of the land admits to having found
a grave but tells him it was moved, and there is no way to find the pir
now.
Saturday, March 29, 2014.
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It takes a while to realise this story is more than just a factual
account, that it is in fact a very subtle denouement of the very idea of
partitioning a nation to form a separate homeland for part of the
population on basis of religion - because after all the homeland
consisted more of driving out or killing every other citizen of the land
so it could be as monochrome in faith as they could make it, and it is
still a living hell for those that did not then come across the border
and now often do have to find refuge in India. But then they are not the
only ones - people of the faith that forced a partition of the nation
have returned or simply come across for refuge too, since they find life
better in original motherland that is for all rather than restricted to
one "faith".
As a matter of fact, not only the homeland was not chosen by everyone of
that particular faith, which amounts to it was far from necessary if
majority of them could after all live right where they always did, but
often enough during the decades since people of that faith have found it
difficult to deal with the new homeland if they indeed chose to go
there, and they were treated abominably by their new co-faith brethren,
and not on par as equal citizens.
But all this factual information that one takes for granted is what
makes one take a while to realise that the writer here has proceeded
with another very vital factor of the whole question and debate, and has
subtly destroyed the very foundations of the notion of a separate
nationhood for a faith - by pointing at evidence of lack of the very
faith in the very people who replaced the ones that lived there, while
those that had to flee had dealt better with it all.
Nayyar's mother was a Hindu (not that the information is provided by the
writer but her regard for a tree one assumes is not shared in the other
faith in Punjab, unless a person does so because one is free to) and
she lit a lamp on the grave of the pir every time she went round the
tree as per her belief, and what is more she talked to him, telling him
all that bothered her and finding solace; when her son told her about
the pir telling him he - the pir - was cold, she insisted he go across
the border and offer his shawl to the pir.
This much one finds natural enough. But already the basis of the
partition of the nation is questionable when one realises this is not
limited to one person and people generally had regard for all faiths and
do, in India. The further bit again is natural according to human
nature but destroys the basis of partition. For, it is the Muslims who
replaced the Hindu and Sikh original populace that have not only
destroyed the grave, with no regard to the fact that it was supposed to
be someone of their own faith, a saint whose grave ought to be venerated
and not destroyed, but worse, the place is built up on with homes and
shops, and no one knows where the pir's remains can be found, if they
were buried again or simply thrown away, or what.
So much for faith that created havoc and killed millions, the writer
points out without a word to the effect - it was only land acquisition
after all, one may infer. So does he realise it is now precisely the
same going on in Kashmir, not for faith or anything remotely to do with
spiritual beliefs but only to do with profit and land acquisition and
throwing out those that can be threatened by bullies with whatever
excuse?
Poor of British isles were encouraged to leave with carrots and sticks
and this is how three huge nations in two other continents were
populated, once. Across the northern borders of India the scene now
repeats on all sides.
Friday, April 4, 2014.
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Saahir and Jaadu is about those two poets and friends and
other film persona involved - Jaan Nisaar Akhtar, the father of Javed
Akhtar (Jaadu) and the years of the latter's youth when he was on a
warpath with the famous father, and took refuge often with Sahir who was
friend of both.
Bhushan Banmali was a friend of Gulzar who
lived with him and wrote and had friends and relationships that seem out
of run of the mill, and the story tells about his two close
relationships with women who happened to be his wife and her mother,
apart from travel and life with Gulzar and other friends. The part about
trip through Himaalaya is very interesting, especially more so if one
has been there, but even otherwise for various reasons.
Friday, March 28, 2014.
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Next
part is about poor people, slum dwellers of Mumbai and perhaps of the
largest slum known in Asia - although by standard US definitions most
who call themselves middle class in Asia would be considered poor.
Realities of lives of poor in city slums are comprehensible if one puts
oneself in their position, but most of those in position to change their
lives and make it better in fact do the opposite due to not doing that -
not considering what they would like if living in those circumstances -
and so the poor end up living far worse.
Surprise, surprise - a
slum on ground with ill constructed huts might be far worse than an
apartment block well constructed with small apartments and proper
plumbing even if every apartment has a bathroom and toilet for its
residents. For starters, in a slum with huts on ground people might have
possibilities of sowing a plant or more, and in an apartment one needs
to buy equipment and limit the plants to what can grow in pots, so most
poor won't and so the place stinks.
