Enjoy Badas Formulated By Knut Hamsun Available As Publication
on Badas
job No money No sustenance
I leaned forward with my elbows on the windowsill and gazed at the sky.
It promised to be a clear day, Autumn had arrived, that lovely, cool time of year when everything turns color and dies, The streets had already begun to get noisy, tempting me to go out, This empty room, where the floor rocked up and down at every step I took, was like a horrible, brokendown coffin.
His hunger isnt just physical His hunger is also psychic But there is a star that beckons him right through all the penury and hardships There is a high goal There are his ambitions There are his dreams There are his ideals He is full of fantasies
Suddenly one or two good sentences occur to me, suitable for a sketch or story, nice linguistic flukes the likes of which I had never experienced before.
I lie there repeating these words to myself and find that they are excellent, Presently theyre joined by others, Im at once wideawake, sit up and grab paper and pencil from the table behind my bed.
It was as though a vein had burst inside me one word follows another, they connect with one another and turn into situations scenes pile on top of other scenes, actions and dialogue well up in my brain, and a wonderful sense of pleasure takes hold of me.
I write as if possessed, filling one page after another without a moments pause, My thoughts strike me so suddenly and continue to pour out so abundantly that I lose a lot of minor details Im not able to write down fast enough, though I am working at full blast.
They continue to crowd in on me, I am full of my subject, and every word I write is put in my mouth.
Seek, and ye shall find knock, and it shall be opened unto you من قال أن الجوع ممض للجسد فقط ألا ترون أنه ملهب للذهن مؤلم للكبرياء منهك للعزيمة
جعلتني هذه الرواية استحضر صورا من الماضي أيام الدراسة الجامعية:
الصورة الأولى
بداية الشهر أنا وابن عمي نستلم مصروفاتنا الشهرية التي أرسلها أبوينا من المهجر.
نمشي الهوينى ونشعر بالنسيم يدغدع حواسنا. ننادي بعضنا بأشد الألقاب حميمية. أعزمه على الغداء ويعزمني أصر أنا ويصر هو. نذهب سويا للغداء على طاولة متقابلين. نتناول الطعام بعذوبة ونتبادل نظرات احترام شبيه بالهيام ونغوص في لجة من المجاملات: "تفضل يارفيق الدرب" و "بالعافية يابن العم" الخ
الصورة الثانية
شارف الشهر على نهايته أسير أنا وابن عمي بيننا مابين المشرق والمغرب وكأننا ذاهبان لمبارزة على طريقة الكاوبوي. الأذقان مشعثة والنظرات ذئبية. يناديني بلفظ غير محترم فأرد له الصاع صاعين. نقتعد الرصيف وصوت الريح يصفر في أذنينا. نبدأ الحساب العسير متى دفع عني ومتى حاسبت عنه ولا ننسى شاردة ولا واردة. ينتهي النقاش بجدال يسمعه كل من في الشارع. في مرة من المرات تخاصمنا على القروش العملة المعدنية وتجاذبناها حتى تناثرت على قارعة الطريق. لا يمكن الاستهانة بالعملة المعدنية عندما تمثل لك مشوارا بالنقل العام عوضا عن قطع المشي حتى تفطر القدمين أو تمثل شطيرة للإفطار أو موسا للحلاقة.
