Doesn’t quite take off

Despite some interesting moments, Anees Salim’s third novel doesn’t hold the reader’s interest.

Anees Salim’s third novel is the story of Hasina Mansoor who works at the tea stall at airport. Mansoor is a naive, independent, opinionated and dramatic middle-class Muslim girl. She has entered the airport and crossed the checkpoints but cannot board a plane, and that is what differentiates her from the travellers. She does not posses a boarding pass. According to her, this is the passport to a different life and all that she endeavours for, at a sub-conscious level.

Hasina thinks she is intelligent, for instance she knows Anne “French”, her inspiration for maintaining a journal. She has an opinion on everything be it the 9/11 attacks, the “Juice” or Jews, a king called Martin Luther or a nation called Albino. She has a penchant for making mischief, spinning stories — often blatantly lying about people, and getting caught — and writing fictitious diary entries.

True to the book’s title, the author rarely ever ventures out of the airport. Even if he does, the incidents are short flights of description about the protagonist’s daily life. Hasina lives with her parents, her twin sister, and her younger brother. The Mansoor family’s life is not bereft of drama. They are embroiled in a property dispute with their cousins, who live on the floor above; their family store is not making any profits; Ali, Hasina’s younger brother has dyslexia; and Hasina is in love with her neighbour-cousin Eza.

While one sister works at a vending machine, another is pursuing higher education. Hasina feels education — or getting richer or going abroad — will change her mundane life. But her attempts at finishing a distance education course in in history and at finding a better paying job fall through again, and again. Added to that misery is her relationship with Eza that takes an unexpected turn. To escape all this, Hasina knows she needs something big. Toward the end, she gets the boarding pass but as she walks in to the airport as a passenger, there is an ominous hint that Hasina is headed toward a difficult life.

Tales from a Vending Machine comprises elements that make for an interesting read. But, despite the glimpses of a sublime narrative, the author fails to sustain it. Initially he draws you in with his keen observation of what happens at the airport, but after that there is nothing to keep you hooked. His character description and scenes are the result of a keen observation of human behaviour. For instance, while describing the behaviour of the passengers at the domestic terminal, Salim writes, “They would sit confident and cross-legged until the flights were announced. They would panic, rush to a gate, join the queue, only to be waved back to their seats by the airline staff at the boarding gate. Your flight is not boarding yet. They would return to their chairs, the air of false confidence seriously dented.” Reading this transports you to a similar awkward moment you have had; you feel that, perhaps, Salim was watching you and it is you he is writing about.

Despite such interesting nuggets, the overarching narrative is weak, and there is little continuity. What follows is a disparate and incongruous set of chapters that has little space for developing the central plot of the story.

Tales From A Vending Machine is a mildly interesting read sprinkled with deadpan humour.

Tales From A Vending Machine; Anees Salim, Westland, Rs. 299.