Sorry it is a bit long~ ^^
Source Text: 'Haroun and the Sea of Stories' by Salman Rushdie (1990)
The story will be re-written fromMudra's point of view. In an original text, Mudra is an able warrior skilled in the art of hand-to-hand combat, and a 2nd-in command to Khattam-Shud, who becomes disgruntled with his master's policies. After his master's death, he becomes President of Chup (dark side).
Who devided the places and named as Gup (light side) and chup (dark side)? Who can say what is good and what is bad?
Mudra has a shadow, well actually each and every person in Chup have shadows - which means there is a light! Maybe it's not bright as Gup's ... maybe it's a bit cloudy down there.
And Mudra can speak or communicate with some kind of 'sign language' or a 'spiritual gesture'. In religious manner, it's a 'seal of authenticity' in Hinduism and Buddhism.
So what? There is a language! People in Chup just value the 'silence' and are called 'Chupwalas', meaning quiet fellows, like people in Gup value the 'speech' and are called 'Guppes', meaning talkative people.
As you can see 'talkative' isn't always good... If everyone is going to talk and talk and talk... who's going to listen? How annoying... Also, more you talk, more chance to make a mistake!
How do you think about a person who likes 'talking', 'stories' and live in an 'imagination'? They gossip about everything and spread it all over and always dream about unreal imaginated staffs.... Can we say that Harou's mum is bad - who fed up with... and tired of her husband's imagination? Was Haroun's dad was a responsible man or father in his family to live in a 'real' world?
Sometimes, it's good to be silent, quite and speechless. Talk less and listen more! And, the most importantly, be realistic!
The other point that the author made was 'freedom of speech and imagination' in his writing. Invasion is a horrible thing but once some country is invaded by another, it's it natural.. I mean restriction on 'freedom of speech' isn't something that follows after invasion? Isn't it reasonable thing to do for invaders? What if, for example, the light side invade the dark side, would they leave Chupwalas (people in dark side) to keep their (life-) style, motif, behaviour etc? Of course not, they might put a pressure on them to speak, and talk about imaginations and stories...
No one invade other countries to be dispossessed (or loose). To achieve the job (invasion), everything has to be under control and any forms of freedom need to be limited.
The ending of the story will be the same as the original, but not the beginning.
How the Chup created? It’s because of the Gup. People loved talking too much – Just ‘talking’. At first it was fine, but as time went there were nothing to talk about anymore. So they start to gossip about others, places, and shops and even spread rumors. Then they start to make up stories using their imaginations – magic, angel, devil, witch, talking animal, and so on. There were also some people who fed up with it – who thought listening, silent, calmness and being realistic are better. So they moved to some different place and built their own country – which is the ‘Chup’ (dark side from Guppees’ point of view). But the families and friends were divided and separated. The Chupwalas decided to unite (?) these two countries (which was an invasion) and to do so they needed to destroy (sort of~) their talkative behaviours and imaginations/stories, at least.
How does it sound? Does it contain colonialist or imperialist assumptions?
Friday, August 29, 2008
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