The Whispering Chinar is a set of interconnected stories linked to the fictional village of Charbagh in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Some are set in the village and others in Rawalpindi and even Muscat. Tackling themes of power, family dynamics, lust, bigotry and the unfathomable ways of love, these stories are plausible portraits of life among Pakistan’s urban and rural elite.
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We in South Asia will find a queasy recognition of how, in our neck of the woods, pain can so often be anaesthetised by privilege. In the universe Rohila creates, most people seem kindly enough, stumbling along somehow. But faced with threats to their security, this changes.
Rohila’s villains aren’t the obvious ones: they’re not feudal lords or corrupt politicians. Evil lurks in us all, and when survival (or comfort or self -perception) is threatened, it will be activated and harm others without compunction. The one true force for good in these stories is Ashfaq Khan, the gentle, sidelined brother-in-law of the powerful landowner, Khan Sahib, whose sprawling mansion in the village is shaded by an old chinar tree.
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Ashfaq Khan appears in all the tales, but while he calls out the injustices, the betrayals, the persecutions, his interventions meet with varied success.
The Whispering Chinar
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The landlord’s two elder sons are fighting over who gets the lion’s share of the land; the youngest son, significantly kinder and less venal, begins a relationship with a girl, a maid in the house. There is a sweetness to his earnestness, but for her the consequences are brutal. He, after momentary sadness, recovers.
Similarly, the imam of the village mosque who conceals his complete ignorance of religious knowledge by preaching fire and brimstone, brings retribution down on the heads of the innocent and vulnerable. In ‘The Tears of Nazo’ two cousins, both Khan Sahib’s grandchildren, flirt with each other; it’s all appropriate — cousins marry each other all the time among Pathans.
But by now you’re sufficiently familiar with Rohila’s style to know this incubates some unexpected knife-thrust — and sure enough it comes — with a deft flick the carpet is pulled out and Nazo’s tears flow. This is exemplary storytelling, and though the formula becomes predictable, the stories and characters stay with you.
The writer is a publishing professional and author.