Ghetu files a new story

I had been so curious to read his new story. It had been such a long time since the last that I could hardly believe he would be able to write as he used to, with such extraordinary power and naturalness and ability to wrap a world into a narrative, a world moreover which would catch the reader’s heart-strings and declare its own importance in the reader’s life, like a stranger you meet on the street, a stranger in need …

But we haven’t got to that yet. When the story commences it seems a piece of mundane actuality, a description of its author at his Bombay office—Mumbai I should say for this ancient city has rewritten its identity, or has it? I am disappointed almost, because he goes on about his character Lokesh’s routines or lack of routines, in particular his eating habits, his idiosyncrasy of going to a particular boiled-egg vendor. At this early point I think “Ghetu, there is no theme here, you are too much in the here and now, we need a fast-paced narrative.” In fact I am as impatient as the drivers in his jammed Mumbai street, honking as the lights go green without any corresponding surge forward …

Well, now we have got there, for this is what’s happening. I see Mumbai in the minutest detail, its needs, its urgency, impatience, grudging compassion, corruption, the mesh of its net cast into the waters drawing humanity together too close for comfort.

The story is the tiniest of incidents: a cripple crossing the road. Ghetu carves it into an enduring monument, a little rough at this stage, but—contrary to my initial impatience—perfectly proportioned, its lines and flow perfectly delineated. Only the surface needs to be polished here, gouged out to make a little more differentiation there …

The editing required is merely some orthopaedic work on the sentences, phrases, words; to feed this monumental wretchedness of a story (it’s titled The Wretched) with a little fruit, a couple of eggs, till it can stand on its own two feet without a crutch …

Lokesh is you and I. Mumbai is the world. Ghetu has captured the spectrum. I could be Lokesh, who fails to take the initiative; or Ravi who takes it swiftly with a heroic flourish but fails to follow through; or the policeman who disappears from the scene pretending he has seen nothing …

I have read the story once only, but its details are etched in my mind, even in this rough-cut version. Its power is all there. All it needs is streamlining to make it into the precise missile, able to deliver its explosive message efficiently into the reader’s heart.

It’s not a piece of activism advocating a particular solution to the world’s problems. It doesn’t use cheap tricks to provoke an emotional response. It depicts the truth, and its genius is to compact the teeming city of Mumbai into one perfectly balanced anecdote; and to compact the entire world into the city of Mumbai, so that we can see, as it were, the whole earth from a spaceship. But even as I write the preceding sentence, I see that the story’s point is not to summarize the world’s dilemma; not its only point, anyhow. For even if it does nothing but portray the mind of one character Lokesh in one place, one hour, it does that with consummate skill; a skill whose component parts I can only guess. Did the story really happen, and the author merely describe it as best he could, like someone writing a diary, but giving himself the fictional name Lokesh? Or did he block it together cunningly, with deliberate craft? Or did it visit him like a vision, fully-formed? Never mind. We don’t need to know.

It is a wonderful story, a parable for our times, reminds me of Jesus’ tale of the Good Samaritan, answering the question “Who is my neighbour?” Reminds me of someone who told me, “If you see something that needs to be done, it means that it’s for you to do something.” I see that it needs editing. I shall carry the wretch across the road and feed him.

PS 26th June ’18: This post was written soon after I received an original version of the story from Ghetu. I had many concerns, particularly with the ending. I discussed them with him over the following weeks but then we let the thing drop until Feb. ’13 when I  took it up again. He was much occupied with his job at the time, hoping to interview or expose a gang of criminal hackers—a dangerous mission. Under pressure from this distraction he wrote “As far as The Wretched is concerned, we agreed it’s an incomplete story that we needed to work on. I intended to rewrite, but never could. Will try again and submit to you. As for now, you can publish, post editing, anything you want.”

Yesterday I did just that. See “The Wretched“.