Stench tells about how
politicians might prefer the cement blocks because they contain the
stench of poverty. Rain tells about how a poor drunk uses all his wits
to save his drink bottles even as the rain is devastating his slum,
people therein, possessions and women and children, including his own.
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The
Charioteer is about a man who cleans the little ferries plying from
Gateway of India in Mumbai to Elephanta Caves on an island near Mumbai,
and his life of back breaking work that is never ending from dawn until
the last ferry return. Rich tourists from the famous Taj Mahal hotel
close to the Gateway of India are from rich western nations and they
arrive early, while there are various tours conducted with packs of
tourists from various parts of the world and then home tourists from
that take the ferry for a day's outing. The cleaner has to clean up
trash thrown by them, and silently does not oppose those that throw it
in the ocean in spite of being instructed otherwise. Cleaning up
people's vomit that falls unwittingly in the boat rather than over the
rails into the sea is difficult enough. But - when he gets home, and
takes on the role of the head of the household that has his wife and
grown up children and their spouses and his grandchildren, he then is
the king of his own world. It is the story of every poor man working
hard for a living.
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From
the Footpath is about poor that dwell on sidewalks of towns and cities
in India, having arrived from rural areas for work that is necessary to
survive - rural areas with political mishandling and corruption make it
impossible to many to survive, whether they have land as a family or
none. Housing in cities and towns is either not easy to find or far too
expensive, which is the same for someone poor, and dwelling on sidewalks
without even jobs makes it possible for them to find some work for
themselves and survive.
One such woman living on sidewalks is
the main character here, and she survives by collecting objects from
garbage that could be sold for pennies so she can sell them. Her trials
and travails what with various males around that would not let her alone
or support her either is a major concern, and her dealing with all this
and her heart as well is the story.
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Part
three consists of three stories and they are about the border between
the two sides, a border that may or may not at a given point 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.
LoC
in part three 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.
Major
Kulwant Singh discovers that his subordinate is getting the delicacies
he loves from across the border, and what is more from home of the
opposing army, where the subordinate's relative happens to be an old
friend of the major. But a battle happens just as the major has arranged
for the old friend's mother to visit his own family and to be conducted
to the shrine at Ajmer; he dies in the skirmish.
Saturday, March 29, 2014.
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Over
in part three 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".
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The
Rams in part three is parable and fact in how the people on the two
sides of the border enjoy watching fights of rams and sometimes behave
just the same way. But the story is little to do with actual such
behaviour by the army, and is about far more humane behaviour.
During
the '1971 war about Bangladesh becoming independent when India had to
help the beleaguered part of India before 1947 that was yoked to the
dominant part Pakistan during partition, this story is about the border
on the west, where action then was minor. One group of Pakistan army
finds a village on Indian side empty but for a small boy, very
frightened and unwilling to speak. They take him along back with them
but would rather hand him back over safely to his own people rather than
the formal rule of treating him as prisoner of war, and towards this
try contacting someone from the village the next day, who happens to be
from a village across. But when after having hidden the boy from the
visiting commander they do finally take him over, there is a group of
Indian army men waiting, and this is the least of the surprises. The
real one is, the boy is from Pakistan after all, and what is more he is
from the village of the old man who had to leave at partition, but the
boy was visiting across the border to "see the fight of rams".
It is not clear if he is referring to actual rams or the armies.
Sunday, March 30, 2014.
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Part four is about ordinary people, not only poor adults but middle class and children as well, living in times not quite as civilised as we would like to think we do. Part four deals with trying times, what with terrorism and attacks on women and bombings of lands to root out terrorists that affect normal people because bombs do not discriminate who they affect, and so on.It has three stories about diverse situations.
Hilsa is about perfectly normal middle class with their sweet and sour life's pleasures in a city that experiences attacks on people including not only women but pregnant women; it begins with why one should not eat fish or do fishing during certain months, specifically summer, because the fish mate and are likely to have not yet reproduced, so one is killing the eggs or babies as well - and ends with a gory parallel between human lives and reproduction sanctity violated in a society when strictures regarding other species being killed for human needs or pleasures are let go. It is a reminder that civilisation is not merely about one species.
