Excerpt: Ahmed Rashid’s ‘Pakistan on the Brink’

Preface

IN JANUARY 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first black president of the United States, hopes of Americans and Europeans were high that he would make a greater U.S. commitment to Afghanistan in terms of money, troops, economic development, and state building — and above all, to finding a political solution to end the war. Obama’s promise to do all of that, and his expressed desire for a regional solution that would bring Afghanistan’s neighbors together in order to help the peace process, were even more welcome.

Obama did commit more of everything to Afghanistan, and many fields (such as education, health, media, the building of a new Afghan Army, and the degrading of Al Qaeda) have seen substantial improvements. However, the country has also seen a steady deterioration at almost every level — military, political, economic, and human. Violence has increased substantially, and the Taliban insurgency is now a nationwide movement. Tragically

Herald exclusive: An interview with Shehryar Fazli | | DAWN.COM

Mahvesh Murad | Herald Exclusive

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“The wonderful thing about Jaipur was that although big names like Coetzee and Pamuk and Diaz were there, you felt that people were in fact just as interested in discovering new writers.” – File Photo

Raised in Paris, Mauritius and Pakistan, Shehryar Fazli now lives in Islamabad where he works at an international think tank. He graduated from McGill University and theUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. Here he talks to the Herald about his debut novel, Invitation.

Q. Has Invitation been a long time in the making?

A. Yes. I started a novel about 11 years ago. None of what I wrote back then survived except some basic idea of a narrator who returns from the West after a long exile. I had those few pages lying around for years. Finally when I gave it another go, a story developed around that basic premise.

Q. When did you decide to set Invitation in pre-prohibition Karachi?

A. I was discovering more about this very fascinating time in Pakistan’s history — when popular demonstrations helped oust a military regime, democracy was being introduced for the first time, and then it all went wrong. I decided to eventually put my narrator in that mess and see what happened. I liked the results.

Q. The 1970s are almost a mythic time for people of our generation. There was so much happening that we can barely imagine possible now. You weren’t around then but have witnessed some equally tumultuous moments in Pakistan’s history. Why did you not choose to write about what you had experienced, the way other Pakistani writers have with 9/11, for example?

A. Well, let me first talk about what I liked about that period as the setting for this story. Shahbaz, the young narrator, lived his last 19 years in Paris which, in May 1968, went through a major historical convulsion itself. Shahbaz does not feel a part of it. He comes back to Karachi to settle a family property dispute on his father’s behalf. But, more than anything, for an abstract sense of citizenship. That was a time when I think many in Pakistan were acquiring a taste for it. That is, after all, what democracy is supposed to provide. Back then, democracy was just coming to Pakistan. So what better time for Shahbaz to make his entrance? Of course, things do not quite work out for him or many of the people around him. And the title perhaps conveys a sense of that promise.

Q. In many ways, Invitation is about just that — a search for a sense of belonging. It has been described as ‘Karachi noir’. Stylistically, is this how you write? Or is it a tone you developed specifically for this novel because of its setting?

A. I was a little surprised to see it described as ‘noir’. Not that I have an objection to that description but I never thought of it as noir myself. The voice I wanted, which is Shahbaz’s, is one that is on the surface constrained but with something a little reckless underneath that occasionally emerges in bursts. So it did not have much to do with the time of setting but with this particular, strange creature that is Shahbaz.

Q. Initially I found the tone of the narrator distant but as I began to get to know him I realised it was perfect. He is often distant and cold and no hero, as much as he would love to be. It’s not easy to decide to write in the voice of a person who is not likeable and it’s not something most writers would do for fear of alienating most readers who would rather relate to someone ‘nice’. And yet here you are.

A. I do not subscribe to that. I think unlikable narrators are far more compelling. And your description, I think, is absolutely right. His constraint, his inability to act, is what makes him such a nasty piece of work. The voice, I think, reflects that. But it was Evelyn Waugh who said that the job of fiction is to spread sympathy to unexpected places. I do hope readers warm up to Shahbaz eventually, despite everything, in the way they warm to a monster like Nabokov’s Humbert or Ishiguro’s Stevens in Remains of the Day.

Q. Invitation was launched in India where it has been published and you attended the Jaipur Literary Festival. Do you think festivals like that are important for writers to promote their books?

