I started out this story feeling
really excited, because the first few sentences told me immediately that if
nothing else, at least the writing carried promise. This happens sometimes,
when it’s possible to tell within a few lines whether the author can carry the
weight of a tale or not. Identifying competence in the written word, especially
in Pakistani fiction, is always a moment of excitement, because here is an
author worth following. And it helped that the story was based on a really
cool concept. 
Cover Art - Winter 2022 Issue
“The rules are quite clear,” wo whispers. “Woman falls
asleep under tree, jinn can enter. And the path is clear—through the woman’s
long hair. You seem to be woman, yet your hair…”
A girl sitting under a tree
and a jinn trying to occupy her body are tales literally every single female I
know heard growing up. Little girls encouraged to come inside immediately once
the Maghreb azaan was audible, women told not to open their tightly-bound braids when they’re
outside at night, or not sit under trees, or not venture into shaded,
branch-covered areas: all these rules and regulations stemmed from the same belief
that the feminine body somehow acted as a greater siren for the wandering jinn,
who would take the opportunity to hop, skim, and jump into the nearest female
vessel as soon as the sun set. I hadn’t seen this particular myth reflected in
literature yet, which is why the premise felt so new and interesting, and I
wanted to see where it would go.
“Dude are you a fuckboy or a jinn? What kind of trip
am I on? And are you going to possess me and throw me in a river or something?”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t too
impressed. The setting felt fantastical enough, and the premise carried potential,
but the execution was so boring. There was no suspense, no give and take, no
plot building worth tracking. What we did have was a mostly irritating, essentially
pointless conversation with dropped hints about characters in our protagonist’s
past that didn't amount to anything, and multiple usages of the words ‘dude’ and
‘man’ that made me roll my eyes. I think what I wanted was some old school
magic, a nefarious deal struck or ill intentions revealed and thwarted. The
sort of stories that draw you in and leave you feeling satisfied at the turn
around. Instead, what I got was pomp and conceit in the form of Kant and
Nietzche.
“Oh no, only you, the true Kantian subject
capable of ethical decision-making, able to hold the aesthetic of the sublime
douchebag atop your ego-ideal mountain, can have thoughts. Far be it for me to
have interiority, because Nietzsche said GOD IS DEAD—”
I honestly believe that out
of the multiple Pakistani authors I have read, the only one who manages to get
away with making their stories weird and inexplicable is Usman T Malik, and
even he took his sweet time honing his craft before he perfected it. This was a
short story that seemed to carry a probability of greatness, but mostly
squandered it on meaningless rhapsodizing and a plotline that could have been
much more streamlined than it was. And honestly, it wouldn’t be a Tasavvur
story without at least one example of messed-up editing, so here we had one random
word written in the past tense while the rest of the story was firmly in the present.
“Well?” wo spoke.
At this point, I’ve just embraced it. Weakly edited stories with spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, faults in tenses and combined adjectives, and other such problems are mostly the norm for all pieces published in this South Asian anthology of writing. Who knows, maybe it’s one of their requirements.
Given that this is the last Tasavvur
story I’m reviewing for now, having already read plenty of others over the past
few months, I’ve decided to make my peace with it. Overall, we had access to stories
that sometimes lead nowhere and sometimes carried the tinge of promise. Science
fiction and fantasy and the supernatural, all carried equal weight in this
online grouping of texts, and while some were good and some were bad, I just
really, really wish they would hire a better editor.
Jinns by Mehak Khan was published in Issue 001 (Winter 2022) of Tasavvur, an online portal for South Asian writing. The remaining reviews for other Tasavvur stories by Pakistani authors can be found here.