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The Stone Age is about a poor family - although we do not know if they were poor always or were rendered so by destruction of their home and wherewithal - in Afghanistan affected by various outsiders raining bombs via helicopters and roaming about in jeeps with machine guns spraying bullets, and a small boy trying to survive even as his family disintegrates right before his eyes. His little sister is instantly dead when their home collapses and she is caught under the wall, or at least we would like to think she was, the alternative being a little girl under three still alive under the collapsed wall with her family fleeing rather than rescuing her.
The timeline given is of Russian occupation but it could just as well be now, or any time during the last few decades. People killed by bombs probably do not care if they came from north or west. And children merely ask if the foreigners of this other tribe that are trying to kill them - well, does not matter, they have little time to even live with the families, never mind what they can ask the elders. Escaping the house falling and the jeep roaming with foreigners spraying bullets takes priority over other questions.
Then it is refuge in a mosque, then fleeing the mosque when it is under siege, and then the boy finds himself in a heap of dead and mangled bodies and pieces when he returns to search for his father and is carried off in the truck he was hiding in, to be thrown on a mountain of the said dead bodies.
Last bit, he is hiding in a cave, trying to sharpen a stone with another, so he could deal with the eyes he sees in the dark cave - he is only four. Return to stone age it is.
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The Search is about the anger and anguish of the various characters and the writer about the treatment meted out to various people due mainly to their being of a faith blamed for terrorist acts and all related to that faith being thereby suspect of further such acts at any given time or place, and the title refers to frequent searches they have to go through of their baggage and home and person, whether in travel or living at home.
This story in particular is about Kashmir, and the writer limits it to only Muslims of Kashmir and their woes due to this suspicion and searches and disappearances of sons and other young males of the valley. One is uncertain if the person accredited at the end, Humra Kuraishi, is the author or only the protagonist who told her story to Gulzar, but whoever the author is has committed a double sleight of hand fraud hoping to fool others and certain of gathering sympathy of Muslims in general.
The sleight of hand and double fraud here is to equate Kashmir with Muslims, which is as far from true in India as it gets - it is on par with equating, say, US with exclusively rich, and forgetting that there are rich elsewhere and plenty of poor in US too.
So the writer and the protagonist forget about the non Muslims of the state massacred and threatened and forced to leave and be refugees in their own nation away from their homes in Kashmir, while at the same time preferring not to mention other Muslims of India when discussing problems of Muslims in Kashmir, and not giving a thought to the fact that if there had been no terrorism there would be no problems there either - it is not due to faith but due to the fact of there being no guarantee of when, not if but when, someone might turn out to be a terrorist or a suicide bomber.
That the demand for separation due to faith conveniently forgets the question of what about those of other faith that belonged there and were thrown out, even apart from the question of other Muslims of India who have chosen to stay rather than migrate at partition, is another fraud - one might suspect it is salami tactic, and could be not far from truth at that.
As for the main anguish here, a thorough search of person and baggage while travelling to or from Kashmir, the writer again does the same double fraud with sleight of hand - such unpleasantness has to be born by most people and certainly those of Asian origin when travelling almost anywhere by flight, at almost every airport, and it is due to the attack by terrorists using planes as weapons little over a decade ago.
At that one cannot help but reflect that if only India had instituted such thorough searches of passengers even before that, having had her planes blown up in mid eighties, perhaps the hijacking of India's plane to Kandahar and freeing of a terrorist to save two hundred lives of the passengers of that plane might not have happened at all - or if US had helped India rather than watching on tarmac as the terrorist was handed over and vanished, US might not have been attacked using planes subsequently, for it was he who masterminded the attack on US as is well known (and some right wing US persons again perform a sleight of hand double fraud by blaming India for the attack on US for freeing the terrorist, never mind the few hundred passengers of AI who happened to be of not right colour or race after all!).
So the writer here conveniently forgets it all and goes out with the story begging for sympathy, and one wonders, would the problems of the world or even Muslims be over if Kashmir were given up by India? No - that is where the fraud is, for it is salami tactics. If Jerusalem is given it would be the rest of Israel then on target, and if Kashmir were given it would be rest of India, death to all other faiths.
So any sympathy for anyone suffering in this story has to be even more limited with provisos than other stories of the collection so far - if they suffer in this one, don't forget others do, and that is even before speaking of hundreds, thousands dead due to terrorism perpetrated in India by those helped by the nation across border to Northwest, and artificial border created by British colonial rulers minutes before leaving so India would never be free of such problems. Will this stop if everyone were forced to convert at gunpoint, not likely - one has only to read accounts of permanent purge that was very well explained by Zbigniew Brzezinski.
