The universality of Russian literature, its accurate diagnosis of the human condition, the psychotic dark side of human nature, and the jostling between faith, reason, and rationality have no parallel.
While this is not a statement of a political nature or “side-taking,” the universality and brilliance of Russian literature have been occluded by the soft power dominance of Western print and visual media, or the dominance of the airwaves.
Indeed, while Dostoyevsky sits atop Russian classical literature and bestrides it like a colossus, there are others who, if not equal to this great Russian, certainly are brilliance incarnate.
One of these was Nikolai Gogol.
An author of fantastic novels and short stories of great brilliance, one of his stories, “The Overcoat,” with a universal theme embedded in it, has a searing resonance for Kashmir.
The main character, or protagonist of the Gogol’s “Overcoat,” Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin, is a “petty” clerk and copyist in the Russian government of the time. A point to note here is the meaning of the man’s name: Akaky, in Russian, can mean “no evil” or “harmless,” and Bashmachkin means “shoe.”
Metaphorically, it means being always under someone’s thumb.
Akaky, the character, is a self-abasing man who loves his work, copying, never complains about it, and is never given credit or recognition for it by his peers. Always wearing a long overcoat, which becomes tattered and torn through overuse, Akaky yearns for a new one. But he cannot afford it.
Saving and scrimping money, and in the meantime being taunted and mocked by his colleagues, Akaky buys a reasonably stylish new overcoat. An introverted figure, he finds himself the odd man out at parties and other social settings. He observes that while people are noticing him now, it is the overcoat that is the center of attention.
After a midnight party, he leaves and is accosted by robbers who steal the new overcoat. Distraught and aghast, Akaky is unable to find redress from the Russian officialdom.
Upon somebody’s suggestion, Akaky makes a plea to a self-important official whose sense of self is derived from shouting at and humiliating his subordinates. This official asks Akaky trite and corny questions, and Akaky’s lack of conventional social skills makes him stutter something that is not liked by the official.
The self-important official then berates and scolds Akaky in the most humiliating manner.
After a little while, Akaky falls ill. In delirium, he first forgives the imperious official who had humiliated him, but then curses him.
After Akaky dies, in St. Petersburg, Russia, where Akaky lived, there is news of a ghost who is stealing people’s overcoats. This is actually Akaky’s spirit, which finally finds the Russian official.
Akaky takes the coat from him, or the official, scared witless, gives it to him, my memory is a tad hazy here.
In my interpretation, Gogol’s brilliance lies in creating a character, a mere cog in the system, who is seeking validation, recognition, and self-esteem from his peers and society.
The character, Akaky, assumes that his hard work would do that, but it does not. He then believes that a material possession, like a brand-new overcoat, may divert attention to him.
But, to his chagrin, he discovers that it is actually the overcoat that is getting the attention, not Akaky himself.
What he cannot do, or is unable to do, in life, Akaky’s ghost does in death. It snatches back what was taken away from Akaky by the self-important Russian official, metaphorically represented by the overcoat.
Akaky’s poignant story, that of a man who meant no harm, was not evil, and merely wanted to live a decent life, recognized by his peers and society, comes to naught. His peers who mock and deride him, the robbers who steal his coat, and the imperious official who humiliates Akaky, sapping any remnant of dignity from him, are testimony to the evil that resides in human hearts, to arrogance and pride, and, of course, to the venality and hypocrisies of society.
Now, how can “The Overcoat” and Akaky’s odyssey be connected to Kashmir?
Soon after my return from Australia, the worst of times and the best of times for me, I would notice a man in Kashmir’s city centre, Lal Chowk, named after Moscow’s Red Square, wearing a western-style suit and a hat, his upper body bedecked with transistors and radios, wandering through the city centre.
Whenever I saw him, his large eyes would widen, his large scraggly bearded face would beam. He would smile and say, “Good day, sir,” in neat English.
Then he would speak in English prose, and I would listen politely, unable to make sense of what he was saying. People around Lal Chowk would scoff, giggle, and mutter.
Then one day, the man was no longer to be seen in Lal Chowk. My curiosity piqued, I asked around. I was told, to my horror, that the man had burnt to death, charred actually, during a cold winter night in Kashmir.
He had probably been abandoned by his family and lived alone. People called him the “English Mot,” English madman.
I later asked more about the man. I was told that he had been an engineer, a very able one, but that one day he had suddenly snapped and begun wandering. He would take rides in autorickshaws, tuk tuks, or local buses, talking to anyone who cared to listen about truth, the different ways of arriving at it, and so on.
But he would scrupulously and vehemently maintain that he was a Muslim, a good Muslim. The coats he wore gradually wore off. They became tattered and torn, but the man maintained his routine.
Then one fine morning, his charred body was discovered.
Now, if I may veer into the domain of speculation, I would aver that the “English Mot” of Kashmir was the Kashmiri equivalent of Gogol’s Akaky, a harmless man who meant no evil.
The man from Kashmir all he probably wanted was recognition, his capacity for work and capabilities, and his self-worth recognized.
But society here, like probably elsewhere in the Third World, refused to give that.
On the contrary, Kashmir’s Akaky was taunted, mocked, and humiliated. I was told that in the place where he lived, children would laugh at him and run after him.
While Akaky’s ghost in Gogol’s fictional rendering took his revenge, our “English Mot” died an anonymous, painful death. Not even his memory remains.
When I asked people about the man’s name, no one knew. No one could recall it. The “English Mot” of Kashmir, seeking and craving recognition all his life, died an anonymous death.
What does this tell us about our society?
That fundamental insecurities, complexes, fears, and aspects of evil reside in many people’s hearts. Held as a “hospitable, nice, polite people,” we, inferring from Akaky’s and our “English Mot’s” odyssey, appear to be insecure about ourselves, suffer from inferiority complexes, and project our fears and vulnerabilities onto those we deem more vulnerable than ourselves.
We call them mad and make them madder with our behaviour and attitudes, their simplemindedness, their vulnerabilities, and their fragility becoming a grand spectacle to enjoy, even sadistically. This is the state of our society.
Can we be redeemed?
God knows better, but I will conclude with a hope and a prayer: “English Mot,” may your soul rest in peace.
And may we be inspired by your story, saga, and odyssey to straighten our souls, and character.
Ameen to that!
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