IN MEMORIAM-By Edi Rama
My day could not have started more bitterly than with the news of the death of Agim Rada, the rare sculptor, my great friend from my earliest youth, for whom I connected these words between long pauses and sighs in the mouth, but I couldn't avoid them at all, because definitely someone from the few who knew him closely, should have written them down. For him, the incomparable Gim of old, if for no one else. I know that the lines below are a bit long, but he, if none of you, has all the time to read them and laugh and cry with them, as he wants and as only he knows how to do.
Anti-hero of socialist realism and hero of curbside dissent, rebel of the Tirona of morning gymnastics and dinner laps, relentless lover of the alleys of the Artificial Lake and equally tireless mocker of the zealous spies in territal suits around the "Bay of whores", Gimi was the most excluded student from the choirs and actions and the most comical example of the failure of re-educational prejudices in the heart of the working class.
The nightmare of Party organizations in school and in life and of youth leaders on the front line of the war against foreign shows, Gimi threw to his disciples of that blessed time of forbidden dreams, crumbs from the bag of his experience in planting of the seed of sevda virgin fields of the coveted female world, preaching free love and the taste of the forbidden, to burst into laughter whole tables, where between jokes with moral dogmas and the turlillo of public and non-public characters of the construction road of communism, the glasses were filled and emptied with rakish tumblers that clinked in the place of the hands, when the climaxes of his articulation arrived, full of rhetorical surprises, which contained a confusing mixture of phrases and sentences collected in road books, from Shakespeare to Shaban Qosja, Tit Sojli,Mehmet Elezi, Yesenin, Mayakovsky, Pushkin, from Omar Khayami's Rubairs to Shefqet Peçi's poems, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Enver's Vigilant Years, Noli's Don Quixote and Petro Zhej's, to the jokes of the alter ego of his, the razor-mouthed Llaq Xhavo, together with those of the films of Kinostudio Albania e Re and the dramas of the National Theater, where his legs, relieved by the emptying of dizzying amounts of poisonous war materials, often led him to sink between the red armchairs, a production of the combine heroic wood "Mihal Duri" or "Mihal Druri", as Agimi had baptized him.together with those of the films of Kinostudio Albania e Re and of the dramas of the National Theater, where the legs, relieved by the emptying of the dizzying amounts of poisonous war materials, often led him to sink between the red armchairs, a production of the heroic wood company "Mihal Duri ” or “Mihal Druri”, as Agimi had baptized him.together with those of the films of Kinostudio Albania e Re and of the dramas of the National Theater, where the legs, relieved by the emptying of the dizzying amounts of poisonous war materials, often led him to sink between the red armchairs, a production of the heroic wood company "Mihal Duri ” or “Mihal Druri”, as Agimi had baptized him.
"Allow me to retreat for a while, so that I can go and break in the middle, to return to mother nature what I took piece by piece!", he used to say with his blue eyes burning with pleasure, when he went to the bathroom or when the fortune teller asked him the urban ticket, his epic ofshama followed it with an, "Oh, betomu sy, you have not seen such a miracle until now!", while when he met one of his favorites on the street, the pensioners of the Democratic Front with republican hat and gray shoes with holes, the address came in a guilty voice, "Shoko, excuse me, do you know something where I can make a self-criticism that I can't take it?!"...
Gimi ishte një forcë e madhe e natyrës, kudo ku hynte dukej sikur e hapte perden e ajrit me shpatën e gojës së tij, kudo ku ulej dukej sikur zinte krejt anën e vet të tavolinës me gjerësinë e të qeshurës së tij, kudo ku ecte spostonte gjithnjë me veten tre a katër të tjerë, si bartës i një mesazhi mistik, që në fakt kishte vetëm magnetin e parezistueshëm të një shpirti të lirë dhe karizmën e pashembullt të një udhëheqësi shpirtrash, që kërkonin tek liria vetveten e tyre ende të pagjetur apo pavetëdijësisht të humbur.
Talent natyral i baltës, ai që përmes baltës të vdekurit e mëdhenj të kombit i sillte në jetë dhe vdekjen e trajtonte si dashnoren e fundit, në radhën e pambarimtë të Dylqinjave të tij që fund nuk do të kishte kurrë, “paçka se fundja nga balta vijmë e drejt baltës shkojmë, po rëndësi ka çfarë lemë pas nga balta jonë”, u tërhoq gjithnjë e më shumë në atelienë e skulpturave, jo për t’u thyer në mes, po për të kaluar orë të pafundme në këmbë, në një vrap të shfrenuar prej ankthit të kohës që ikte, teksa numri i të vdekurve që ëndërronte të sillte në jetë rritej.
Dekadat që pasuan epokën e lavdishme të ilaritetit permanent ishin ndryshe dhe bohemi i harbuar i asaj epoke, u kthye vit pas viti në hijen e vetvetes, mes telasheve e dëshirës për të krijuar, melankolisë dhe nevojës për t’i mbijetuar transformimit të jashtëm e të brendshëm, duke lënë sa më shumë vepra. Rrëmuja dhe rrëmeti i qytetit që dikur ishte i tëri i veti, e ku në çdo lagje, nga Ali Demi në Kinostudio, kishte një Ofeli të dëshpëruar në pritjen e përlotur të të vetmit dhe të papërsëritshmit Gim Rada, hynin e dilnin gjithnjë e më pak në izolimin e tij përmes frëngjisë së celularit, prej nga edhe më shkruajti se vdekja i ishte paraqitur në derë për ta marrë.
He had understood that the last lover had no intention of leaving him without taking him, and that his legendary argument, "The deserted man leaves no woman, it is the women who leave him", had fallen and the separation from this world was only matter of time.
Now my great friend of the earliest youth, Gim Rada dora himself, is lying forever in the bed of the first who refused to leave him, and we could not help him to escape from it. "A woman is like life that doesn't give up easily!", he told us back then, when our mustaches hadn't yet tasted the first sweat, "Imagine them both as a big and invisible pit, that doesn't level with the ground without it's full, so be patient and I hope you'll be lucky until the last shovel!".
Hey Gim Rada, never die!