Monday, March 31, 2014.
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Farewell is a story 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).
In essence Naxalite movement is the extreme leftist movement and while there are probably enough justifications for such a necessity - what with the British propagating and furthering the landholding consolidations begun by the previous foreign rulers for their own interests of holding on to a nation not their own (since it is easier to bribe a few rich softies than to control a few million who do well without need of protection and charity), and the government since then mostly consisting of the party that carried on the same system while mouthing leftist sentiments and carrying out half baked measures to control anyone who might do well but nothing to help general populace do well - the truth in spite of such dire actions of militant sort being necessary to wake up authorities is that this movement is not all indigenous, and a good deal of help in form of propaganda as well as arms and ammunition is supplied across one border or another to the north, the two neighbours that fought wars with India being interested in keeping India off balance for ever.
In Farewell again Gulzar attempts to do a bit of sleight of hand, and portrays a Naxalite as a mysterious hero whom the police is unable to even see much less catch, while the youth and intelligentsia is all afire and swayed by his poetry in spirit of the movement - thus evoking subliminally the Russian revolution era of writers and poets bringing people, or rather masses as leftists call them, to the movement emotionally, and the writer is not above cashing on the independence movement of India with the end of the story being reminiscent of some independence warriors' final words and end as they were caught or about to be caught by the colonial rulers, with reference to farewell to mother by which is really meant motherland, Mother India.
Gulzar had done this sleight of hand in a film he wrote and produced in portraying Punjab terrorists as human while painting the police as ruthless inhuman faces of authority who get humane treatment from the very people they have been treating ill, but refraining from mentioning why the fracas began or how it was carried out by the terrorists (who he painted as people forced to go to war due to police brutality, avoiding the beginning of the real terrorists that were caught in the propaganda war when they went for pilgrimage across the border into their old lands separated by partition, and supplied with arms and ammunition and training with aim of dividing India once again) - and so he attempts to do here as well with leftists terror of Kolkata or Calcutta as the British version of the city's name was.
Here he has introduced yet another not uncommon indirect way to deal with hero, by the intriguing notes appearing under the doormat of a student in a hostel in Calcutta that make no sense to him, except the rears are informed the student shares the name of the naxalite hero and thereby the general popular epithet the hero is known by being bestowed on the student by his colleagues. Then it is mostly descriptions of the movement and hero alternating with the student and his current life, and a surprising revelation to stun the reader at the end, replete with the emotional reference to a poetic farewell to mother.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014.
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Swayamvar is the second story from part four, 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.
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.
Wednesday, April 2, 2014.
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Half a Rupee is the title story. It is the third and final story from part five, and it is about a young boy from rural northern part of India running away to Mumbai as millions do from all parts of India to escape their poverty and other trails and travails such as loans they have taken to keep appearances or simply to survive, and interest rates they cannot then pay because the rural private lenders (who else would lend them!) charge high and sometimes or often cheat, and more.
In case of this protagonist Chandu, he is merely escaping school and has managed to run clear across the country, and finds that it is not all that easy. One has to pay albeit a small amount to sleep on a sidewalk, and will be shooed away if one cannot. One might however find friends right there and they might provide one with work, which is easier in Mumbai than finding a place to live.
The story here is a platform for the author to air his pet hatred of the city and the state and the general situation he finds himself in (he has a well to do enough lifestyle, and perhaps fondly imagines life is better in another town, another state, another nation nearby), so he puts in all sorts of caricatures of ridiculous nature, including that of English and the local language (perhaps he would force his beloved Urdu on everyone, as one split part of India did only to lose a better half of it), a disease many that settled in the city from elsewhere suffer from; they ought to try living in a state occupying most of the eastern coast in southern half of the nation and try any fraction of the attitude, and would come out of the ordeal completely cured.
The so called story ends even more ridiculously with a politician whom the protagonist works for facing a terrorist wielding a machine gun and asking him who he is, apparently without fear, and a thoughtful discussion between the two about who is more to be feared and what is a preferable option, which is a question they put the protagonist who then tosses the half a rupee coin to decide, and both yell "heads", but the coin does not come down which is well for the protagonist, according to the writer.
