Thelay wala: "Kutta bhi moamma ban gaya hai."
Bareesh admi: "Moamma kutta nahin hai, admi hai." (485)
In "Woh Jo Kho Gaye", the dog remains central to the narrative throughout the story. Hussain makes a distinct allusion to man's reduced and primal existence in the aftermath of violence and trauma. He induces the reader to draw parallels between animals and men. The repetitive barking, particularly, is resonant with the conversation of the men. Their communication is marked by redundancy. They constantly repeats things and are not able to reach a resolution even in the things they talk about it. It is tiresome, repetitive and pointless much like the barking of the dog.
Furthermore, the men appear to be very basic in nature. They have a certain primal quality to them. They stand up, sit and keep warm next to a fire. Their physical movements do not harbour any complexities. They are simplistic are in some sense exaggerated.
"Yeh kalam sun kar sab chakra gai" (487),
"ek nay doosray ko aur doosray nay teesray ko dekha" (489)
"naujawan nay... kaan kharay kiyay" (489)
Even their emotional range seems to be stunted. They only feel confusion, fear and paranoia. Moreover, the fact that the dog remains physically absent is very significant. The men talk about how they witnesses to each other's "wajood" and wonder if they could exist without another's "gawahi". An interesting question then is; is the dog real? They have all heard the barking but have not actually seen the dog. Does this make the dog unreal or fictitious? Or is Hussain trying to convey something else?
Perhaps Hussain means to show that the dog doesn't need to be seen or felt to have a "wajood". It is real without a "gawah" whereas man, broken as he is, feels that he requires a witness.
The dog in Woh Jo Kho Gaye is quite powerful in its abstract role which, as you point out, in being abstract also ends up holding a questionable place in terms of reason for its presence. The mere image the scene creates of wandering men with no notion of past or present clinging to them, with a dog continuously barking in the background, definitely creates a very haunting scene for the reader. Yet your claims within this wide spectrum of the dog's role do not include particular possibilities which I would like to raise-- for one, the dog acting as the sole solid presence throughout the text, For whilst the men raise questions about their existence, their past, their number and identities resulting in a total displacement from anything set in stone, the dog's barking acts as an outside force that prevails throughout-- the single entity upon which the reader can latch on as they struggle to find a place, something that is not doubted, alongside the men in this abstract work. The dog may or may not be real-- yet its barking is not doubted. This could be as abstract as the men are-- yet despite this it is still something that continues and acts as a more fixed presence in an otherwise fluid work. The characters have entirely displaced themselves so that we must find something simple to act as a guiding source to reach the end. This also brings in another role the dog could play-- as something that guides. Its barking is something all follow; it could be behind them, calling them back home, or ahead of them, directing their route amid the (barely described and so absent) surroundings. It also acts as a reminder that there is more life in the work than just that of the men; even they must acknowledge it, as another species is brought into their narrative and forces them to consider the eternal world, the practical side, rather than being submerged by their own thoughts and displacement. For a moment, they can move their focus onto something as basic and primal as an animals sound, and so ease their unfocused minds.
ReplyDeleteAs such what we can see is the dog taking on several roles outside of something negative. It is a force that cannot be defined for sure, but insofar as we consider it, we can also consider the likelihood of the positive role it plays that also brings in a subtly hopeful lilt to a somber work.