Of Jugads Versus Magic Realism

      

Don’t blame me of absurdity if I intend to compare these two things and come to a conclusion that both are one and the same thing. While magic realism is a highly precise art form, Jugad represents the Indian culture of way of doing things.

For those who are not aware of what Jugad actually means, let me introduce you to this peculiar Queen of the Road prevalent in Eastern UP and a few other places in North India. Poor economic condition, population explosion, poor roads and paucity of public transport are known facts here, may be that is the reason why Jugad has become so popular and ubiquitous here. Necessity being the mother of invention, indigenous automobile engineers (read mechanic in a roadside automobile repair shop) invented their own vehicle – Jugad in order to overcome these problems.  Assembling the available village amenities, like a generator pump for irrigation, the tires of a tractor and the steering wheel of an abandoned ambassador, they produced a Jugad out of these materials.

As the Jugad is not manufactured by a company, there is no need to pay road tax, or for that matter, sales tax as well, you only have to fill the diesel tank and the Queen is ready to take everyone for a ride. Be it a political rally or a marriage ceremony or taking agricultural products to the bazaar or the mill, Jugad is the multipurpose answer to our transportation problem.

It may be a little too dangerous, but that’s the way it is here.

With time, this Jugad has become an allegory of the Indian way of “arrangement” for anything under the sun.

If someone is sick, but there is no money or time for taking him to the hospital, the answer to the problem is Jugad (read Hakims and traditional healers practicing on the roadside)

If there is no electricity in your house, steal it by connecting some Jugad (read  house hold aluminum wire) to the livewire.

The examples are innumerable and in fact, there is a popular joke concerning this idea of Jugad. Once, the President of America visited India and he was really amazed to see the power of Jugad – One solution to all the problems he faced over the period of his visit. Right from starting an engine of a car (spoon), to opening the closed gate of the Qutub Minar, Jugad was a panacea for all dire situations. So while returning, when our prime minister asked him, ‘Do you want anything in particular as a souvenir from India?’, the American president was quick to ask for a Jugad. His response led to pin drop silence in the hall and a few of the bureaucrats managing the event sweated profusely from the tension.

‘Hey man, what’s wrong? Did I say anything inappropriate?’, President Sahib asked once again. The over anxious secretary hesitatingly pointed out, ‘Sir, we can’t provide you a Jugad.’

‘Why?’, asked the President.

After a long pause, the secretary muttered abashedly, ‘Because the whole country and in fact, this ministry also runs on Jugad only…..’

Jokes apart, this is how the country is running by means of the cheap, dangerous, unethical alternative named Jugad.

You might be tempted to ask me, ‘Even if we accept the existence of the concept of Jugad, where does magic realism come into the picture? In what way does it resemble Jugad?’

To make this clear, I want you to just listen to what critics who are not aware of what magic realism is, have to complain against this art form. They accuse magic realism of absurdity or incongruence, such as,  

“How can a tree talk? We want literature, not a fairy tale.”

“How can a boy who serves in a tea shop (Chai wala) win KBC by mere guesswork and also tell his life story while sitting in the hot seat? This is un(su)real.”

“How can a face look like a triangle in a painting?”

My answer is simple: Like life, every art form has its own limitations. While writing, we can explain what we think, we may give a vivid description of the event, but we can never recreate the whole feeling that we have experienced.

While drawing, one can create a visual experience, but he/she cannot draw or let the viewer feel what the other sensations like smell or sound was.

Even the most diverse art form – “The Motion Picture” cannot entirely depict the purpose intended by the creator.

So, in order to communicate his/her idea, the artist/creator takes the help of surreal things, as quoted above, which is nothing but a JUGAD.

It is as cheap an alternative as Jugad, but I find no unethical or dangerous issue in this kind of Jugad, compared to the parallel metaphor prevalent in India.

The Seventh Circle

Scene from 'A Hetadik Kor’ (The Seventh Circle).

Inferno or hell

Its seventh circle is based on the pillar of violence. I knew nothing about all these till I watched a Hungarian movie ‘A Hetadik Kor’ (The Seventh Circle).

Stunned and Saddened by the movie I was sleepless and afraid of going to bed in packed hotel.

It was late November –Goa, 2009.IFFI

Why so much of pain in some creative work? That too using few innocent children as protagonist?

Distressed and restless by all I went to the sea shore and met one person I befriended two days back in the film festival arena.

We started the topic and he took an opposite point of view –‘why not pain? The genesis of these middle European countries is based on pain; look back at the holocaust, the devastation and the national pain arising out of it.’

He said –‘As a result of all this pain has mutated into each and every individuals living in those area. So pain is used catharsis or as prophylaxis so that such kinds of holocaust never resurface.’

He said these countries were destroyed completely by the holocaust but now?’

I  didn’t had the answer  except my little knowledge from art work of my favourite writers and movie maker from those place I had  didn’t had a grip over the middle Europe .