One wishes the writer had taken time to think, to perhaps even read, and certainly either polish his works better or write when ripe rather than giving half raw unpalatable themes recognisable as amusing reaction to his peeves whatever they be; his poetry was once lyrical and worth reading, and sometimes even now arresting in bits, but whatever toll taken by life or his own inability to do better than he imagines he should have, this set of half ripe stories is on the whole a revenge on readers that don't deserve it for expecting better of someone with stellar work behind him.
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
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Gagi and Superman is a story in part six, which is about rather more personal stuff closer to
heart or so it would seem from the couple of stories out of the three in
this part.
Gagi seems to be the pet name of the little daughter of a famous film
maker couple Aruna Raje and Vikas Desai, whose excellent work is well
known, together and independently. Pet name because in all likelihood
this is how this writer called her or perhaps others too, but the
parents had given her something meaningful and with beauty rather than a
meaningless word that sounds like something of a sound made by silly
adults who think such sounds are what one is supposed to speak to babble
to babies or rather at them, while in all likelihood babies however
small comprehend a whole lot more.
The reason for this
is more than just a very reasonable assumption about well educated and
well meaning parents giving beautiful names reflecting their blessings
and hopes and dreams to the children - it is also the fact that the
writer twists his own daughter's name to something more ridiculous
rather than the two beautiful names she has had from her mother as per
the mother's Bengali tradition, one for home - Bosky, meaning silk - and
one formal, Meghana meaning cloudy; love of clouds in India is as
natural as it should be in any place on earth parched with heat where
any shade is welcome and rain and breeze a welcome relief, and in India
in particular clouds and rains are associated to hope, heaven's gifts,
love, relief, and peacocks breaking into dance, a total celebration of
beauty.
The writer diminishes his daughter's name to
something that might mean "childish", and this is opposite of his
valuation of himself - his known and famous name meaning garden of
flowers is far from ridiculous and in all likelihood he chose it for a
nom de plume, and got rid of his given name somewhere along the line. So
one might safely guess he is refraining from mentioning the real,
beautiful name of the little girl dying of cancer, daughter of his
friends.
The story is about how the children of these
couples - Gulzar and his beautiful wife Rakhee who was an actress
superlative through the years she performed in films, Aruna Raje and
Vikas Desai, and another couple also in film making - played together
and were as completely into superman as any child familiar with the
concept would be.
This story is real life, and the
little daughter of Aruna and Vikas did unfortunately die of cancer at a
very young age, and generally this caused havoc in the family life as
can be expected. Here it is about how the couple was stunned when they
heard the diagnosis, how they decided not to be sad before her and keep
her in smiles until she had to find out the truth when she was taken to
US and operated on, how it went bad, and more.
The
writer won't however let well enough be and takes the opportunity of
this tragedy told in his words to poke ridicule at perhaps what was
serious faith for the parents of the child, certainly is for more than a
billion, and perhaps for the wife of the writer too; is he taking
revenge on his wife for separating from him by vicious fun at her faith
however subtle, one can only speculate, but indecent of him it is. He
covers it not too well by comparing the deity with superman, the latter
being all too well understood to be imaginary on par with Santa and
indulged in compulsorily for sake of children by conspiring adults.
Perhaps
one day if he is so lucky the writer might rise to comprehend that it
is easy and cheap to be cynical and poke fun and all the more so when it
costs nothing, not even a threat from a believer (unlike in nations
immediately to Northwest, of perhaps his faith, but then his roots are
deliberately obscure), but an opening of mind and heart and a perception
is a step far above this revelling in muck.
There is
much to love in the story in spite of the writer and his splintered
vision. There is the little girl and her friend the daughter of the
writer, the latter another excellent film maker whose very first work
went beyond her father - this story is bout events a few decades old -
and other such details.
What he does not write but was
written long ago by the grieving mother of the dying little girl were
other details of their life and subsequent life the bereaved mother
lived, when her marriage fell apart due to the death of this child, are
things remembered from reading her account of it.
There
is, amongst other such little details, the touching mention here of
musical heritage of the dying girl whose father's uncle is a very
famous, and great in his own way, music composer of quality with
unmatched works. The little sick girl can no longer dance but goes on
repeating the dance rhythm and one can imagine she is dancing in her
mind.
