Of Queens and Qissas: Usman T. Malik's 'City of Red Midnight' makes a good case for oral story telling
Well then.
I’ve been saying for years that Usman Tanveer Malik’s
stories make no sense. I said it back when I read Vaporization Enthalpy, my first encounter with Malik’s works, and also when I read The Pauper Prince,
both wonderful tales and yet also wonderfully bizarre. But it seems time and
age have managed to wrangle some sense into his writings, because in Red
Midnight Malik’s abilities to deliver on the intricacies of his universe have finally
emerged. The twist ending in itself was worth the read, but that wasn’t the
only pleasurable thing about the tale itself.
First, of course, was the discovery of the absolute polish in the writing. I remember
experiencing this phenomenon back when I read Kamila Shamsie’s first book, the
very weak In the City by the Sea, which completely lacked the charm and
literary expertise that her later novels such as Burnt Shadows would show.
But the difference with Shamsie was that I started with her better books and
later read her older, weaker works, which resulted only in a sense of
disappointment. In Malik’s case, I’m moving in chronological order, which means
that it’s a joy to notice the elegance and skill he has clearly honed over his
writing in the last few years. I do wish his editor had restrained his slightly
more pretentious impulses (homunculus, apotropaic, micturition. For god’s
sake.) but overall such an improvement.
They tell you many
things, but they don’t tell you absence makes the heart grow older. Ghostly. As
if one of your what-might-have-been lives just evaporated.
Also, of course,
is the ever-present sense of locality that I love. Malik’s works are
unabashedly desi, and as a reader always eager to find well-written fiction set
in the cities I know and love, I’m glad to see familiar references (the shrine
of Data Ganj Baksh or the River Ravi, for example) threaded in throughout the story.
Written in the form of stories-within-stories, Malik introduces us to the narrative
through a weary traveler settling in for a cup of tea at a late-night tea shop
in Lahore with his friends from abroad.
Thirteen years in the
US, away from the city with hardly a visit, and now, gun to his head, he
couldn’t take them to more than a few landmarks. Lahore had rearranged itself,
indifferent to his memories.
Joined in
by a man claiming to be an oral story-teller, the tale rearranges itself into a
man’s story leading to a woman’s story leading to the story of a goddess-like
figure within the tale, all of them unwinding back to the original group one by
one as the story unfolds. It’s hard to say whether the Urdu word ‘Hikayat’ helps
to define this particular form of storytelling, since all I remember of the
definition of the word is a vague sense memory of the word ‘tale’ or ‘story’ or,
even more specifically, ‘dastaan’, a very specific form of storytelling which
connects to Malik’s tale in its similar threads of oral storytelling, so let’s
assume that that’s what the author was aiming for in his winding, overlapping
narrative.
“How shall it matter
what I want?” I said. “For a woman’s want alone changes neither her fate nor
her fortune.”
Overall, I’m
a big fan of the complexities of the characters, and particularly of how the
cruelty of men towards the women in their lives is a recurring theme. Even though
overall I didn’t care much for the narrative, which lacked the sort of solid, captivating
main characters that I prefer in books I love, the writing style and the themes
slowly grew on me. Luckily, Malik kept enough twists later on in the tale to
ensure that I enjoyed the tale more than I had expected after the first few
paragraphs. And of course, the barely contained rage of the women in the story towards
their male keepers was always a great reason to keep reading.
All these men with
their starched turbans and silver seals want a witness when a woman reports
maltreatment. But have her walk the street, head uncovered, and preachers and
counselors pour out of rat holes, a hundred recriminations in hand. Have her
complain about shabby shoes or threadbare clothes and she’s a squanderer. Have
her try to earn a few extra dirhams washing out men’s filth at the bathhouse
and she is a harlot.
Men are each other’s
brothers and keepers. A woman needs a witness.
I will admit, I was a bit surprised at the vivid sexuality of the characters in this story.
I’m not sure if I’m remembering this right or if Malik’s earlier works were
much more restrained, and that’s the reason I’m so taken aback. Mostly, I
expect Pakistani authors to be the definition of prudish, an unspoken rule which
the lesser-known authors stick to but the more famous ones ignore with impunity
(anything by Mohsin Hamid or Kamila Shamsie will shatter that perspective
quickly). Malik is clearly shedding a metaphorical layer of modesty in crafting
his characters (although I might have to re-read his other stories to be sure),
in quite an interesting turn of events.
I gave up the shawl of
modesty and bought with it notoriety. I kissed men at dusk and women at
midnight. At first, a few times a month, then every week, and eventually every
night.
Overall, a
solid tale, if not absolutely mind-blowing. It’s not as short as a short story
usually is, but it keeps flowing forward swiftly enough to prevent boredom. The
only problem I had overall, and a small, niggling problem it was, was the usage
of Urdu words as proper nouns, such as Baba Kahani, or Dawakhana. I can’t
decide if I find this behaviour charming, a gleeful sort of desi
nudge-nudge-wink-wink to the Urdu reader who will have a greater sense of
context than the average non-Urdu speaker, or just plain pretentiousness,
because a direct translation of words from one language to another is not
really the brilliant literary quirk that these authors (Pakistan-born author Sabaa
Tahr used this to an irritating degree in her ‘Ember in Ashes’ series) seem to
think it is.
Using words
from one language (say, Urdu, in this context) while telling a story in another
(English, here) is, I’m assuming, a debate that has been ongoing in different
literary circles. I remember first encountering it in a Julian Barnes novel and
being both fascinated and horrified. New words from another language! But also,
what in the world did they mean?! Pakistani writers have tried to circumvent
this problem by italicizing the Urdu words they use in their English language books,
an issue I’ve been talking about for ages. Thankfully, Malik doesn’t attempt to
italicize his text to pander for a white audience, but I’m holding out my vote on
how I feel about the sort of lazy writing where you just label a man who tells
stories as Baba Kahani and dust your hands off the whole thing. I’m not sure I’d
label Malik’s writing as lazy, so it stands to reason that the debate can wait
until I can engage with someone who can give me convincing reasons for why this
particular habit seems to be finding fans among desi writers.
Besides
this random and mostly not relevant problem, this tale is easy to recommend.
Representative of a proper Pakistani setting, with good writing, and a
great ending, I’m glad to see that Malik’s writing is only getting better with
time. Honestly, with the kind of stuff he’s writing, I’m only eager to see what
other supernatural creatures he can introduce us to.
“No son of Adam can
help me, nor any daughter of Eve.”
“It is a good thing
then that I am neither,” Zulaikha answered.