Human Actions
Arzee the Dwarf: Creating a Character Through His Sense of Space
Chandrahas Choudhury
Chandrahas Choudhury’s novel Der Kleine König von Bombay (in English, Arzee the Dwarf) focuses on a dwarf who works as a projectionist in an old cinema of Bombay. Arzee loves both the city and the cinema-house, but he feels hopelessly exposed to the prejudices and patronizing gaze of people in the bright light of the first space, and extremely comfortable and even powerful in the all-enveloping darkness and solitude (a projectionist always works alone, above the audience and invisible to them) of the second. Choudhury will read from the book and explain the relationship of the protagonist to the primary space of his work, and the construction and perpetuation of his own self as the custodian of a most precious, if intangible, resource: »the great beam« of the cinema projector that, arcing across the expanse of the cinema hall, creates the illusion of reality on a blank screen.