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
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Ghugu and Jamuni is the second story from part six.This one is more of a parable, being as it is about a bird, presumably parrot or parakeet, usually named Ghuggu in Hindi speaking central parts of the nation (which are mistakenly labled north in an attempt to pretend there are only two noticeable different parts north and south while in reality it is as complex as it gets and various other corners are not to be forgotten or dumped with others and also the fact that there is a north way north of the Hindi belt and comprising of various other languages).
This parrot or parakeet Ghuggu is according to the writer in love with a kite - the kind children fly rather than the predatory bird of course - which happens to be very colourful and very beautiful, and the protagonist bird proceeds to attempt to mate and begins to understand that his beloved whom he names Jamuni after the colour purple (or the fruit that gives that name to the colour) is rather bashful and would fly away as soon as he approaches. Undaunted he goes on chirping at her, marvelling at her not chirping back, and proceeds to build a nest for her in spite of her being so non committal.
In an effort to warn her away in an impending thunderstorm he risks his life and falls unconscious having hit an electric pole, after valiantly battling with strong winds of the storm and more, and comes to consciousness in captivity having been saved by a child. It so happens the child also subsequently manages to catch the bird's beloved kite and the kite comes to rest a few feet from his cage.
One may wonder if this is the way the writer chose to tell himself where he failed in his marriage, for his wife left him to live a life of her own but never did divorce, so it was not about general male excuse of her being with someone else. She was not to be caged by him, and this is what perhaps he finds incomprehensible, because it is only possible for him to sympathise with women - real or otherwise - he does not need for personal life,while his wife he like most men needed to play the traditional role common to all cultures - that of someone who exists only to take care of him.
Thursday, April 3, 2014.
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The Orange is from part six, which is about rather more personal stuff closer to heart or so it would seem from the couple of stories out of the three in this part. The third one is The Orange, and having read it now it seems this part is about parables or thinly veiled ways of saying something.
The orange here is real and a symbol both, latter for our home planet Earth. A little boy is sick but insists on his share of the few oranges even though he cannot have it until he is well (the writer picked a strange combination of fruit and sickness here - most illnesses allow one to consume an orange or at least juice thereof, and this boy only has a cold, where citrus fruits are prescribed - was the writer hitting the reader on the head with "this is parable?) but would keep it and look at it, and the story progresses with the story the boy is being told about the earth being seen as a blue green orange seen from distant space by aliens every once in a while with centuries in between viewings. As the story of the destruction of earth by humans progresses seen through alien eyes from distant space, so does that of the real orange being similarly destroyed by insects that have taken over.
It is a good way to tell the children about earth, but they don't need such convoluted deals, they accept facts fine - it is adults, especially those that cannot do without usage of various fossil fuels directly or otherwise. Or those that have invested heavily in such products and find alternatives difficult.
At that one might give a thought about other problems plaguing the earth that are generally not mentioned in conjunction with greenhouse gases or global warming, nevertheless are just as genuinely of concern about what we are doing to earth - such as the modern plumbing and what this is doing to our rivers and oceans. Most people would hate to use open fields as an alternative to secure closed spaces for toilets, and few would think poor of this world are virtuous since they don't have plumbing. Yet it is the very well to do that can afford to and do enjoy swimming in oceans, and usually people are content being taken care of by authorities informing them if the particular beach is too close to sewage pipes. Is that good enough, one might wonder - it is ocean where everything flows or floats, or can, after all.
But then most people who eat non vegetarian food don't stop to ask what the meat consumed when it was a creature alive, and most fish and other sea creatures are just as likely to have consumed human parts as sewage; crabs, one is informed on info channels, are the cleaners of the ocean, and clean up anything and everything - and most meat eaters not only are happy to consume crabs but usually it is considered a delicacy. So - so much for human thinking.
Friday, April 4, 2014.
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Under the Earth is a story from part seven, which deals with death and how people face it.
Under
the Earth is about a man who wakes up as his building with several
floors is going through an earthquake, and he runs out to see his
neighbours doing the same, everyone in a panic. The lift is not
available and the stairs cave all the way under the earth as he is
trying to go down. He is trapped and sure if being dead when he is
conscious, and is content, waiting for the two angels as per his
religion - he is Muslim - who he expects to visit him. He is most
disappointed to find himself not dead after all, when he is found by
rescuers after some eighteen days, alive.
