Not only does an unrelenting craving for sleeping around trigger off a string of licentious and noirish episodes but it also does bring forth a vibrant and poignant narrative of unwavering love and abiding loyalty that goes well beyond sensual appetite. Punic faith firmly grounded in human psyche enables us to explore new dimensions of the ambivalences, contradictions and subtle banalities of our personality that regales in undertaking the journey for passion and invisible journey within. Seemingly diabolical treachery provides us with a protective vault against the demon of our own personality that looks eager to declare war on what we cherish. These perceptive, ground-breaking and unsettling points are aptly discussed in the oracle set alight by a pre-eminent novelist Rehman Abbas.
His glistening oracle took the shape of an eminently readable novel “Rohzin” that appeared recently. The novel immediately sparked off a pulsating debate in Urdu fiction where much of the space is filled with the insipid and pedestrian novels. Seldom do vernacular authors, especially Urdu writers get royalty but Rehman Abbas’s new novel published by Mumba book, fetched him a whopping royalty.
The novel skilfully weaves an engaging story of a youngman Israr whose life is intermixed with various relationships. He never shies away from entering into relationship with strangers with a view to understanding what it means to be alone.
Fashioning a unique and beguiling narrative of metaphysics, social reality, contemporary situation and memoir, Rehman Abbas tries to understand, not judge the intricate nuances of a mysterious yet all-pervading element of human psyche that distorts beautiful into grotesque. The author, who is the first Urdu writer to join the vociferous protest of Indian writers against intolerance by returning the State Urdu Sahitya Award which he got for his third novel “Khuda Ke Saaye Mein, Ankh Macholi”, (Hide and Seek under the Shadow of God) takes up a difficult task of gleaning up the human debris that separation leaves behind. The novel creates a sense of belonging to idiosyncrasies and skewed perspectives concerning identity, faith, personality and other socio-political reality.
The protagonist Israr, a product of coarsened popular culture, unfolds an engrossing and heart rendering tales of violation of human bodies and his story evokes a sense of imbalance in the reader and no holds barred, intrepid and yet nuanced narrative leaves one awe-struck. It is a novel of several embedded stories and each of them centres on an act of betrayal.
In a time when people tend to forget God, one of the principal characters of the novel, Yusuf seems attracted towards the teaching of Anton Szander Lavey whose “Satanic Rituals” (1972) makes Satan an object of great reverence as Satan was the victim of first betrayal. Yusuf’s story proffers an engaging debate on the role of Lucifer, God, man, and the ephemeral world. The debate creates a new awareness about human sufferance that is not mitigated by the presence of several pseudo Gods men. Rehman Abbas charts out an apocalyptic but sensitive discourse on how humans take solace in faith.
Depredation of every sort essentially creates crippling despair and panic and it sometime reduces a man to an unconscionable being and this the cardinal point which author forcefully makes while narrating a spate of gory and horrific incidents.
Much has been written on prostitution and for the protagonist the oldest profession of the world symbolises the demise of fertility, creativity and decline on all counts. Israr, who hardly passes up any opportunity for voyeuristic pleasures, lives in an area of Mumbai that is filled with dirt, squalor, crime and almost non-existent civic amenities, builds up a bridge between body, soul and emotional through forging an abiding bond with Hina.
Rehman Abbas has an uncanny way of subverting what people generally believe. Depicting much longed- for meeting of the lovers, the narrator tells that both took pains to conceal their intimate feelings. Similarly the novelist has a great power of recording of action in words – dialogue- and he uses dialogues to explore emotional, physical and semantic spaces through the prism of individual sensibility of the characters. The following dialogues closely resemble with maxims:
“Literature is a melody that can only be cured by the close reading of readings of the literary texts.”
“The utterance of soul is always candid and frank and it can never be arcane”.
The author chooses an acquaint expression Rohzin (Rehman insists that it is not be reckoned as a combination of Rooh-Soul,and Huzn -Anguish) and portrays a life mired in promiscuity with no traces of irascibility and at the end unwavering love emerges victorious.
The last chapter depicting two lovers caught in a violent sea is an unforgettable testament to human resilience and the novelist deserves accolades for telling the story with passion, fearlessness and sensitivity.
