It probably says something about the
Pakistani mind-set that in a magazine volume titled ‘Heroes and Villains’, the
two stories I’ve read so far by Pakistanis have featured soldiers. It seems – in
what I believe to be a very sad state of affairs – that the only heroes we can
imagine are army folks. This is not only an epic failing of imagination, but
also a massive disservice to the idea that being heroic doesn’t only mean
holding a gun but rather having courage, resilience, and faith in the face of
difficulty.
Dressed
in olive-green camouflage army uniform, shining black DMS shoes shin-high with
the trousers tucked into them, dark glasses and red beret set at a rakish
angle, the commando symbolized everything the boy dreamed of: power, chutzpah,
grace, precision, authority.
My god. Do all Pakistani men get a boner at
the idea of a military man? What is this obsession with equating being a
soldier with such machismo? But I digress. Let’s discuss this story.
We start off with our protagonist, a young
boy named Kashif, who has gone to watch a parade with his parents. His mother,
a member of parliament, has managed to secure them seats in the VIP enclosure,
from where they plan to watch the pride of their family, Kashif’s older
brother, march in the parade. Kashif is excited, there are lots of important
people around, it’s a hot day. It’s like every other 23rd March or 14th
August parade you’ve ever seen on TV if you’re a Pakistani and enjoying your
national holiday at home. Then, the prime minister arrives. He watches the
parade, awards trophies to the cadets, gives a speech.
The
Prime Minister congratulated the graduating cadets and praised the Army for
their service to the nation, but he sounded jittery. Leaning across Kashif,
Papa whispered to Mama, “What’s wrong with him? Does he always sound hollow
when he says things he does not mean?”
It’s near the end of the day’s proceedings,
when the colourful band is marching past, that the central action of the story
builds. The prime minister, surrounded by members of the army, suddenly gets
lost in the shuffle of Generals and commandos and other personnel on the stage.
Kashif’s mother, horrified, rises to her feet and shouts but the commando guarding
their enclosure, whom Kashif previously admired, suddenly butts his rifle at
her chest, ordering the family to sit down as the prime minister vanishes from
the stage. Annndd that’s about it.
The next day, the family watches the news, which tells us absolutely nothing.
Kashif cries in his room. The end.
I’m sure you can understand why, at this
point, I was completely lost. What even had happened? Where did the prime
minister go? Why was Kashif’s mother standing up and shouting? And what
happened the next day, with the parents watching TV and Kashif crying? And
also, what’s up with the bad writing? And almost no subtlety? And also, why am
I even reading these short stories? Do I need to torture myself like this?
The answer to that last question is no, but
since I’m too deep in this gutter to climb out now, let me point out all the
blatant ways in which this story tries to be deep. It’s not actually deep, but
it tries.
The father, proud of his wife for getting
that special seat in the enclosure, turns on her later when she expresses
disbelief over the previous day’s events. He is the archetype Pakistani
citizen, willing to reap the benefits of democracy when it suits them, but still
inherently sure that the army is right; simultaneously believing that the army
is both incapable of doing something wrong, and if it does, then it must be for the benefit of the country.
Criticizing his wife for what he believes is her over-reaction to something
that never happened, he calls her naïve, and then a second later basically
implies that even if it has, the government had it coming anyway.
He
paused, then added, “Your Prime Minister was asking for it, by the way. Just
look at your party’s performance. Their governance is so shambolic.”
He’s also unbelievably ignorant when it
comes to the honesty of our media channels; a trait which I would like to
believe most of us don’t share, but unfortunately I’m pretty sure is true. For
the majority of Pakistanis, the biggest source of information is our TV
channels; biased, reporting a quarter of the facts, and blindly trusted, these
channels then use this to their blatant advantage. And yet, the believers
continue believing.
“See,
there’s nothing on the channels. Nothing has happened,” Papa said.
“The
channels have been told to stay mum,” Mama replied, her voice fraught with
anxiety.
“All
the channels? No, the Army can’t do that, no matter how bossy they want to be.”
I mean, clearly the father is completely in
denial: about the army’s possible motivations, about the fact that the army
might be involved in any plays at the governmental level, and also, more
importantly, about how much influence the army actually has. In direct contrast
(and in Pakistan, only these two polarities exist or are of any importance),
Kashif’s mother is democracy, or rather, the political process. Her gut
instinct, to shout in alarm at the sight of the Prime Minister being
manhandled, is the pillar of democracy raising hue and cry.
Mama
later said that what followed was planned to be executed exactly in those
moments, when people’s attention was taken up by the spectacularly loud and
colourful band as it passed the dais at the tail-end of the parade.
She has no love for the army, in what is an
extremely obvious attempt to personify our government’s lack of love for our
own armed forces. Watching a cadet faint in the heat during the parade and
rushed away, she replies with thinly veiled disdain.
“The
Army is good at cover-up jobs,” Mama smiled as she whispered to Papa.
What’s funny is that the story doesn’t even
attempt to be careful in its execution. Everything is obvious and in-your-face.
The personification bears no subtlety.
So are the Generals going to judge the
government’s performance? Everyone’s performance? And who’s going to judge
their performance?”
And last but not the least, our
protagonist, Kashif, who is initially enamoured with the precision and
orderliness of the soldiers around him. Kashif is, undoubtedly, a boring
protagonist with no presence in the story itself. He is the innocent child,
willing to have faith in politics and drenched in a sense of awe of the army.
But his mother’s molestation at the hands of the soldier leaves him in shock,
and we find him in the end in his room, bawling. Translation: innocence gets
destroyed by the army. We get it, it couldn’t be more black and white. Enough
already.
I realize I’ve managed to review in detail
a story that I actually didn’t love, but there’s a reason for that. Back when I
finished this story, I actually didn’t understand what the hell had happened,
so I shared it with two of my literary friends, who proceeded to analyse it to
the edge of the universe and beyond. We discussed and discussed and discussed
and so most of the smart things I’ve said above were what they said. I take no
credit: my only contribution to this whole piece is to tell you to not read
this. That’s it. The end.