Arzee,Everyman

The constant backdrop to these stories is Noor,the old cinema house where Arzee works,so old and decrepit now that most of the light had gone out of its name,its power. The Noor is Arzees workplace and his sanctuary,a place where Arzee always felt secure and well-defended. Its also where the head projectionist Phiroz K. Pir had worked for thirty years before deciding to retire. His retirement is a source of hope and happiness to Arzee,who finally finds himself close to a promotion he has yearned for. But Arzees story is also of best laid plans coming to nothing as he hears of the Noors impending shutdown,its slow end hurried by the rush of multiplexes. As he says,I set up my own fall by imagining it a victory!

Choudhurys prose captures both the citys rush and the repose well. The gleaming tracks that came all the way from distant Virar,the asbestos roof pocked with holes and bits of rubbish being sifted by birds,the little figurines of people in their ill-fitting clothes standing in slack poses on the platform,and the shoeshine men beating their brushes on the boxes there was something vivid,life-giving,about this scene.

But in this crowded,hurried city,Arzee still finds places and moments to be alone. As he passes the grey building which was his home he could hear the television blaring all the way up from the second floor,because Mother listened to all her soaps on full volume and then the empty school,its blue gate locked by the watchman. Instead of going straight,he turned into a passage between two buildings,so narrow it was almost invisible. It was a wasteland where everyone threw rubbish which no one then cleared… He arrived now at a low stone wall,on the other side of which thin whispering sounds could be heard. He hitched up his trousers,hoisted himself up onto the wall… and arrived at the top.

In these alone moments,he tries to overcome his heartache and find peace. Love,he had found once until reality intruded in the form of an angry father who could not bear the thought of his five-foot-two daughter with a three-foot-five man. But love is what he hopes to eventually find. And in Arzee the Dwarfs perpetual flitting between rage,despair and hope,lies the story of everyone.

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