Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Memorial

Nix had come to Mumbai after a long time. A year maybe. Yeah..a year for sure. From the moment he met me, all he wanted to see was Marine Drive. I had taken him to the bay last time. The sight had obsessed him. The expanse of water. The road besides it. The buildings lined up next to it. And its final merger into a beach. I had seen his face then. It was an affair shaping up. Love, lust and Fixation. No. There was no reverie. It was just a look. Look enough to involve in a passionate addiction. Nix turned his eyes. Talked to me. We drank. We dined. And we parted our ways for the day. Along every movement that passed after Nix’s confrontation with the Marine Drive, reflected serious involvement. A sensuous dedication to the new found partner.

Disorientation is a sign of a desire filled heart. And Nix was disoriented. He spilled beer. Dropped a Manchurian ball. Spat out the entire Paan whilst spitting the tobacco laden saliva. He was disoriented. He was in love. He was more than that. He was erotically besotted by the Marine Drive.

Shahrukh Khan once came following Gauri to Mumbai. And as he and his friend stood upon Marine Drive facing the sea, the boy said…”One day I am going to rule the city”.

Dr. Mirashi and his Son were travelling in train. The train crossed a large filthy rear of a building after Grant Road station and suddenly the child was awestruck. His eyes grew large. He looked at his father. His father was absorbed in the view from the train window. The child wanted to go running to it. And be turned into a stone. The sea came to him. Surrounded him. Enveloped him and dipped him in itself. It filled his eyes. His nose, his mouth and his mind. He was the sea.
The train halted at the next railway station. It had a name. Marine Drive. The child looked at his father again.

Baba….Can we get down here?” The child asked in the mesmerism of a possessed.

The sight is such. And it has always been so.

From the moment Nix alighted from the train, all he wanted to do was….”Marine Drive”.
I took him to the bay. We stood on the bridge connecting Marine Lines railway station and the Marine Drive. I saw the face of a lover seeing his long lost love again. He had spread his arms. I wasn’t able to see it. But I am sure he had. And the sea had come into his embrace. Wrapped him up in her arms. And kissed him with her thousand lips. Wet, warm and poignant. They had met each other. This was a moment of their union. Their dissolution. Their merger into each other.
“Beautiful…..isn’t it??”
“Yes”, said I.

He kept looking at it.

Then I broke the news to him. She was pregnant. She was conceiving a deputy chief minister’s dream in her. A seed forcibly sown into her womb. I spoke it out without caring for him.
“This is all going to be destroyed”, I said.
“What???!!”
“Yes….they are building a statue here…..amidst the sea…right at the center of the bay……”
He was listening. I didn’t look at his face. I just kept on talking.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj……like statue of liberty”, I didn’t speak further.

I turned to him. I could see his face.

Below the bridge we were standing upon, once a policeman raped a girl in the Police Chowky that was erected there for protecting people. The girl was with her boyfriend. He was kept standing outside the Chowky as the policeman raped her. When he heard her screaming, he looked into the Chowky desperately to see what was happening. And he saw her being raped by the policeman. His face for that moment had distorted in a way looking at the sight of his love lying helplessly below a grotesque police figure. Crying for help. He later gathered people and rescued her. But there was that moment when he felt the eeriest emotion that a human could ever feel in his span of existence. Before his heroic, for that moment his face had reflected it clearly, without any gesticulation of the valor he was about the show the next moment. There was a face.

I was looking at Nix’s face. There was a face.

“Why”, he asked.

I did'nt have any answer.

The fate of the sight is such. The rape of a love was witnessed there. By one, two, many. And now on…..many more will witness it. Till they die. Every moment. During the rape. After the rape. The rape will always exist. And the lovers will look at it. And………..There will be faces.

(Epilogue- Read it if you want.)

No doubt I respect Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. No two ways about it. And it’s a voluntary one. Not installed for any benefit.

He was a king who had raised a voice. Or in fact voices. He was the Che Guevara of then Maharashtra. He was a revolutionary who fought with an atrocious ruler. Freed the oppressed from a dictator. Or even worse. Established an empire of the oppressed. And protected it. We can’t forget him. Never for ages. Like we won’t forget any great soul who freed the oppressed. And we do need a memorial for him. To keep him alive for the generations to come.

But then….as a devotee of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, I just want to know that why can’t we concentrate on keeping his actual memories alive.

Maharaj conquered and built forts all around Maharashtra and areas aligning his kingdom. Each of these tells a living story of Maharaj and his valor. The living evidences of him and his deeds. They have stories to tell. Of courage and bravery. Of each laid general. Of each sacrifice. Of every drop of blood spilled. Of every war cry raised. Of every war fought. And of every flag of freedom hoisted after defeating a brutal and cunning enemy.

On rainy night Maharaj had taken the decision to build a fort in the sea to keep a check on the Portuguese activity on the coast. He built Sindhudurg – the first naval fort in India.

On one stormy night after around three hundred and fifty years, one of the strong walls of this fort collapsed. The news broke out in local newspapers and tabloids. The walls aren’t that strong anymore they said. Some even went to the extent of saying that the entire fort may collapse in some years. The legend may not exist for the later generations to witness.

That is it. The affair ended therein. It has been five years to this incidence now. The crater keeps growing each year losing more of the stone bricks with time. It still manages to keep alive the memory of Maharaj. Maybe in some more years….it won’t.

The Sinhagad for which Maharaj lost one of his strongest men, Tanaji Malusure, has ponds flooded with filth and garbage. Mostly plastic remnants of the touring lot.

Such testimonies of Maharaj’s living history are no longer just the monuments of his gallantry and foresight. They’ve turned into the indicators of the governments’ heedlessness. They reflect how much the government cares about Maharaj and his memories. About keeping him alive in the form of his accomplishments.

The budget for the Maharaj’s statue is said to be around some four thousand crores. (I only heard what is being said). The cost of repairing all the forts will surely be lesser than that.
But a statue will always look nice. Whatever be the circumstances. Economic. Scenic. Environmental. Occupational.

A statue will always look nice.