The writer
has left perhaps deliberately uncertain the question of which earthquake
is being mentioned here, Bhuj or Kashmir or something entirely
different.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
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Shortcut is the second story from
part seven, which deals with death and how people face it.
Here
the friends group from an earlier story, Bhushan Banmali, is on the
trails in Himaalaya again, this time with a vehicle and a driver from
Delhi. There is much to deal with what with roads only sometimes good,
and this being not the best of affairs - when the roads are not raw
paths they are likely to have uncertainty of whether the next stretch
would be good, and more. Then there is cold to deal with and vehicles
breaking down, even before one takes into consideration the volatile
nature of the mountains where a landslide might occur any time at any
place.
Himaalaya is rising steadily with Indian plate
pushing and this makes the whole region, from Himaalaya down into
Indian land - and this does not mean political labels of the day but the
land that is referred to since antiquity by that name as far as those
outside the land are concerned - and perhaps the most volatile is still
the Himaalaya, which again refers to the whole sum of the snowcapped
mountains that form the northern boundary of the ancient land from
westernmost to easternmost edge, whatever the divisions and new
nomenclatures ascribed dividing the mountains into several names and
labels during last couple of centuries by those not of India.
The
story here proceeds to let the reader experience travel along those
small roads and a short cut along a smaller one taken by the writer and
his friends so they might arrive sooner than way past midnight to where
they might rest, while they see a small car passing them along the way
with speed possible to small and powerful vehicles. There is the Yogi
and local expert who can tell sitting in his ashram (literally, place of
refuge, usually in the spiritual sense) at Hrishikesh that it seems to
have snowed at Joshimath (originally named Jyotirmath), which is several
miles up the road to Badrinath.
Then the shock of
the driver stopping the vehicle and descending to see more - there is a
huge rock right in the middle of the path, and one knows without being
told that it has fallen recently, and that it bodes ill. Indeed the rock
has a wheel and an axle of the car that had overtaken them more than
once, and they all step out to see if anyone is alive. The car is turned
turtle way deep down below the road due to having been struck by the
rock fallen on it from above, and the driver is dead.
He has indeed found a short cut, comments the driver.
The
writer attempts to induce some poetic descriptions in his usual
convoluted style, but this is a huge mistake, for at least two reasons.
For one if one has been anywhere near Himaalaya and even seen the peaks
at a distance, the grandeur, the beauty can only be experienced, and
the simplest way of describing it brings it home, especially if one has
been to those places. For another this attempt to induce one's own two
bits seems pathetic, and one wonders why he is unable to perceive and
open up to it in silence, rather than trying to paint his usual
convoluted descriptions - here, simplest ones would be the best.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
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Pickpocket is the third and last story from part seven, which deals with death and how people face it. This one is about a couple that waited long to have a child, and are anxiously or eagerly expecting one now.
The man returns home one day to be informed by a neighbour that his wife has gone into labour and is in the hospital. He is stressed enough that this is several days too soon, and keeps returning to his home to change or collect his wallet, and then is unable to find a vehicle quickly to take him; when it is time to pay, he realises his wallet has been picked by a pickpocket when he was paying more attention to getting to the hospital than to being safe from them in crowds of Mumbai.
At the hospital after a time of anxiety he is faced by the doctor after the operation his wife needed due to complications, to be informed that the baby was still born, and at this he is unrepentant in addressing his "big guy above" and calling him the biggest pickpocket of all, not caring about blasphemy this time.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
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Dusk is a story from eighth and final part of the collection, which deals with old
age and facing last years with family and alone.
Dusk
is about a couple with grown up children and young grandchildren, and
dealing with social trends and relationships and one's own past and
mindset, culture and fashion, tradition and dominance. Culturally Indian
women are not supposed to cut hair until they face widowhood, just as
males are not supposed to shave moustaches until bereaved of parents,
and this changes if and when the relevant bereavement does arrive - then
one is supposed to do it. This was followed rigourously until colonial
trends changed it in parts of upper and thereby in trend followers in
middle and lower strata, but is still deep in psyche of most.
Here
the protagonist finds his wife with a short bob post her accompanying
the daughter in law to the latter's parents who are military and
therefore modern set, and while the wife attempts to explain that the
hair will grow back soon enough, he is shocked to the core where an
entirely different process is set in motion. He does not blame her,
accepts explanations and even apologies gracefully from the women of his
family, and does not blame the mother of the daughter in law who did it
to his wife - the latter being not as dominant as the former - but
stops talking generally nevertheless. Then one day he vanishes, telling
them he is going to visit his daughter, but they find he is not there,
and finally have to go through official channels of search.
