This book has a very weird format. The
weirdest I’ve read yet, because it seems to be composed of disparate short
stories, which then link with each other with our protagonist as the common
point. And of course other authors have also used this particular format of
writing, some with quite a reasonable amount of success, but what’s weird here
is that some of these short stories don’t seem to be able to stand on their
own, reading as chapters in a larger narrative rather than as a cohesive whole
on their own. Which means we shift from loosely linked short stories to two or
three chapters of one continuing plot, and then back to clearly differentiated
parts.
That isn’t to say that the reading
experience itself isn’t good. I actually really liked this series, with its
exploration of the culture of an area of Pakistan that I don’t get to read much
of. It is clear that Jamil Ahmad has written from a place of authority and
experience: his authorial notes mention the fact that as a member of the Civil
Service of Pakistan, he served in the Frontier province and Balochistan area.
This exposure shines through in almost all his tales, not so much in the
characters than in the tribal culture he describes and the ways in which the people
over there live and what they believe. So not only did the stories have a
strong sense of being backed up by reality, they also introduced things that I
had never heard of, and which frankly sounded a lot like fantasy world-building
to me.
In
the tangle of crumbling, weather-beaten and broken hills, where the borders of
Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, is a military outpost manned by two score
soldiers.
I hadn’t realized that I had already read
the first story in this collection until I got to the third page and recognized
it as an entry in Granta’s Pakistan edition. It
was possibly one of the best stories in that anthology, and I still remember
loving the tale of a couple who eloped and were being hunted. Even though it
had such a heart-breaking ending, I really liked the sparse, minimalistic
writing style (something I’ve actively been against in my usual reading experience)
as well as how true to the story’s narrative the author remained. Jamil Ahmed
remains consistent in both his writing style as well as in his descriptions of
the rituals and cultures of the pre-talibanised tribal areas in the junction of
Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran borders that our characters inhabit. The
character who survives the first tale, Tor Baz, is the wandering falcon of this
series who drifts between all these stories, sometimes as a major player, other
times barely a part of the overall narrative.
He
snorted derisively. “To me only a few things are important and seeking out
one’s past is of little consequence. What good comes of looking for it?”
As a kid who is constantly moving from one
group of caretakers to another, Tor Baz manages to exist on the periphery of
multiple fascinating tales, all of whom blend in together to ensure that
various themes get covered. Not only do we have tales which focus on the
individual, with themes of love and loyalty and passion, we also see the
overall tribal culture, and how it treats matters of honour and honesty. There
are soldiers stationed at outposts and whole caravans on the move which face
these soldiers, guns and camels pitted against each other. Men and women in
these stories are often the bearers of their own fate, with agency and an understanding
of their surroundings.
“Do
not talk to me of conscience. What kind of a guide is it when it comforts the
evil man in his labours no less willingly that another who struggles against
wrong?”
With nine short stories which wander from
one narrative to another, there were moments when I found myself not really
caring what happened to the new crop of characters, especially when some
endings felt inconclusive and abrupt. It was at those moments when I felt like
I would have preferred that this be a longer tale, one with a cohesive plot and
a clear beginning, middle, and end. Thankfully, those moments of irritation
were few and far between, and this was primarily because of the author does not
attempt to sugar coat anything. He offers no judgement in his writing, taking
the role of an omnipresent narrator whose only job is to relay the events
without inserting himself into the narrative.
This form of storytelling, which offers no
critique of the horrible strands of misogyny, cruelty, and oppression within
its tales, is not my favourite, and has usually elicited quite strong feelings
of anger from my end. Which is why I was quite amazed at how well Jamil Ahmad
has managed to distance himself from the story, without alienating the reader.
While I prefer that the good defeat the bad and justice triumph over wickedness
in my stories, the minimal prose within this short volume of stories prevents
just that sort of overanalysing, which meant that I had to take the stories at
face value, and rather than decrease their worth, it just added a whole new
dimension of fascination to my reading experience.
Recommendation
I’d say give this a go purely because very
little literature has been produced about the setting which Jamil Ahmad has
chosen to write about. It’s entirely possible that there is abundant material
in the regional languages of the area, but my lack of fluency in those
languages limits me to the material being produced in English and Urdu, and
within those languages, Jamil Ahmad is one of the few who has written such an
interesting collection of stories set in the tribal areas. Recommended.