About the Author:
Cyrus Mistry (born 11 March 1956) is
an Indian author and playwright. He won the 2014 DSC Prize for South Asian
Literature for Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer. He is the brother of author
Rohinton Mistry. Mistry is from Mumbai. He began writing at a young age as a playwright, but has
also worked as a journalist and short-story writer. He has also written
short film scripts and several documentaries. One of his short stories,
"Percy", was made into the Gujarati feature film Percy in
1989.
Introduction:
“Passion
Flower: Seven Stories of Derangement” tells the tales of dark, often tragic
characters who grapple with their dysfunctional families and lives in modern
India. Much of Mr. Mistry’s work is about the Parsi community, a tiny group of
Zoroastrians who emigrated from Persia to India more than a thousand years ago.
One of his stories in “Passion Flower” titled “Percy” tells the tale of an
awkward 35-year-old Parsi man who lives with his overbearing, widowed mother
and relies on her for everything, including sewing a missing button on his
pants. Percy’s life changes when he discovers an old gramophone player and a
quirky group of Parsi music enthusiasts who listen to Beethoven and Brahms. Dressed
in his father’s moth-eaten suits, Percy starts to attend their weekly meetings,
and in the process encounters a ghost who predicts his mother’s death.
Percy’s Deranged Life:
As Percy has no proper education after his father’s death, he has been
sent to a firm called “Bhairam Cheliram & Sons Pvt Ltd” as a delivery boy.
Now he is working as a clerk of the firm keeping all the accounts and records
in properly good manner. He is now thirty-five but still a bachelor, because
according to his mother, Babubai, he does not know a petty job like how to
prepare egg. When he was a child, he was very much bullied and harassed by
other boys of the colony where he and his family have been living in a
three-room flat in an apartment called Batliwalla Villa located in Sleater Road,
Mumbai. However, he had been an errand boy for the neighbours when he was
little. Now being a grown-up man, he has no contact with the neighbours. He leads his domestic life waking up early in
the morning, doing the household work like filling water in the storage-tins
kept in the house and preparing himself for the office. He is very obedient to
his mother though he does not like her overbearing attitudes, complaints and
criticisms. He never expresses his likes and dislikes to her mother, because
his mother always criticizes him about his poor taste and also his poor worldly
knowledge. One day when his mother is away as usual to the nearby temple, he
accidently discovers his father’s gramophone kept on the cupboard. He also
discovers his father suit. Immediately, he puts on the suit though the trousers
are loose around his waist. Yet he likes to see his gentle image on the mirror.
Then he plays the music discs and starts enjoying listening to the music. Then
onwards, every evening, listening to the music becomes his daily routine, after
his office from 8.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. while his mother is in the temple.
Percy’s Evolution:
One day, Percy comes across an advertisement stating that there is a ‘meeting’
of members of a music club called “The Bombay Gramophone Society”, functioning
in a library. He goes there but gets disappointed when he witnesses the members
who are in their sixties or seventies. Yet he gets exhilarated when music is
played and echoes through the big speaker. Usually Beethoven, Vivaldi, Mozart,
and Mendelssohn are his likes. However, Percy is particularly touched by
Brahms’ great violine concerto. One day, he sees a ghost on a mirror in the
library’s toilet. It is his dear childhood friend, Dara who drowned into a lake
when they made a school tour. Like Percy, the ghost of Dara also grown-up in
age. Now, the ghost of Dara informs Percy about the impending death of his
mother. So, Percy rushes back to home with palpitating heart, but he is happy
to see his mother alive. After this incident, after fifteen days, his mother is
dead. He witnesses how the neighbour ladies show concern and care by arranging
for funeral and preparing hearse. One of the ladies asks him to take rest for some
time. While lying on the bed, Percy thinks that he can keep both the cot
together and roll as much as he wants, and thereafter his mother will not ask
him to get early in the morning, she will not scold him for his poor talents,
and he can hear music and dance as much as he likes to. With this thought he
feels as if he is relieved and so in a mood, he gestures dancing movement and
stretches his hands towards a neighbour lady who comes in to say that the
hearse is ready. Seeing Percy’s action, she calls him “feeble brained”. But
Percy alone knows that now he is relieved from all sorts of oppression and
suppression and he can lead an independent life.
Banubai’s Domination and
Individuality: Banubai is a dominant
mother. But, she is an obedient wife. Her husband Boman Bhathena is a dominant
husband and always treats his wife as an object. So, Banubai does not like men
in general. Being a part-time insurance agent and racehorse buff, Boman
Bhathena spends almost all his earnings on his own. So Banubai’s hope for
leading a comfortable life becomes a dream. Above all, she is frightened of
Boman’s spitefulness and profanity. The suppressed Banubai starts showing her
individuality after her husband’s death by dominating her son, Percy. She is
even ready to earn money and manage the expense of the family by selling
eatables, pappats and pickles to the neighbours three days a week. This way she establishes her individuality
after her husband’s death.
Conclusion:
Thus, Cyrus Mistry in “Percy”, an eponymous short story, portrays the deranged
life led by both the mother and the son. Banubai, led a suppressed life due to
her dominant husband and she becomes a free individual after his death. Like this,
Percy leads a deranged life due his mother, Banubai’s domination and he feels
free after her death. This shows that every member in a family is an individual and he or she
should not be dominated in the name of ‘love’ or ‘family-bond’ or ‘family-hierarchy.
