The former anthology tackled djinns as both
protagonists and antagonists in stories which showed them as more than
creatures whose sole purpose was to fulfil the whims of fickle humans. The
latter trilogy introduced me to the idea of levels of djinns as afrits and
marids with varying powers and purposes. Around discussions with my best friend
about the course she was planning to teach about these supernatural creatures
as well as the recent burst of publication of books about djinns, I’ve come to
realize that there’s a whole world out there beyond elves and dwarves when it
comes to supernatural creatures.
Farooqi’s story tackles a side of fantasy
that I wish I had read more of. In a world where jinn creep into the heavens to
overhear the angel’s plans and come back to tell those who pretend to portend
events, a jinn named Darazgosh works for an augur named Sarob. With augurs all
over the world using these jinn to spy on angels to predict the future,
Darazgosh is entrusted with the same tasks. He, however, gets more involved
than allowed in his curiosity to see how what the angels have said will come to
pass, setting off a whole chain of events.
Darazgosh
went away after witnessing those events, but every night he returned to watch
what went on in those places, and to await the time when God’s decree would be
fulfilled.
Most of this story is told in a format I
like to call the old-school-dastaan way of narrating. The dialogues are
limited, and most of the narration in in the form of stock paragraphs that
relate what happened in simple and clear language. With two lovers fated to die
in the far distant future due to rains in the here and now, we follow the jinn
as he keeps track of how these events come to pass.
It’s not a simple, one-generation
narrative, with a story starting and ending with the life of one person. In
keeping with the large-scale narration, the actual hero and heroine are the grandchildren
of the people with whom we begin our story. An unhappy couple with a wife who
bears a miracle child lead to our hero, whereas a verdant tree and the birth of
a baby girl lead us to our heroine. Decades pass in the matter of minutes as
people give birth and grow older, as deaths are faced and fates changed, and
the next chapter begins, with Darazgosh watching over it all.
He
again sent for Darazgosh and said to him: “Find out once more what is being
said in the heavens and bring me the news!” Darazgosh again returned, and said:
“The angels in the heavens say that the fortune of the kingdom is tied to the
two slaves gifted to the king by a courtier.”
The story, which seeks to describe how the
jinn were locked out of heaven, culminates in Darazgosh playing a more active
part in the events than he is allowed. With an omnipresent narrator and a
certain emotional distance from the story itself, this is not one of those
tales where you judge them on how closely you felt for the characters or how
three dimensional they were. Given that you barely get to spend a large amount
of time with anyone beyond their functionality to the tale itself, what’s more
important is the story, and how things lead to another. And overall, this makes
for an okay reading experience. It’s not the best story I’ve ever read, and I
certainly won’t remember it a month from now, but it also wasn’t a complete
waste of my time, and I didn’t have to struggle to finish it. For reference,
I’d suggest everyone should read this brilliant article by the author, where he talks in
detail about the Islamic concept of jinn and their background. Recommended.