I don’t care much about prose, and I didn’t
care much about this anthology’s first entry. Clutter by Indian writer and poet Uttaran Das Gupta, is, well,
nothing to write home about. Or it could be the next big thing, I don’t know.
His works have appeared in a number of places and have been shortlisted for a
bunch of awards, so presumably it must be good, but unless I really like
something - like the second poem in this collection (To The Child by Yusra Amjad) – I’m not interested. Amjad’s work, a
16-line poem with four quatrains, is most effective near the ending, and calls
for deeper analysis and discussion.
And I made sure to keep my
love safe
Stored away in a cool dark
place
My sweet, please believe I
cannot explain
How
it is grown so sour and strange.
But sandwiched in between these two pieces
is Shazaf Fatima Haider’s Pavlova, one of the weaker pieces of this anthology, and such a disappointment
to me, since I really liked Haider’s previous novel. Being followed up by just-fine
poetry did her story no favours, with New Delhi-based poet Akhil Katyal’s two
mediocre poems leading to one of brilliance. His third contribution to this
anthology, He was born in 1948, so he’s,
at eight lines and more concise than his previous two poems, is unexpectedly
good, and definitely recommended reading. I’ve also rarely heard Pakistani
cultural figures like Nusrat Fateh Ali mentioned so endearingly in prose, so it
was a nice change.
What was also pretty nice was that the next
entry Uremia - a super bland and
completely pointless story about an old patient obsessed with a nurse - was by
a Saudi Arabian writer, which meant I didn’t have to bother reviewing it in
detail. Abdullah Wesali won the Saudi Novel Prize in 2016, which means he must
write well, so I don’t know what went on over here.
What’s surprising is that I found myself
liking the poetry in this anthology more than the prose, which is quite weird,
cause I always thought I wasn’t much for poetry. Still, Shandana Minhas’s Dear 24-year-old is smart and well-written
and worth discussing. But since I’m crap at properly analysing any forms of
writing that aren’t in paragraphs and with a proper beginning, middle, and end,
I’m going to leave four lines of her work here, and hope they suffice.
My problem with pedestals
is
I’m alive,
So call it what you will my
ascension
Is
just crucifixion without the nails.
Or maybe I spoke too soon when I said that
the poetry was impressing me, because following up from Shandana Minhas was
Moeen Faruqi with two average, forgettable poems. I’m not even going to bother
talking about them because I don’t have that kind of time in my life.
Unfortunately, I had to make time for Amna Chaudhry’s Sonny and Steven, a prose piece of remarkable pointlessness. Nothing
interesting happens in this story about a wedding photographer, and nothing
much continues to happen until the very end. At this point, I was just turning
the pages hoping to come across something
worth reading, and Aziza Ahmed’s two-page comic was a welcome relief. Written on
two pages facing each other created a great duality for comparison on both
sides, with one side under the heading ‘I am my computer’, and the other ‘My
computer is me’. It wasn’t particularly original, but the graphics with the
text were compelling enough for analysis.
Sadly enough, we had a very short stop at
the station of things-worth-reading before we got to ‘critically acclaimed’
(this is directly from the Author’s bio) Egyptian writer and translator Mohamed
Abdelnabi’s piece. Titled Like a Novice
Disciple, it was a collection of 60 epigrams from a longer work, and I’m
sorry to say that it made absolutely no sense to me. It must have made some sense to someone somewhere,
presumably, since it’s been published, but witness:
Oh his hand, his fingers,
who is he?
I, too, tried to be in
love, my goat!
Even on the body of
insomnia I left my bite-marks.
Don’t
ask for my last word, let me live.
Ookkkay, what now? I’m assuming that’s supposed to be deep, and throws up multiple
interpretations if you dig in deep. The thing is, I’m not reading this for my
English literature class. I’m reading this for a sort of surface level,
mindless pleasure, and I’m not mood to figure out what the hell a goat is doing
here. Next, please.
Bina Shah’s Peter Pochmann Goes to Pakistan, which could have been great cause
I like Bina Shah, except turned out it was an excerpt. An excerpt from what
though? No novel of that name has ever actually been published. Googling this
title brings up a 15-page excerpt from this unpublished manuscript present in amagazine,
and a mention in a 2012 interview with Claire Chambers, who was looking forward
to reading this.
Chambers must still be waiting, since Shah’s next upcoming book Before She Sleeps says nothing at all about any Peter Pochmann.
At this point, I was just skimming -
couldn’t wait for this anthology to be over - which might be why Rimsha Amjad’s
poem Uncoiling did absolutely nothing
for me. It was when I got to Soniah Kamal’s The Party Giver that I finally found something worth reading in this
anthology. Told from the point of view of a mother celebrating her son’s fifth
birthday party, Kamal creates depth and character in a very short period of
time, in one I personally thought was the best entry in this anthology.
Unfortunately, we were right back to the forgettable poetry with Harris
Khalique’s entry (I shall not return the
borrowed dust) and then even more forgettable prose with Whiti Hereaka’s
work (Papatūānuku). Shadab Zeest Hashmi’s five paragraphs of prose about partition
and death I also didn’t care for - I’ve read SO MUCH partition literature at
this point that in order for it to get my attention it has to be better than
brilliant. Maryam Ala Amjadi’s 101
Synonyms for a Single Woman makes for an interesting discussion point but
can you categorize this as literature? And so, in this anthology even casting
itself as one? Cause that’s literally a list of synonyms with which single
women are referred to, which makes for a great starting point for a discussion
that never came.
And because I was so, so bored by this point, I think Imran Yusuf’s Comfort Food in Karachi came across as less interesting than it
could have been. The story of a couple having an illicit relationship killed by
the family matriarch loses its shock appeal about the corpse being used as food
cause I’d already read Roald Dahl’s Lamb
to the Slaughter. Dahl’s story features a woman who kills her husband, then
cooks his body and feeds it to the detectives who come to investigate her
missing husband. The first time I read this, I was horrified at this turn of
effects. With Yusuf’s story, it’s a case of been-there-read-that, so I wasn’t
as effective as it could have been. What was more effective was Soonha Abro’s An Evening of Illusions, where a moment
of staring at someone and reminiscing culminates in a complete change in the
last line, effective and powerful in retrospect.
As hard as I tried,
I couldn’t look away;
Until I had stared at you
so long
That your forehead lost its
angular shape
And became more rounded,
And I realised that
it
wasn’t you.
I actually knew Soonha when we were working
together, so I was worried about hating her work, cause that would mean I would
have to write a horrible review. Fortunately, this is great writing. Mehr F.
Hussain’s short story, on the other hand, is not great at all. A young boy, obsessed with his babysitter, is horrified
when she leaves, and even more when he realizes she’s gone to get married. What
I think the author tried to do was shock us with the age revelation, except the
secret is obvious and the execution clunky. At this point, I was just glad that
there were only a few pages in this anthology left, and with three poems (two
average, one absolutely brilliant) by Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, we were finally,
finally at the end.
I feel like I said this a lot but my god
there were a lot of pointless entries in this anthology. The only positive I
could find was the fact that none of the Urdu is italicized, which was such a
welcome relief and probably one of the best parts of reading a book published
by a Pakistani publisher. Props to Mongrel Books for having a style policy
which doesn’t pander to a western readership. And here’s to hoping they pick
better stuff next time.