Since that fateful day my father asked me to punctuate the following sentence: That that is that is that and that that is not that is not. Naturally
Rendering Karachi on pages
“Since that fateful day my father asked me to punctuate the following sentence: That that is that is that and that that is not that is not. Naturally, I retorted, “Comma after the sixth word, sir!” Papa could be difficult but I knew then that he had in an indirect way communicated to me his aspiration for me to be a phenomenologist even if he would deny it vehemently afterwards.” H. M Naqvi reads an excerpt from his upcoming novel, a comic epic in prose at Karachi Literature Festival ‘17 (KLF).
Though KLF this year had more sessions on politics, I was able to attend a lively sneak preview of The Selected works of Abdullah (the Cossack) that gave audience and H.M.Naqvi a chance to talk about their love for Karachi.
The story of my city
The readers would be struck by how much the novel is actually about the city even though it has Abdullah’s (narrator) autobiographical stories about himself when he was younger and the contemporary narrative about his present condition.
The narrator of the novel is a septuagenarian, a scion of a Karachi business family and lives in that part of the city which is not frequented much, towards Numaish and Garden. He has to contend with the change of fortune and with the family that has fallen apart - literally and figuratively. This is a way Naqvi conceived of a novel in Karachi; this is a metaphor for where we have been and where we are now. Abdullah (the Cossack) is large literally and figuratively. He is larger than life; and there is more to him than just character. There is the story of the city in the protagonist of the book.
As far as the book goes, the reader would find a nostalgic sense of how certain ethos of Karachi have changed with time. There might have been a time when the administrators took their jobs seriously, when denizens adhered to certain principles. And, there are details of how Karachi has changed demographically over time; like people who have lived in Delhi for years complain that Delhi has become Punjabi.
When people ask whose city is this, we say it’s everyone’s city. The demographic homogeneity of this city is its strength: this makes Karachi unique and amazing! As a character in The Selected works of Abdullah (the Cossack) shouts, “This is Currachee, my city! I could be Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal, Hindoo, Amil, Parsee. I could be Shia, Sunni, Ismaili, Bohra, Barelvi, Sufi, Chishty, Naqshbandy, Suharwardy, wajoodi, malamati, dehria, anything, everything.”
What’s in Karachi?
When asked for what compelled him to write a novel about Karachi, H.M. Naqvi said, “The compulsion is it’s my city!” The urge was to represent the city on page, which was a tall ambition. “I may fall flat on my face because it is a city that has now by some accounts become the sixth largest in the world,” Naqvi said.
Framji Minwala, the moderator of the session, told the audience how H. M.Naqvi would take endless walks around Garden searching for the right house and road to describe. Why would he do that?
“When my grandparents arrived, they stayed in Paposh Nagar and Numaish; one could know a lot about the city but the city keeps changing!” For this particular project, he walked the streets imagining what particular neighbourhood would have been like before. He met boys who took him to the owner of a wonderful old house. He tried to get into the house; at first, the proprietor seemed weary of talking to a bald stranger but then he warmed up. The owner spoke about his family in the 40s; they would rent a tonga for a day and head to Malir to pick fruits from the orchids. The texture of life is different at a certain juncture and that is how he rediscovered parts of the city.
“As a novelist, I need to get all these sorts of information. I don’t have great imagination; I have to work with what I see around me,” Naqvi shared.
When imagination fails
“If I were to set a novel in Papua New Guinea, I would have to go there to write. One can research on the net, but the smells, the sounds and the texture of life are things I can’t recreate from my thoughts.” He engaged the audience by talking about the times when people in Garden and Saddar could hear lion roar from the zoo; the mothers would say to their children, “If you don’t go to bed, the lion will come out of the cage.” Now, this is impossible in Karachi where you can’t even hear your own thoughts.
When a writer puts a bunch of characters on the page, they do things themselves. Each episode is pregnant with possibility so Naqvi doesn’t map out a novel at its inception. The characters suggest what would happen next. “In a way, it’s not really my imaginative prowess; it’s the characters suggesting what needs to be done,” he added.
Characters are masters
You create characters out of nothing; it is as if you are looking at a blank canvas and suddenly a name like Ataullah comes out of it! The writer then blows life into it. “I remember somebody coming up to me, thanking me for putting him in the novel though I had no clue as to who he was.” This is the greatest compliment a writer could get! You are over the moon when you get to know that the readers are able to connect and sympathize with the characters you created.
Being partial to plot-driven fiction like thrillers and mysteries, Naqvi pays attention to crafting compelling characters. The novel Oliver Twist is remembered more for its character Oliver Twist, an orphan trying to negotiate with life, than for its beginning or ending.
Transcending its topicality
Would people living in other cities of the world read a book set in Karachi? A lady from the audience who had read Homeboy - Naqvi’s first novel - expressed her fears. She asked, “Don’t you think this would narrow down your readership?”
To assure her, he said, “If you go to Sunday Bazar, you will find several copies of Hundred Years of Solitude by Márquez. The narrative is embedded in the politics of South America, but it is written in such a compelling way that it seems like it’s our story.” A good story will resonate with the readers no matter where it is set. That’s why Checkov’s writings on middle-class anxieties in Russia are read all over the world and have been translated into several languages.
Being the sixth largest city of the world, Karachi became the subject of several novels. 38 Bahadurabad by Zeeba Sadiq, The Scatter Here is too Great by Bilal Tanweer, The Prisoner by Omar Shahid Hamid, Karachi You’re Killing Me by Saba Imtiaz, In the city by the Sea by Kamila Shamsie are just few novels set in the city of lights.