None
of it would be any use except the place where he found refuge and lived
informs them he is unwell, but they rush only to find him gone - and
now that he is no more, ironically his wife can perfectly legitimately
have a haircut, with his permission too.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
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Dadaji is a story from eighth and final part of the collection, which deals with old
age and facing last years with family and alone.
Dada
in central and northern India (east, west and south can be different
from one another and from central Hindi belt and north too) refers to
paternal grandfather, with "ji" attached to addressing or referring to
anyone as a matter of respect; this can be by choice but is not a choice
when referring to or addressing someone elder or senior, culturally
speaking. Addressing seniors and elders by name alone, especially first
name, is considered lack of respect and indicative of lack of manners
and culture in someone so doing.
The protagonist here,
the old grandfather, is dealing with his grandson being the usual
naughty boy while he is visiting him in the grandfather's old family
home, built by the latter's grandfather originally and improved on by
his father. The boy broke china to make perfect object to flip on the
pond so it would skip a few feet before sinking, but is admonished
although it is expensive. The crisis is when the boy is climbing a tree,
and the grandfather this time spanks him when he is brought down. The
boy is of the now and me generation and unlike his grandfather he is
unable to comprehend this is love. He calls his father, the son of the
old man, to come and take him away - and what is more, won't speak with
the old man.
It is when the younger two are leaving -
the old man was forced by circumstance to come stay alone in his old
village rather than traditional living with family, due to the son being
restricted by his income and shortage of space in the city - that the
old man is able to convey to the boy that the punishment was for another
little boy long ago - he himself had climbed the tree and fallen and
broken his leg, and limps since; he did not wish this on the little
grandson, and the naughty little boy couldn't have comprehended the
seriousness of the danger but would understand the spanking and the
correlation of the prank with punishment, hence the instinctive nature
of the spanking.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
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The Adjustment is a story from eighth and
final part of the collection, which deals with old age and facing last
years with family and alone.
This one is about an old
couple with an only daughter who is back with her parents with her two
sons, after her husband brought home a second wife (since no
illegitimacy of the said second marriage is mentioned, and since the old
woman brought home her daughter, one may infer it is a Muslim family);
the old couple has only this one daughter and that after years of
praying and pilgrimages, so the old woman is unwilling to let the only
child live in less than pleasant and honourable circumstances, although
the old man bickers about it - but then they have bickered for over half
a century of marriage and the old man thinks it takes time to
understand another person.
The old woman though dies
suddenly one day, and he is now left alone, in spite of the home filled
by his daughter and the two grandsons. He begins to change in a
startling way, speaking or acting like the wife now gone, and claims she
is visiting him and occupying his being often. The family calls in a
psychiatrist, who talks and more importantly listens to him for hours,
and then questions why the family is bothered if this goes on. Which is
wiser of him than generally one expects western oriented psychology
professionals.
The writer stops the story where the
old man is found napping in the bed of the wife now gone, wearing her
feminine clothes. Perhaps he intends to shock the reader. That however
depends on whether one is as wise as the psychiatrist that advised the
family to let him do what consoles him, since it bothers no one.
Western
culture now - post industrialisation and separation of genders into
master and slave categories, or even before that due to inquisition and
witch hunt carried on to weed out any possible knowledge or authority in
lay persons and far more so in women - has heavy emphasis on gender
separation in every sphere and especially in clothing, and women wearing
trousers has been disapproved to the extent such liberties are strictly
forbidden in professional circles, and more along such restrictions,
never mind the weather making it extremely painful for anyone to shiver
on a bus stop in skirts and nylons and even for anyone looking at this.
But
before this discrimination began and spread to most lands, attire was
more a matter of convenience with weather and other factors taken into
account chiefly, and most cultures had - and often still do, unless
tainted by colonisation from Europe - dresses not all that different for
men and women.
So a reader being shocked at this
merely tells about how conditioned he or she is by the post inquisition
culture of Europe. For the rest, it should be perfectly fine if a
bereaved old man finds some comfort wearing his dead wife's clothes and
napping in her bed.
Saturday, April 5, 2014.
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