 |
| Sunday, June 6, 2004 |
|
| Sunday, June 6, 2004 |
|
A Letter from India India and Pakistan share a historical legacy whose spirit finds a voice in the literature of both countries. This literature is finding increasing acceptance with readers on both sides of the border. Whether it is this collection of short stories from Pakistan, or the recent World Punjabi Conference, writers are a bridge for exchanging cultural notes.
Luckily for the writers who feature in this book, Moazzam Sheikh "never accepted Salmaan Rushdie’s argument regarding the inferiority of vernacular literature as opposed to its English counterpart." So he delved into various Pakistani languages, including Punjabi, Sindhi and Pashto, and translated works of writers like Asad Mohammad Khan, Sorayya Khan, Azra Waqar, Ashu Lal, and Mohammad Memon. All the writers he has chosen are eminent in their fields, though not necessarily in literature. But all of them have dabbled in literature and have produced some fairly significant works. Thus, the anthology tries to reflect "a move away from parochialism". If Asad Mohammad Khan’s story is an ode to humanity against the backdrop of the Bhopal tragedy, then Fahmida Riaz’s intellectual-from-the-East is sexually attracted to a Jewish professor in Berkley. Papa’s Girl by Soniah Naheed Kamal explodes the myth of gender roles, especially in the sexual context, where the male protagonist feels that he wants an obedient, docile wife but subconsciously desires his father’s mistress in Bangkok. Sorayya Khan’s and Azra Waqar’s stories speak of the lingering pain and guilt that national tragedies leave in individual lives. Ashu Lal’s Mangoes in the Time of Winter looks at the decadence of sub-cultures. The surprising aspect of these stories is sexual exploration and lack of inhibition towards sexuality in a society that prefers the purdah. Also, Sheikh says that he has "attempted to include stories that resist being exotic and easy, written for mass consumption. Such stories`85.refute the reader’s intelligence." He claims that he has chosen "writerly" stories — stories that demand the reader raise himself to the level of the writer. Unfortunately, this results in many of the stories being obscure, leaving the reader with a sense of unfinished business. However, two stories that do deserve mention are A Letter from India and The Barbarians and the Mule. The former, written by Intizar Hussain, gives the reader an insight into the lives and psyche of a family torn apart by Partition and describes how the family members shed their inhibitions, becoming in the process, a part of the change brought about by the historical event. However, in the bargain, they lose the purity of their lineage. The Barbarians and the Mule written by Moazzam Sheikh, is a story of the triumph of the human spirit. It explores the landscape of the minds of the powerful as well as those upon whom the power is wielded and surmises that even the weakest suffer only to a limit. Pushed beyond that limit even they resist and that is when destruction is wreaked on the powerful. A Letter from India is an eclectic selection of short stories from Pakistan and while not all the stories selected are worth a mention, some of them do leave an impact. |
IN his introduction, the editor says that this
anthology is remarkable for the fact that at least half of the authors
in the book are being anthologised as well as translated for the first
time. In fact, as many as 11 out of the 14 stories have been translated
exclusively for this volume.