Tag: Literature & fiction

The decade spanning 1978 to 1988 saw the terrifying rule of Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan. In a Lahor under Martial Law, we meet Ikhlaq and his family, who are struggling to build a home in the city.

Set in a troubled time and leadership, The Chronicle by the celebrated Pakistani author Intizar Husain – translated by Matt Reeck – tells the epic story of a family and its illustrious homes. The reader is introduced to a dramatic and darkly comedic chain of events through Ikhlaq’s voice.

We are here to introduce you to our main character! Read on to meet Ikhlaq:

A Storyteller

When he finds the manuscript of the tazkirah, his family chronicle, he decides to continue writing the story as the last chapter has become illegible. Ikhlaq is both a reader and storyteller, and we are introduced to his world entirely through his voice.

‘I thought that, in the end, I was of the same blood as my ancestors, so why wouldn’t I want to continue writing the chronicle? Why hadn’t I seen any such desire in my father? All he had done was to make sure that the chronicle had not been destroyed.’

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A Family Man

His desire to continue the chronicle in an effort to safeguard and maintain his family’s history also presents Ikhlaq as a family man. His excitement and engagement with the family chronicle also reaffirms this point.

‘…I began to find some pleasure in deciphering [the chronicle]. I began to feel that I should see what the pages contained so as to figure out what it was about my family that in every generation someone took it upon himself to sit down with an inkpot and start writing. With such concentration they had written down the histories of the family—as though they were leaving for their children a valuable piece of property.’

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Nostalgic for What his City Used to be

With Haq’s rule, Ikhlaq’s life and environment have become very dynamic, and we often find him reminiscing about his home and how much the world around him has changed.

‘I got the feeling that the world had really changed, and the city was something altogether new. I thought about how the city used to be. I remembered a fall afternoon. There was a carpet of yellow leaves on the street […]How many city streets from the Red House to Mall Road did I imagine in this way, each one covered with fall leaves?’

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Restless for Home

His search for a house, struggles with the rising rent, and eventual attempts to build a house for him and his family tell us of his inherent desire to find a home, stability and peace in his ever-changing life.

‘Maybe I felt restless because I didn’t have a house.

Maybe if I had a place to lay my head and rest my feet, I would find some peace of mind. So building a house, which would soon drive me crazy, became something to think about. I started to share the worries of my co-workers. These men had been going back and forth to their housing development’s offices.’

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Desire for Freedom

Ikhlaq’s life and feelings act as microcosms for the larger desire of freedom in Haq’s Pakistan. His act of building a new house and neighbourhood give Ikhlaq a powerful insight into both the desire and the fear of freedom.

‘Finally I understood why people were fleeing the alleys for the new neighbourhoods. I had thought they were doing so just to show off their new wealth. But I realized that they were tired of alleys. after hiding from the land and the sky, they grew weary of the tight alleyways and the tall houses. It’s so difficult. The one doesn’t let you breathe, but neither does the other. People are scared of the open land and the endless sky. But they also grow tired of the claustrophobia of alley after alley and house after house. So after having left behind the fear of the open land, we grew of tight quarters.’

Step into the lanes of Lahore and Ikhlaq’s ever-changing life in The Chronicle!

Celebrated writer and festival director Namita Gokhale is back with her latest novel, Jaipur Journals. This time, she offers us a diverse cast of characters whose worlds collide in the Jaipur Literature Festival: an author who receives a threatening anonymous letter, a burglar with a passion for poetry, a twelve-year-old prodigy, an American woman looking for the vanished India of her youth, a lonely writer who carries her unsubmitted manuscript everywhere with her, and a historian who reunites with a past lover.

As rich as the Festival itself, Jaipur Journals is a metafictional ode to literature. A nod to the millions of aspiring authors carrying unsubmitted manuscripts in their bags, the book is an intimate look into the pretensions and pathos of the loneliest tribe of all: the writers.

In the excerpt below, we give you a glimpse of one of these stories.

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A volunteer with a round smooth face and dark shining eyes stepped forward to address the group. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘please excuse me, but which of you is Ms Zoya Mankotia?’

Zoya swished her mane of grey flecked hair and lifted one grey black eyebrow in interrogation. ‘You mean me?’ she asked, almost girlishly, almost coquettishly.

‘One of your fans was waiting for you—he left this card which he wanted delivered to you,’ the smooth-faced volunteer said. ‘And I must tell you, Ms Mankotia, that I too am a great fan of yours … I would love you to sign a copy of The Quilt for me.’

She handed over a pale purple envelope, which had Zoya Mankotia’s name written with a purple marker, in a neat italic hand. Inside was a card with a photograph of a kitten wearing a purple ribbon around its neck.

The message was written in capital letters, in purple ink. It was brief and brutal. ‘Miaow Ms Mankotia!’ it said. ‘I can see through you. You faithless bich, I know what you have been up to, how many women you have betrayed. And your pathetic intellectual pretenshuns leave me speechless! And your novel, The Quilt, is a copycat version of Ismat Chughtai’s Lihaf. You plagiarizer, you pornographer . . . Your time is up.’

Zoya’s expression did not change when she read this, although the set of her jaw tightened visibly. She put the card back into the purple envelope and passed it wordlessly to Geetha Gopalan.

‘So who is this mysterious fan?’ Geetha asked in her jolly booming voice. ‘May I read it?’

Zoya nodded. Geetha Gopalan opened the envelope. ‘What on earth is this?’ she asked in surprise.

‘It is an anonymous letter,’ Zoya replied, lifting first one eyebrow, and then the other. ‘Or an anonymous card, to be accurate, a deeply critical pretty kitty card.’

‘An antediluvian troll,’ Geetha Gopalan responded. ‘What a nasty man he must be!’

‘He could be a woman,’ Shonali Sen ventured. The card had been circulated to her and Leila Nafeesi as well.

‘I can never make out if men hate women more, or women themselves,’ Zoya Mankotia said.

‘Purple is a woman’s colour, somehow,’ Geetha Gopalan observed thoughtfully.

‘Oh, don’t please get into these tired gender stereotypes,’ Zoya snapped, her voice combining weariness and anger.

Leila Nafeesi had been quiet all this while. She spread out her fingers to display her long nails, which were painted purple. She had beautiful, pale ivory hands with rings set in silver on all her fingers lapis lazuli, turquoise, jade, topaz. ‘The colour purple,’ she said. ‘By the way, I don’t believe someone with such an elegant italic handwriting doesn’t know how to spell—it’s a pose.’

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To find out more about the letter, and to meet all the other attendees, step into Namita Gokhale’s literary world today!