Mention the word Pakistan and many images whiz past your mind. If your idea of Pakistan stems from our jingoistic Hindi commercial cinema or rabble-rousing politicians, the image would not be exactly gleaming. With all the news of infiltration of terrorists into our territory, it indeed comes across as an irresponsible State. Add to that the news of Peshawar bombings besides many smaller incidents in places like Lahore and Karachi and Pakistan seems like a failed State, a place where peace and security seem elusive. That is not all.
Go back a little in time and you have General Zia-ul-Haq in whose time peace brought few securities. Only Allah knows what all he didn’t do in the name of Islam. Authors had to take refuge abroad, journalists were muzzled, arts crushed and artists frowned upon. Some like popular noted poet Fahmida Riaz got asylum in India, others went westwards.
Like all else in life, that phase passed too. And Pakistan took baby steps towards revival of art and literature. Today, Pakistan might still be a troubled State. The good thing is, people are being allowed to say as much. Authors are expressing themselves all over again. Things none too complimentary about the country are being written. Books are being read, not banned. Authors are staying in Pakistan, not seeking asylum. All glad tidings for a nation that has known long suffering in its still young life.
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Over the past few years, Pakistan has had a delightful flowering in the world of letters. With Mohammed Hanif, Kamila Shamsie, Hanif Kureishi, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Nadeem Aslam, Uzma Alsam Khan and of course, Mohsin Hamid there, it has been rejuvenation time across the border. Never mind the bullets of the terrorists, the authors are fighting their own little battles. And saying things are they are. Not much swept under the carpet, no dash of salt and pepper, just keeping words simple and honest.
A few years ago, author Daniyal Mueenuddin of “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders” fame, stated frankly that he did not feel safe at intersections in Pakistan, and in a country with a burgeoning population, the common man could not care less for an English author. “It matters not a whit in Pakistan. People don’t read. They don’t care who you are. I keep my neck down because in Pakistan if you raise it, it is chopped off. The situation there is deteriorating rapidly. The structures of the state are imploding. In Pakistan, corruption is a way of life. There are few areas that are not rotten. It is frightening, saddening to do business. You are at the whims of bureaucrats and politicians.”
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Kamila Shamsie had her own fears at one time. “Karachi is a dangerous city. It lives in ghettoes and the locals have developed their own immunity. The Muhajirs are there. They did not want to be like the Sindhis. People cling on to their ethnicity. You hear people say, ‘I am a UP-wallah'. This in a country where there is no U.P.! In Karachi ethnicity has become a way of exclusion.”
Around the same time, Hanif, earlier based in London, penned a 300-page, completely irreverent novel, “A Case of Exploding Mangoes” where he wrote boldly about the Zia days. He happily admitted, “During the Zia years, everyone was irreverent towards him. You never saw it on television or in newspapers. But there were jokes, limericks, random one-liners ... And this was before e-mail and text messages.”
Now comes Mohsin’s book, “Discontent and its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York and London", a compilation of some of the pieces on art, literature and politics he has done over the years. Through the pieces, mostly brief, he reveals a little slice of life in Pakistan. At times he talks of the years gone by, at others, he lives in the moment. Bit by bit, the ground reality raises its head. Far from the image of country teetering on the brink of disaster, he pieces together the story of a nation like any other. There are no heroes here, no villains, just a neat little account of things, largely dispassionate. Mohsin largely prefers to be a non-participant observer and pens words that open a different window to the country. For instance, his barber in Lahore keeps faded photos on his wall and until a recent bomb blast used to have a glass front. He asks his customers if they would like some ‘thanda’ or ‘garam’, a euphemism for a cold drink or a cup of tea. Now does that take you to most salons in our country?
Mohsin’s take on the National College of Art too comes loaded with nostalgia. There are artists, seasoned and profound, young and presumptuous, all contributing to a different kind of life on the art campus. Considering Mohsin was into his teens when Zia was in his prime, he is able to draw a nice little sketch of the place that was, the college that is. “Pakistan in the 1980s had the misfortune of being governed by a moustachioed dictator with dark bags under his eyes and a fondness for dystopian social re-engineering. General Zia-ul-Haq claimed to be acting in the name of Islam, and even though the history of Islam in our part of the world stretched back over a thousand years, we were told our Islam wasn’t Islamic enough…and he would make our Pakistan the ‘land of the pure’ that its name suggested—or ruin us all trying.” Mohsin goes on to talk of flogging of journalists, amputation and stoning as statutory punishments under Zia and says coldly, “When General Zia was blown to bits shortly after my seventeenth birthday in 1988, he wasn’t mourned, at least not by anyone I knew.” The picture is soon completed when Mohsin writes in glowing terms about NCA. “Students of all social classes, and from all parts of Pakistan, attended NCA. The place was a microcosm of Pakistan, but a creative Pakistan, an alternative to the desiccated Pakistan General Zia had tried to ram down our throats. Here people who prayed five times a day and people who escaped from their hostels late at night to disappear on sexual adventures in the city could coexist. In the studios I saw calligraphy and nudes…Love comes to mind when I think of that time.”
As Pakistan takes a few steps forward in the world of arts and literature, time to pause and wonder where are we headed. With a Perumal Murugan silenced by irrational fringe, aren’t we on the precipice of a Zia-ul-Haq kind of crisis? Replace Zia with the Shahs and the Togadias, and you get a similarly disquieting picture. Time to speak up.