Daily Times

A writer can never be forced to write on a specific topic. Similarly, one cannot persuade an artist to draw or paint a specific theme, since these people belong to that category of human beings which does not depend upon other people for making its decisions or carrying out its plans. An artist can be entirely subjective – or if he or she wishes to – can be representative of the circumstances surrounding him or her.

However, if an artist is not entirely subjective, that never means that he or she is not sensitive, sympathetic or there does not dwell a sea of emotions inside him or her. There might be a possibility of that artist being sensitive towards some other person, or it might happen that the ongoing of his or her country might be disturbing the artist. This too, is an evidence of a representative artist being sensitive at heart.

Similarly, when one comes across the book Gogi Says NO to Corruption by our cartoonist, Nigar Nazar, we realise that Gogi, the brainchild of the cartoonist, is not a character who represents the artist’s entirely personal matters, for example, her childhood experiences, treatment of people with her, or her family life, but is a character that tells that the artist’s heart cries over the condition of her country, how the people of her country treat each other instead of her own self, or how they, despite being Pakistani citizens, are treating Pakistan.

Although the cartoonist is instructive from the outside and through her main character Gogi, advises people to adhere to their moral, cultural and religious values, but might be having a heart that bleeds from the inside at how the people of Pakistan have forgotten their values. For example, she knows that Pakistanis – being the inhabitants of an Islamic Republic – were supposed to follow the teachings of the Holy Quran and the Prophet (PBUH), such as washing hands before eating, reciting Bismillah before starting and staying quiet while eating, but since the people do not care about these values, the cartoonist, through her character Gogi and through Gogi’s family members, has inculcated those values by making them perform them. Whereas moral values are concerned, the use of mobile phones while eating which has become a habit of our teenagers has also been objected to.

Secondly, Nigar Nazar moves towards Gogi’s neighbour couple, Umar and Nicky, the husband and wife who are completely ignorant of mannerisms. Where Umar is found honking his car in an ill-mannered way and abusing his house boy, Nicky is seen misbehaving with her husband and desiring a pompous birthday party, as a consequence of which her husband is forced to open up tax evasion cases against rich people and receive hefty bribes for closing them in order to fulfill his wife’s desires, whereas morality demands a good treatment with servants, and religion strictly goes against pomp and advises people to adhere to simplicity. It forbids bribe as well.

However, the husband and wife do learn their lesson by encountering an incident in which Umar – while going to buy his wife’s birthday cake – runs into a truck. To further aggravate the situation, when Nicky rushes to the hospital in order to see her husband, her maid, Naziran, does not miss the golden opportunity of stealing Nicky’s heavy jewelry with the help of dacoits. They too, however, meet their end.

It is in the end that Gogi discloses the importance of her role by making Nicky realise how in lust of showing off her wealth and throwing a lavish party to do so, she has fallen into such predicament. She makes her feel ashamed of her acts and makes her realize how her husband too – in order to fulfill her desires – had been taking illegal steps. Gogi succeeds in making Nicky reprimand herself, and the latter asks for forgiveness as well as for her husband’s health from God. Nicky also promises Gogi that she would make her husband follow the path of honesty in future.

To sum up things – if we take a superficial look at the book – we find it a children’s book written and illustrated to make them learn mannerisms, take care of values and avoid corruption, but if we study it deeply, we realise that the problems addressed are of a high level and are a must read for the elders as well, so that they can recall their moral, cultural and religious values and inculcate them in their children as well, for example, showing honesty in businesses, treating the aged with respect, talking humbly to servants, refraining from extravagancy and following traffic rules.

These, unfortunately, have become very trifle matters for us, but it is because of our treatment of them as trifle that we are now heading towards acts of large scale corruptions. What makes the book flawless is that it has taken care of the fact that there are certain acts which are corrupt – but since we do not consider them corrupt – we perform them in an offhand way. Such acts – as well as acts of bigger corruption have been equally dealt with – making the book a read for all ages.