Taking stock of the vagaries of life

Karachi
The galaxy of both budding and seasoned writers and intellectuals, gathered at the Karachi Press Club on Saturday evening, gave a profound insight into the conundrum called life, life with all vagaries, with all its rigmaroles and futility.
The occasion was an evening of short stories by various writers and poets.
They all read their short stories highlighting the rigours and grueling paradoxes of life.
Among those who read their works were:
Rafiullah Mian: In his story titled, “Gandam Ka Bulbula”, he portrays the life of a Tandoorwala who sits all day along the Tandoor (an earthenware oven) for baking Rotis. He perspires profusely. He has to get the glaring heat but has to bear all those rigours just to earn a living and one fine day, it’s all over. His rigours come to an end because he comes to an end, drowned in a sea of anonymity.
Humera Sarwat Siddiqi: in her short story, “Siah Khaq”, she makes a delicate yet profound treatment of the compulsions of life, situations where one has to reach compromises at various junctures of life, where one has to bow before situations which one may not like to even think of because necessity or expediency demands these.
Hanif Omar: In his story titled, “Ek Mazloom Aurat Ki Dastaan”, he tells the story of mismatches brought about by societal pressures and a terribly arbitrary value pattern.
It is the story of a woman who gets married, but soon after her marriage, it transpires that the husband is a chronic drug addict and an idler. He physically abuses the wife, often with the children
looking on. She leaves him but then she’s approached by her in-laws and their friends to return on the plea that the husband is now a transformed man. They plead with her invoking the age-old palliative of “family honour”.
She decides to return but on getting back she finds that the in-laws’ assurances were all a cruel myth.
It is a poignant commentary on the way women are treated in our society and the author has been successful in pricking the readers’ sensitivities in bringing home the discriminatory treatment women are subjected to in our society.
Dr Sabeen Hashmat: Her story, “Khali Dabba”, tells the story of an unconscious child who is found atop a garbage heap. He is picked up by a teenager and when he takes him home, everyone is in a quandary as to what could be done with the child, how to get him back where he belongs.
Ultimately, after a whole lot of rigmaroles, he ends up in the hands of two conmen who would obviously use him for their nefarious ends.
Shakir Anwar: His short story dealt with the way a woman’s body becomes the object of exploitation and shame in the face of economic hardship.
It is the story of a man who comes face-to-face with a woman of easy virtue. He asks her the price for her services to which she replies “Rs5,000” while he’s not willing to part with over Rs500. On a later occasion, he again meets her and this time she quotes only Rs500 as the price. On probing, it turns out that she’s in dire need of money and she’s operating as she is because her husband is terminally ill with cancer and another kin of hers is also seriously ill and she’s in dire need of money for their treatment. One is taken on a journey of pathos on hearing this heart-rending tale.
Iqbal Khursheed: His “Zamindar Ki Beti” is the story of the clash of feudal and egalitarian values. A computer engineer who has a humble origin falls in love for the daughter of a feudal. As expected lots of
hindrances in the fruition of this relationship take place till one day the young engineer jumps from a six-storeyed building and makes and end of himself.
Critic Saba Ikram praised the standard of the writings and lauded the literary talent in society.
Peerzada Salman, while praising the talent, said that unfortunately, the reading habit was not there the way it should have been.