Jijivisha and Short Stories
“I always wanted to write short stories, but I could not write one so far” I said to Lulu, my parrot. Nina, my myna, was also perched next to Lulu and she gave me a sympathetic glance.
“You have written over a thousand blog posts, isn’t that enough? Why this fascination about writing short stories?” Lulu said as he hopped closer to me.
“A good writer would like to try all formats,” said Nina. “Maybe you should go to jail to get the inspiration.”
“Ha ha! I thought you were my well-wisher, Nina.” I said with a not-so-happy tone. “I mean why go to jail?”
“Nehru wrote ‘Discovery of India’ in jail. Gandhi wrote ‘My Experiments With Truth’ in jail.”
“Oscar Wilde wrote De Profundis in jail. Jeffery Archer wrote a three volume ‘A Prison Diary.’”
“Enough! I am not going to jail.”
Nina ignored my protest and continued, “Haven’t you heard of Manoranjan Byapari?”
“Nope!”
“Manoranjan Byapari came to India from East Pakistan with his parents as a three years old boy. The family was penniless, lived in abject poverty and often remained hungry for want of food. His younger sister died of hunger.”
“Oh!”
“He did odd jobs and committed petty crimes to earn a living and finally landed in jail as a twenty-year-old man.”
“Don’t tell me he began writing stories and novels in jail.”
“Nah! He could not have done it. In his daily battle to get food he had no time to learn reading and writing. Illiterate he was.”
“This story is getting interesting” Lulu said, eager to hear the further part of the story.
“A prisoner there taught Manoranjan to write Bengali alphabets; he used tree twigs as pens. Manoranjan learnt quickly and jailor allowed him to use a pen which was an exception because pens were not allowed to prisoners.”
“Angrejon ke jamane ke jailor!”
“By the time Manoranjan came out of jail he could read and write. He then read several books while earning living as a riksha-puller. And then came a twist in the tale.”
“Tell me”
“He asked meaning of the word ‘Jijivisha’ to a lady who had hired his riksha. She was surprised to hear it from a riksha puller.”
“Even I do not know the meaning of Jijivisha.”
“That’s because you never went to the jail.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“The lady answered the question but not before finding out more of Manoranjan. She was none other than Mahashweta Devi! Jijivisha, a Sanskrit word, means ‘intense desire to live’ she told him.
“What a coincidence! Mahashweta Devi answers meaning of ‘Jijivisha’ to a convict who had intense desire to live!”
“Yes, and she invited him to write for her publication, his article got noticed by many and offers poured in.”
“His book, ‘Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit’ received high critical acclaim in literary circles. His article was translated and published in Economic and Political Weekly!”
“And Manoranjan Byapari has published more than a hundred short stories, that is why I am speaking to you about him. You always wanted to write one, right?”
“Yes, but my mind is on a different thought”
“What’s that?”
“Life is preordained. I see a lot of evidence of it. An illiterate man learns to read and write, and meets Mahashweta Devi, one of the great Bengali language literary figures, and then becomes famous author.”
“Sachin Tendulkar wanted to train as a fast bowler, but Dennis Lillie asked him to train as a batsman instead. We know what followed …., yes, life may be preordained”
“This debate about life being preordained is endless, but let me confess, I do believe that life is preordained” I said hesitatingly.
“That also holds the answer to your wish …. whether you will become a short story writer or not!” Lulu said, fluttering his wings.
“Write your autobiography, like Manoranjan did, and develop the plots of stories untold. That is a simpler solution” Nina, my myna said,
“Many would want to know those untold stories.” Lulu laughed and looked at me expecting an answer.
Vivek S Patwardhan
“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” All matter copyrighted.
“तुम्ही जो वारसा मागे ठेवून जाता, तो म्हणजे दगडी स्मारकांवर कोरलेले शब्द नव्हे; तर तो वारसा म्हणजे इतरांनी आयुष्य विणताना विणले गेलेले तुमचे धागे होत.” सर्व मजकूर कॉपीराइट-संरक्षित आहे.
Your Mynah is erudite indeed. Mai-na – I am nothing or I don’t exist, is the position of the mystics, who believe that the world has no independent existence except as a reflection of God’s will.
As for your comment about destiny and life’s path being preordained, I believe that it is a combination of two things; free choice, linked to the result of that choice. As when you stand at a crossroad, you are free to choose which of those roads you would like to take. But what is along the road is not your choice. It is preordained. It is and was always there. You encountered it because you chose that road. If you had chosen another road, you would have encountered different scenery and experiences.
Now, here’s the secret – you can take a U-turn and return to the crossroad and choose a different road. Like your character in the story, Manoranjan Byapari did. The first choice had imprisonment in it. The second had fame and respect of the world. Two opposites. What happened to him depended on his choices. The exciting thing is that just like we don’t know what we are likely to encounter when we turn onto a strange road, so also in life, we don’t know what it holds for us in the future. The best that you can do is to use all your abilities and resources to make the right choices. This is where education in ethics, values, and morals, has so much significance. Because it is only by these that we can choose correctly. Otherwise choice is animal-like, choosing randomly by sensation and desire alone, without any thought to its consequences. Because the truth is that we are free to choose but not choice is free. Every choice has a price tag.
I believe this is true of our lives. We choose the path. The path comes with its sights, sounds, encounters, friends, enemies, tragedies, and victories. As long as we are alive, we can retrace our steps and choose a different path. We can’t unlive or restart what we lived, but we can choose to live differently and use what happened as learning opportunities to live better.
Someone told me a lovely story about a young lad who was very interested in sculpting. He made a beautiful vase and decorated it with Lapis Lazuli, magnificent shades of blue. His teacher told him to display it in a famous exhibition that came to his city. But as he was placing the vase on its pedestal, it slipped out of his hands and fell to the floor and broke into many pieces. The boy was shattered. He was in tears.
His teacher said to him, “Collect the piece and stick them together but use this glue.” He gave him gold colored glue. When the boy finished, the vase was whole but every break was clearly visible.
The boy was completely perplexed. “Why did you ask me to join it with glue where every break is visible? People can see that it was broken,” said the boy.
The teacher replied, “It was broken. Now it is healed. And with the interlaced cracks in gold, much more beautiful than it was when it was whole.” The teacher was right because all those who came to the exhibition flocked to the vase.
Life’s struggles and apparent failures come to make our life more beautiful. Provided we get up from every fall and join every break with the golden glue of lessons learned.
Apologies. This became much longer than I intended.
Wow.what a story. Jijivisha. What a beautiful word!
Excellent! I really love to start my day reading your blogs. Thanks
Thanks for this beautiful story, Sir.
Waiting for the untold stories and I am sure your readers will immensely benefit from the perspectives your stories bring.
And Kudos to Mr. Mirza Yawar Baig for his lovely comments
I did’nt know about Manoranjan and the success which he achieved. Surely it was preordained, but in life many Manoranjans meet some Mahashweta Devi ji in their life but not every Manoranjan becomes a writer of eminance.
The question is why? Is it all preordained or what makes it happen? You have made me ponder.
On your decision to become a Short Story author, most certainly you would as you are agreat story teller and have a great narrative style.
While on the subject of Short Stories, a colleague of my underwent a course in story writing and wrote a collection of Mini Short Stories, some of which were just a sentence or two, but in those 2 lines the story was told and the message delivered.
It was great reading your blog as always