He said ‘Pain serves as a fuel for progressive genesis.’

To check the truth I goggled and tabulated something like this 

	Population	Noble prize	Literacy rate	Maternal Mortality rate	Olympic gold  2012
Poland	38,511,824	12	99.3%	8 per 100,000	10(2 gold)
Hungary	9 946 282	12	99.4%	15 per 100,000	17(gold 8)
Austria	8,419,000	19	99%	5 deaths/100,000	o
Chech	10,562,214	5		9 per 100,000	10( 4 gold)
Germany	81,726,000	102	99.0%	8 per 100,000	44(11 gold)
India	1,210,193,422	7(except Tagore,and Raman all were either  born or worked outside)	74.04%	540 per 100,000	6 (Gold 0)

My new friend question was what have Indian contributed in original after zero.

I was petrified because I also found that Assam is having a population of around three crore, with literacy rate and maternal mortality rate among worst in Indian state and yet to have a Nobel laureate or Olympic winner?

I asked myself –are we lacking in national pain?

I looked back at Assam history –

1769-1783 The Moamoria revolt

Because of internal feuds (among the becurocrtaes, among different sect 600 year old Ahom dynasty whom Mohugal could never invade was destroyed in internal feud due to this Moamoria revolt

Can’t we call it pain?

But the result of all the revolt leads to the Burmese invasion

Burmese invasion 1817-1825 –the worst days of Assam history.

There were death, mass migration, rape, famine; people who survived saw it all. 

Can’t we call it a national pain?

But what was the result? The English invasion (1825-1947) –for the first time there was victory for western invader in Assam.

Wasn’t it a national pain?

English gave us education, progress, mode of communication, oil tea and we continued the way it always has been –indifferent!

Intoxicated with opium induced plethora we continue to fighting for language, infiltrator, so called independence, State and what not? We saw our land divided into many, we saw mistrust among our self. We lost thousands of people for those reason, missed a university calendar.

We stopped discriminating between martyrs as there are so much of them.

Aren’t these our national pain?

That night my new found friend was saying ‘Pain serves as a fuel for progressive genesis.’

The question in my mind was inst so much of pain over three hundred years not enough?

I felt like the child trapped in self indulged   hanging noose in the movie ‘A Hetadik Kor’.

As if we the people of Assam are trapped inside the seventh circle of violence and there is no chance of reversal.

The Birth of a Phoenix

The eternal question that haunts everyone is ‘Do I exist? (or, Why do I exist?)

Every moment of our life, we answer this question in different ways, as per the circumstances we face. Like destiny, the answer keeps on changing.

And in these transient moments of crisis, we begin to fear that due to change, we would be losing things we know the way they are, the way we know to be correct…..

But things are changing at an awfully rapid pace.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Take the case of ‘C’ grade cinema halls in small mofussils of India and the people associated with them, whom we knew as ‘blackers’. We used to recognize them, not to mention that we knew a few by name as well, as on many occasions, they were our last hope, while trying to get tickets for the first day first show of a block buster movie. And now…..forget the blackers, even those cinema halls are things of the past.

Or, think of the numerous letter head printing presses with their blocks and proof readers.

The photo studios, with dark rooms for developing still film rolls and the waiting for hours together, wondering how the developed photographs would turn out.....

Or, the tape recorder/walkman and the audio cassettes...

The ‘hamara’ (Bajaj) Scooter...

The Black & White televisions....

Or, maybe grandma’s tales by the fireplace on winter evenings.

Think deep…… it’s a whole new world we are living in where nothing is permanent. Eventually no (body) thing exists in this ruthless world.

Stressed and unable to adapt to the newly defined values, we tend to become prophets/ philosophers /or epitaph writers and start prophesying the death of the things we love (but also fear losing it in the whirlpool of time). I am no exception to this habit. Maybe, growing up at a time of unrest and paranoia adds fuel to the problem, as Assam in the 80s had all the ingredients for these negative thoughts to engulf a pessimist like me.

As always, I was sad that a few of my friends goaded me to head for Corbett National Park. Deep inside the jungle, there is a Guest House named Dikala. To begin with, I hated everything in Dikala. Out here also, people were breaking every rule, competing with one another just like in the concrete jungle. The worst thing was having firsthand experience of seeing human beings invading the animals’ habitat and depriving them of their privacy. Imagine someone lurking inside your room to take glimpses of you bathing or cooking!

But who cares, everyone had to upload a tiger and himself in the same frame.

As I sat glumly in the backyard of the guest house, I started talking to the people who had the “call of the wild” in their blood. As the adda continued, I found that each one of them was an excellent story teller and their never ending stories ranged from tigers of Corbett to Ghosts inside a ‘Peepal’ tree, to the poachers or encroachers of Corbett national Park. Just a few moments ago, due to circumstances, my mind was prophesying the death of an ancient art named story telling. But I found out that it was alive and flourishing in the heart of the jungle in its full potential in the heart of the jungle named Jim Corbett national park.