هذا مايفعله السغب وأكثر. يحول الثقة إلى
اهتزاز الكرامة إلى تذلل الأريحية إلى تشدد وتجعل من أغلب شؤون الحياة ترفا لا معنى له. ويكون الجوع في أشد حالاته إيلاما إذا ماخالطته كرامة مزمنة عندها يتحول إلى سكين تجرح في الغدو والرواح. كيف لنا إذن أن نلوم بطل الرواية إذا فقد الجزء الأعظم من اتزانه كيف نلومه إذا تصرف بسخف إذا سرق ثم تبرع بما سرقه إذا أحب فتاة ونفرها من نفسه إذا فكر بقضاء ليلته في السجن كي لا ينام في العراء كيف لنا أن نحكم على من يمضع قصاصات الخشب ليلهى معدة أضناها الجوع هذه الرواية تزيل القشرة التي يتحلى بها الإنسان عند اكتفاءه من الجوع ليرينا كيف يمكن أن نكون إذا وقعنا في فخ الفاقة. لا تظن أنك ستتمسك بنفس المبادئ وتفكر بنفس الطريقة فأنت شخص مختلف تماما شخص بلا معدة مكتفية بلا بشرة ناعمة بل آخر يغطيه وبر أشعث وله أنياب ومخالب. ماكذب من قال: أنت مو أنت وأنت جيعان. A review of this book from my pen is akin to injustice, After all, what do I know of hunger Something that loses its meaning with a hop to the kitchen A need that vanishes with the stairclimbing to the canteen A routine that knocks every four hours, only to be dispatched back to its den with a pouring of necessary and unnecessary stuff A fuel that is available at an
arms length A sixlettered word that assumes greater importance in symbolic garb than its bare attire
I have been fortunate.
This beast has not imprisoned me beyond few days, But on those very few days, I have met him, On those few, religious days when I have been compelled to meet him, I have met him, On those unannounced stranded days when a morsel had been a long meeting away, I have met him, In the eyes stark and dark, And he runs havoc. He gnaws with his sharp paws and he shrieks in his piercing voice, he snaps my nervous tranquilities and he slaps my organs functionalities, he throws vile liquids up my throat and he shovels my ideals out of the window.
Probably that is why, I could fathom the emotions running hysterically amok within the unnamed protagonist of this novel, who had only one enemy: hunger.
A writer, who likes diving into the inky seas of politics, drama, poetry and recitation on the bed of teeming, blank pages, finds his resources maliciously blackened under the noxious cloud of prolonged hunger.
He chews on stale bread and squeezes into abandoned spaces but the beast finds him there, He bites into meatless bones and clutches his stomach under pungent blankets but the beast turns up again, To appease the beast, he devours coarse pieces of wood, mouths half of his shirts pockets and licks his own blood but the beast pounds on his doors again, and again, and again without rest, without pause, in harrowing ferocity, in towering intimidation.
It is as if a score of diminutive gnomelike insects set their heads on one side and gnawed for a little, then laid their heads on the other side and gnawed a little more, then lay quite still for a moments space, and then began afresh, boring noiselessly in, and without any haste, and left empty spaces everywhere after them as they went on.However, despite this unbearable burden of abject poverty and indeterminate survival, he releases episodes into his life that brings one of the foremost teachings of my father, rushing to my mind.
My baba, as I address him, maintained that one can live without food for days, without peace for hours and without air for minutes but one cannot live without dignity and selfrespect for even a second.
Having subjected it to numerous tests with nil fallacy, I am assured of the accuracy of this lesson and hence, the sight of our protagonist preserving his selfrespect at the cost of handing his inhumanly underfed body, a sentence of further abjuration, left a restorative smile on my face.
He keeps his skin of honesty wrapped tight to his resilient heart, despite the shrinking and eventual shedding of external clothing in lieu of a token crumb to humour the raging beast.
And almost logically but irregularly, the beast accepts taming when the halo from that resilient heart assumes indomitable magnificence, blindfolding it in layers of goodness, humour, affection, companionship and praise for the creator.
The breadth of this work expands in multidimensional plains of psychology and multifarious schemas of sociology, effecting an amalgamation of astounding inferences that can be picked at every small juncture of the alleys running in human psyche I cannot credit Hamsun enough for his surgical precision in uncovering the human mind and segregating his nervous dynamics, keeping the black and white in their birth colors, diluting none and awarding credit for the role each one plays.
Hamsun was considered to be often skewed towards an asocial vision, alienating tendencies and isolated ways of life.
But perhaps it is essential to understand the asocial knot to thread the social yarn much like the shadows retreating behind opaque patches for the sunshine to melt and clear the vision.
I do not wish the fate of our protagonist to anyone, But if you stumble upon one, exhibit some chivalry, sensitivity and measured humour the proven sedatives for the beast, .