A. Before Jaipur, I attended the Kolkata Literary Festival which was my first event. We then did a launch in Delhi and I had two sessions in Jaipur. The Kolkata Festival, like Jaipur, had this buzz and energy to it because events like these, more so than any single book launch, bring together people who just love books. So it puts a writer, especially a first-timer, into contact with an audience he or she probably would not meet otherwise. The wonderful thing about Jaipur was that although big names like Coetzee and Pamuk and Diaz were there, you felt that people were in fact just as interested in discovering new writers. So, to answer your question, absolutely.

Q. Your novel is a welcome change to what the world has come to accept as Pakistani literature in English. It’s a throwback to a time when Pakistan was not known for what it is now. Do you think you are at a disadvantage, having distanced yourself from the 9/11 stories that are so popular nowadays?

A. Well, I would not like to think that readers are coming to these books because of the topic but because of the writing, the characters, and the human stories. I set my novel in a particular period not to educate but to explore a character’s very personal relationship to the events around him and I hope that it is that personal story that people are attracted to, just as I hope they are approaching a so-called post-9/11 novel not to learn anything new about 9/11 or terrorism, which there is plenty written about in other forms. And if that is the case, then I do not worry too much about being at a disadvantage because somehow my “topic” may be considered outdated.

Q. I know this may be a little early to ask, seeing as your very first book has only just been published, but what’s next?

A. I am somewhere close to midway through a second novel which does indeed take place in Pakistan. I think I will remain engaged as a novelist with this country for a while because there is such rich material here which I have not begun to tap. But yes, I would not want to confine myself to any particular subject or style or perspective. For example, one day I hope I can write a book from a female character’s point of view.

 

This book is available at Liberty Books

Tender Hooks: The butterfly effect – The Express Tribune

 

I must confess that I’m not an impartial reviewer. Moni Mohsin’s ‘Diary of a Social Butterfly’ has been the bright spot in my otherwise dismal Fridays for many years now. But I must also confess that I’m as much of an ‘antisocialist’ as the long-suffering Janoo himself. That’s ‘antisocial’ in Butterfly-talk, in case you’re one of the uninitiated.

At once a biting social commentary, a masterpiece of satire and an all-around fun read, the ‘Social Butterfly’ columns have been a big hit ever since they were first printed. It’s a world of GTs, of ladies who lunch, party-shartys and lots and lots of gos(sip).

Tender Hooks is Moni Mohsin’s follow-up to the best-selling Diary of a Social Butterfly paperback, but this one isn’t just a compilation of random columns but a complete novel starring all the characters we’ve come to know, love and hate all at the same time.

The story revolves around the search for an ‘illegible’ (eligible) girl for Butterfly’s cousin Jonkers, who is browbeaten by his domineering mother Aunty Pussy. Along the way, we meet more than a few new additions to the cast, in all of whom we find echoes of ourselves or of people we know.

Mohsin walks a tightrope between her works turning into pure social commentary or else caricature. To her credit, it is a line she walks with expert ease, never plunging into the abyss of allegory or succumbing to superficiality.

Nor do her characters remain caricatures, unable to grow and adapt. As the novel progresses, we see the Butterfly we know (and love to hate, in some cases), show that she not only has a heart of gold underneath the layers of superficiality, but also possesses a surprising sting.

And while the characters may be fictional, the setting for the novel is very real. It is the Pakistan of suicide bombers, street crime, political and social corruption, and deep, deep denial. If we are honest, we will find echoes of real conversations in the uproariously funny exchanges that dot the novel. Like this one:

“Meanwhiles, Janoo and Shaukat and Jammy and Zafar had got back to discussing politics and Zafar was saying it was impossible for a Muslim to kill another Muslim. That’s why he was cocksure it wasn’t the Talibans who were doing the bombings. Janoo said okay then who did all the killing in the Iraq and Iran war in which a million people died and Zafar said that was tau cent percent the Americans. And then Jammy said it was the Israelis and I said to Zeenat that her highlights were very nice and who had done them and Shehla asked Tanya if she’d come and stay with them in Swizzerland and she replied, ‘No offence but Geneva sucks.’”

Move over Mrs Malaprop, you’re not a shade on our Butterfly.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 13^th, 2011.

