Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Life & Times of Michael K by J.M.Coetzee – A Book Review


        This happened a few years back. I was staying in a hostel then. We had students from all parts of the country staying in the hostel.

My roommate just walked in as I winked at him pointing to the guy leaving the room and smirking.

“What?” He asked.

“Such a chutiya (slang for stupid) this guy is”, I said.

“Oh, so that’s the term for them here, is it?” he asked. “Just because he asks strange questions and smiles all the time? Only because he is a bit different? He hasn’t harmed you in any way, has he?”

Before I could think of an answer for my otherwise not so philosophical friend, he walked out answering his phone. The room suddenly felt strange with his question suspended like a released arrow, in mid air, ready to strike and pierce; but it had, it already had!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Michael K with a hare lip was externally scarred and he was a gardener.

“Who are you Michael?” they asked and he replied “I’m a gardener.”

When he was a child, Michael’s mother Anna tried and kept him away from people because she thought he didn’t fit in; he was slow. Years later, fatigued from working at people’s houses, when she fell sick and the hospital corridor wasn’t of much help for her swollen body, Michael was called to take her home. He quit his gardening job. But what is home? A small windowless room below the staircase at her owners’ place?

Anna K doesn’t want to die here; she wants to live where she once lived, as a kid. As the civil war lurches everywhere, a license to travel is needed and Michael knows somehow he shouldn’t wait for it because there might never be one. As he builds a cart to carry his mother on the road, he knows now why he has been brought into this world – to take care of his mother.

            The mother dies on the way, in a hospital, and she’s burnt and the ashes are handed over to Michael. What should he do with them? He’s on his way where his mother wanted to be, carrying her ashes. He is captured and lands up in rehabilitation camps. But he doesn’t belong there! He can’t understand why he’s being kept there. He didn’t ask to be here. He doesn’t want to work for them or to eat their food. Why should he listen to them, he fails to understand. He doesn’t like being watched and guarded. They will shoot him if he jumps the wires, they say.

He escapes!

He stays in the mountains, hides there; he makes a home and a garden. He nurtures his plants, waters them, protects them. He stays awake at night, watching and covers himself at day to not be found. The ground, the water, the sunlight brings life, he believes. He eats when he feels it’s necessary, he sleeps at will; there is no routine. He is content and happy. The water melons are looking good now, the pumpkins are ready.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was sitting by a pond, reading a book. Except for the ripples caused by the warm breeze, the water was still and serene. A couple came and sat on the other side. Holding hands, they chatted. After some time, the guy got up and started throwing pebbles in the pond; the girl followed. Why, I thought? I had done the same on many occasions before but why, I thought. Why this sudden impulse to disturb things, to not let things, people alone? Not for long can we let things be as they are, can we; we feel the need to meddle in our own way. So used to action and events happening around us all the time that the stillness disturbs us.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

So they caught him. They found him lazing and they caught him, thin and frail. How could he be nobody, he had to be somebody; it irritated them, this man living by himself in the mountain. Was he feeding the terrorists, they poked and slapped him. “Who are you?” they asked. “I’m a gardener”, he said and they laughed. They destroyed his farm, planted mines and sent him to a hospital, another rehabilitation centre

Michael stops eating. The doctor at the rehabilitation centre tries in vain to understand him. And the more he tries, the more he gets attracted to this strange dying man who refuses to eat and carries pumpkin seeds in his pocket. He cares for Michael but Michael doesn’t heed to his caring.  As he delves deep, he sees Michael as a free spirit, who refuses to be confined, to be institutionalized. He refuses to eat and grow strong so that he can jump when the soldiers ask him to, can run and sit and raise his hands and carry a weapon as they ask him to. They are not his god. His god is the ground that gave him his pumpkins, the seeds he carries carry life. He isn’t stupid, thinks the doctor; it’s us! War or no war, he knows Michael isn’t meant for this world, he isn’t different, they are; we are. “Michael, take me with you my friend”, he cries.

Michael yet again escapes. A walking skeleton, he is puzzled – when he had food, they took it away, when he didn’t have any, they wanted to feed him; they said he was free within the barbed fences.

They need me for their amusement, don’t they?

Another brilliant piece of storytelling, J.M.Coetzee brings another incredible character to life. Michael K is a gift. Coetzee’s pen is as sharp as a sword; it cuts through our beliefs and draws blood that is pure and warm. The wound hopefully will remind us, time and again to respect people for what they are and not treat them as mirrors to see ourselves in them. Sometimes, just let be; you are not needed, nobody is needed. Just let the flower bloom on its’ own!

J.M.Coetzee

 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you or your comments.