Nadia Akbar’s debut novel Goodbye Freddie Mercury presents to us Lahore in summer. In this Lahore, everything is burning. The heat sweats out the city, the country’s political drama intensifies, and a bomb goes off outside a posh Japanese restaurant where Nida has come to lunch with her rich boyfriend.
Nida is the first point-of-view character in the novel. She is a middle-class student of Economics who feels trapped in her house after the death of her brother in the army. A girl who doesn’t shy away from nasha , she is introduced one night to a clique of friends at Dodge Palace, the residence of Iftikhar Ali, the “right-hand man” of Salim Chaudhary, Pakistan’s Prime Minister. Nida’s eventual boyfriend, Omer, is Iftikhar Ali’s son.
Feel tipsy
RJ Bugsy is Omer’s friend. He loves rock music, idolises Freddie Mercury, and hosts a suave, English-language show on the radio. Bugsy is also attracted to Nida, earnestly, unlike Omer with his sense entitlement, but he keeps his feelings to himself. Bugsy is the second point-of-view character in the novel, and through him we meet Moby, Bugsy’s estranged friend, who has a little favour to ask.
The course of the novel is dictated by the lives of these friends. They are brought together by their riches and a shared love for nasha . There is enough high in the book to make a reader feel tipsy in the head. It is in this high that new friendships are formed
and Nida is pulled further into the clique. Considering that the novel opens with an allusion to the murder of Qandeel Baloch, we know immediately that Nida’s new associations will only lead her towards something grave. Moby’s return sets Bugsy’s life into a dangerous spin.
Goodbye Freddie Mercury has all the right ingredients to make a thrilling entertainer. The politics is relevant, the society is relevant, the corruption is relevant, the frustration is relevant. Akbar’s biggest achievement in the novel is perhaps her language — a seductive mixture of English with desi vernacular — which gives a refreshing immediacy to the experience of reading the novel. Akbar doesn’t bank on the modesty of the English language; rather, she blows it apart to create a pertinent and urgent young voice.
Taboos flouted
What also keeps us going is the humour. Akbar does not flinch at the uglies, but incorporates them into the narrative through dry, pithy observations. The ugliness of corruption is exemplified in the gaudy Dodge Palace, the privilege of the clique evident in bathroom ACs. There is enough space to ridicule the token white couple at a South Asian wedding too. What also keeps us going is the scandalous; drugs, sex, alcohol and abuses make pretty much the entire story.
They are complemented by the general irreverence of the characters. Characters who are powerful and privileged enough to be irreverent. These characters are young, but Akbar spares them the condescension. It is an admirable quality, and it is exciting to see taboos being flouted throughout the book.
However, for a novel that holds itself wonderfully till the very last of chapters, its slump in the climax is surprising. We are so invested in the lives of Nida and Bugsy, so hopeful for the hope within them, that when the novel ends, we are left underwhelmed. The story ends where it could have soared. Reading the last chapter, we can sense Akbar struggling to wrap up the rich, uncompromising narrative that she had so deftly created.
But Goodbye Freddie Mercury is a pacy entertainer with the quality of an unputdownable. The narrative is located firmly in present-day Lahore, with its heat-swept alleys, kapra shops, food stalls. With Akbar, we have a young urban voice through which to perceive Pakistan.
The writer is the author of Painting That Red Circle White, a poetry collection .
Goodbye Freddie Mercury; Nadia Akbar, Penguin Random House, ₹599