 

This book is available at Liberty Books.

There’s a lot of me in Butterfly: Moni Mohsin – Hindustan Times

A delayed flight, an almost two-hour ride from airport to hotel because of traffic, a v-e-r-y careful examination of her passport – because it’s Pakistani – that made check-in painful, and nothing to eat since dinner last night (it’s now 2.30 pm). After all this, you’d expect Moni Mohsin, the London-based Pakistani author of The End of Innocence, a novel, and The Diary of a Social Butterfly, a collection of her satirical columns for the newspaperFriday Times, to not like Mumbai much. This is, after all, her first visit to the city and she’s only here for a day to release her new novel, Tender Hooks.

But once lunch has been ordered – Goan prawn curry with rice (“You decide please, I don’t want North Indian food”), a roomali paratha (“You don’t get it in London and I miss it”) and green chillies on the side (“I hate it when people assume I don’t eat spicy food”) – Mohsin surprises you.

“I always thought Mumbai must be beautiful, but I never imagined it would be this beautiful,” she says, settling into her seat at Indus Cocktail Bar and Tandoor at Colaba’s Hotel Diplomat. “I was told I’d see appalling slums, but I saw nothing like that on the drive from the airport. What was really interesting was the trees. Lovely trees.”

Trees? Trees? Can Mohsin really be the creator of Butterfly, a Lahori lady who lunches, who thinks her husband’s farm is bore and who only worries about terrorists and fundamentalists because they get in the way of her parties and GTs (oho baba, get togethers, don’t you know anything?).

 

Was it difficult transferring Butterfly to a novel when she continues to turn up in your Friday Timescolumn?
Not at all. The column responds to what is happening in Pakistan. That’s journalism. Tender Hooks is not Like Butterfly, I’m a Punjabi girl. I know my character thoroughly. Once you know your character, you can, well, read her like a book. I know what Butterfly will do in any situation. For instance, while I was driving here from the airport, I knew what Butterfly would think about Mumbai.

Did you wonder, when Diary… was published in India, how it would be received?
People kept telling me I should publish the columns as a book, and I kept resisting. But then I attended the Jaipur Literature Festival and found that the halls where Pakistani writers spoke were as full as the hall where Ian McEwan spoke. I was writing a novel at the time, which wasn’t going well, so I compiled the columns. Since it took only a month, it was no skin off my nose if it didn’t do well, but I was told by a friend one day to check the Indian bestseller lists, and there it was! Tender Hooks is also being published in the UK now. I didn’t want to publish there before because there’s a lot of Urdu in the book, but we’re doing it now.

Why shouldn’t books with words in Urdu be published in the UK? I mean, we read books written in Irish and Scottish dialects.
I suppose they’re just not used to it coming back to them. But that’s changing now in the UK. They’ve been exposed to quite a lot of South Asian lingo recently, with TV shows like Goodness Gracious Me and movies like East is East. So Tender Hooks is being published in the UK, though it is in an English version – some of the phrases have been translated. For instance, ‘the bhookha-nangas’ has been translated to ‘the hungry-nakeds’ and ‘khandaani’ is ‘old family’ and so on. I don’t mind. I don’t like books that have, for instance, too much French.

Every chapter of Tender Hooks begins with a headline. The picture we get of Lahore is distressing. Bomb blasts, shootouts, schools threatened by fundamentalists… Is it really like that?
Yes. On a daily basis, it’s bad. If someone were to write a novel about it, it would be very grim. But people have become resilient, and that’s what I wanted to show by using those headlines in every chapter. People just carry on. That’s the sad part of it.

Your novel, The End of Innocence, didn’t do as well as Diary… Does that hurt?
I feel bad that something I slaved over wasn’t well received, but… it’s like children. Some do well, some don’t. But it did hurt because I’d put a lot of myself in it, which I hadn’t with Butterfly. Actually, no. No. Butterfly is me really. Exaggerated, but me. I notice things like brand names and labels. But that doesn’t mean this is all there is to my existence. If that was entirely true, I wouldn’t have had the distance and irony to write the book. But if I’d been Mother Teresa, I couldn’t have written it either.

For an extract from Tender Hooks, go to http://randomhouseindia.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/moni-mohsin-tender-hooks/

 

This book is available at Liberty books.