Kali Barish (The Black Rain) is a metaphor as ominous as any other, implying a heavenly retribution no one under the sky will be able to escape from; when will perpetrate a society through and through, say the punishment will be overwhelming. But the irony, the giant’s reaction to the incident, is no less ominous as no insight saves the ‘failure in her effort to remove the black stains caused by the Black Rain, remarks, ‘If a colour as fast were to be discovered its dyer would find a fortune’. Kali Barish, a Japanese novel translated in Urdu from its English version, The Black Rain, by Mr Ajmal Kamal, reputed for presenting translations of world class literature in his society quarterly, and of doing additional translation of books himself, varied in subjects, and a fine individual read by any standard. The book under review underscores the versatility of Mr Kamal.
The holocaust caused by the first ever A-bomb used against ‘people’ was so vast, so staggered, that the full response of the individuals who had somehow survived the disaster and were later to suffer from its after-effects was anything but significant. The novelist reverses this attitude when he attempts to look at the terror in the reactions of individuals: the abstract extent of the bomb suffering more from its socio-psychological effects in their lives. It is the story of a small family, comprising a husband, a wife and a girl, a niece of the former. The neighbours, by spreading rumors about the girl, suspected of suffering from the effects of radiation, provoke the proposals for her marriage from materializing. The uncle, a rustic, sympathetic soul genuinely interested in the welfare of his niece this time preempts the neighbours by obtaining a health certificate for the girl and by reading it in the full assembly. To make her case stronger he, in consultation with his wife, decides taking out extracts from the girl’s diary of war days so as to prove that on that fateful day she was far away from the place which will make her chances of receiving radiation remote for sending them too to the boy’s family. Both husband and wife, taking turns, embark upon the job of copying out the girl’s diary. The map, citing the turn of the copyists work further corroborates the events from his own diary. Here the whole episode comes alive in horrifying detail, in the ‘indirect’ eyewitness of sufferings of the people whose only crime was that they happened to live in a place turned proving ground for the first A-bomb in human history. The events recorded are not merely a chronological account like history, cold and detached in purport. Looking through the eyes of individuals, creatures of circumstances, seen as the greek tragedy wants us to see, not the hunch back of the Shakespearean tragedy. It will not inter oblivious the human element present, the subjective of the outlook, the moving together of the events as human beings are wont to do, not only makes the account more credible but also enhances its effects manifold. Here the translator impresses most, conveying the ignominies of the war as faithfully as could have been possible in a translation. The patches of normal life, when they are not copying out the girl’s diary, provide distraction like intervals in the great tragedies presented on the stage to ward off weariness. Even so, the play is punctuated with doubts concerning the marriage proposal for the girl. He is however pleasantly surprised on receiving a letter from the boy directly addressed to the girl who is not home at the moment. On the ill-fated day lunch hour of theirs happens to be at a different place. When they rejoin with great difficulty, of them only the girl, having found her way back from a place where she had gone to be likely to still work, bears black oily stains on her hands which she unsuccessfully at- tempts to wash out. The pages that follow contain strenuous details of death and destruction. Very often come up scenes so horrifying that one cannot es- cape feeling ashamed of being himself a member of the species which of all is only capable of such unimaginable cruelty wrought with equally unimaginable indifference on follow beings. Here, there is yet another shock in store for the reader as he finds the girl, whose welfare perspective from developing ill effects ear- lier, is actually suffering from the after-effects of radiation. Her sufferings are heart-rending. The uncle feels himself guilty as it was he who on bringing her to Hi- roshima. It could not have been just the Black Rain. On that fateful day he chanced across the devastated city, taking with him the wife and the niece. He felt he was solely responsible for the small wound she had sus- tained, crawling under the fallen electricity wires in the surroundings full of radiation, which is being cause of her sufferings. In the concluding portion he is seen to be copying the last few pages of his diary. The emperor of Japan is on radio broadcasting the surrender. Coming out of the factory, which will now be closed, military uni- forms being not required any more, on its rear side his mood of extreme despondency sharply changes into one of hope as he sees that the nu- merous fishes newly born were swimming upward against the current in the canal and that the violet flower treads abound in the portion full of weed, looking up towards the sky. He thinks that the rainbow on the hori- zon is a good omen as against the ominous ‘three arch’ he saw earlier and his niece may recover her health, knowing fully well how impossible it was all through. The translator deserves for translating a book so heart rending with such exceptional ability.
