Book Review

Author: Shehryar Fazli
Hardcover: 385 pages
Publisher: Tranquebar
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9380658650
ISBN-13: 978-9380658650

Noir is genre that has seldom been attempted in the subcontinent English writing. And, at times when a few daring souls have tried to venture into its dark alleys; they have done it quite lamely.

Naturally, while Americans have enjoyed their Dashiell Hammetts and Raymond Chandlers, the closest we have managed to come is a few sordid novels in Hindi and Urdu. Shehryar Fazli’s arrival on the scene, thus, was more an inevitability than accident.

Ask any self-respecting master of writings on urban landscape and he’ll tell you that why a city, its texture, its underbelly and its fallacies are better described (and experienced) by an immigrant and not by someone who has been brought up in that city. In this regard, I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision on Fazli’s part to make someone who has come to visit Karachi, and not a Karachiwala, his protagonist. The result is; the man is much more able to feel and tell us about the city
and its underbelly than any of its residents would have done.

‘Invitation’ opens with protagonist, Shahbaz, a young Pakistani returning to Karachi from Paris after 19 years, to settle a property dispute. His father, a co-conspirator of famous Rawalpindi Conspiracy, has been in exile in Paris and has fallen out with his sister, who is trying to lay claim on the piece of land. Set in the Karachi of 1970’s, the story takes you to a world of political mechanization, racial tension, sordid tales and what not.

Enters Brigadier Alamgir, the owner of a hotel-cum-pub-cum-cabaret, who takes Shahbaz under his wings and promises to sort out his property issues with his aunt. But he does not enter alone. He comes with all sorts of interesting characters who make this novel a noir worth counting.

Shahbaz’s personal tale mixes with the politics of the time as Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto tries desperately to browbeat Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Although political innuendos are hard to miss, the personal tale of Shahbaz’s sexual awakening and his coming of age grips you so strong that you appear ready to leave Bhutto and Mujib on their fate. That, of course, till the repercussions of their respective actions come knocking on the door.

However, this noir’s strength is its characters. You have a sort of schizophrenic Phuppi who quotes Victorian poetry and vent out her rant against Shahbaz’s father depending upon what level of melancholy she is in that day and whom is she eager to accuse for taking the country to the wolves.

You have a Brigadier who never actually ended up as one. A Bengali cabbie who lives by the wits and an Egyptian cabaret dancer who offers her Namaz with much fervor. We also have an Appa who writes letters to Colonel Nasser and Comrade Berzenev and actually thinks that they must be writing her back. The characters are all lively in their own might and give the story its appeal.

The narrative allows you to peep inside the minds of common Karachiwala and gives you a glimpse as to what will the city turn out to be in a decade or so. While discussing politics, Mona Phuppi tells DC, “Abhey chorain DC sahib! Mohajirs are the only ones who can run the country. If not them, better the army.” Can there be better lines to represent the schism that ails Karachi?

Or for example the passage where Fazli describes the massacre of Mohajirs by Ayub Khan’s sons at Lalukhet. “Rahim Sahib’s district seemed at peace. But a fundamental limit had no doubt been crossed; there must still have been a grudge, a demand for justice, biding underneath. Gestating.” Clearly, Fazli’s days at International Crisis Group (ICG) has provided him with an insight on how a mind set on revenge works.

However, it is narrator’s malign influence of childhood (and growing-up-years) events over adult behavior that makes it such a precious noir. I, for one, can boast of the arrival of our own Ross MacDonald on the noir scene.

In many ways, the novel also offers a window to the Indian readers to peep into an era in Pakistan regarding which we have no insight or information whatsoever. Pakistan of 70s is a chimera for us. For example, who would believe that before the advent of Bhutto and General Zia, Karachi’s underbelly had its own share of flesh-pots, drugs and liquour?

Surely, it will become easier for a common Indian reader to trace a path from Pakistan’s birth to its current state of flux. Shehryar Fazli, more than anything, has provided these dots.