Page 2: Her Story as History

Nagoo's story, like that of many others, remained mostly untold. (How much of a story she had, is again another question.) She belonged to a class that had little to know about, little to think about, much less to worry about. They worked and they lived. God came to them as work and god went to them as their daily bread.

Nobody knew how old she was. Not even she. Ask her (which few like me ever could because it was a touchy subject!), and she always gave the same "forty-fifty...?" (And at that time however, forty fifty was a sufficiently big to be convincing.)

And her family? and may be a husband? a couple of daughters? She had a son, alright.

She certainly had a son. Other than the movies she saw, her son was the one topic that made her very very talkative. They did some moulding and related work with brass, copper and zinc in the past. She often narrated the huge pojects (never anything bigger than cooking pots in brass or copper) that her family had carried out in the past, when her celebrated husband was alive. And her son was carrying on with the family trade. No doubt he was a real expert in the field, but with these "new silver" (read stainless steel) vessels taking over, he was making do with patch jobs like zinc plating. Other than her priceless son, she had only her poverty and the resulting simplicity to boast about. She and her class had no big demands on life, and so remained in a state where she can smile at the world. Whatever little was there in her life, and the very little that anyone knew about her life was not important to anyone including her. She was mostly happy, and angry once in a while. But that was all. Except for a short, curt word of diapproval of her daughter-in-law's behaviour, no one ever heard her complain, much less, become emotional.

She therefore, was more of a name. But what a name! Nagoo!

May be her full name was Nagalakshmi..

Nagalakshmi?

No! She was much more than a mere Nagalakshmi.

Then what?

Many many years after she left us, she seems most beautiful with part of her name untold.

And her story, mostly untold.

And that incomplete, seemingly meaningless name tells much of what I now need to know of her-story, and a little of history.

Our glorius history of denying to the oppressed and exploited everything, including a meaningful name. The important thing was that they must all posess a name short enough to be called out, loud and clear.
Our history.