Category Archives: Pakistani

May 16, 2013 · 1:13 pm

The Blind Man’s Garden by Nadeem Aslam

Blind Man's GardenWho needs films when writers like Nadeem Aslam can create such eloquent canvases that no celluloid could ever hope to project? Blind Man’s Garden takes you deep into the tragic ‘war on terror’ and shows you the very lives of the individuals who must live through (or not) the shattering decisions of faraway leaders, governments, and regimes.

Mikal and Jeo grow up as brothers in a small town in Pakistan – Jeo is the son of former schoolmaster Rohan who takes in Mikal and his older brother Basie when they lose their own parents. When Jeo, training to be a doctor, secretly decides to go to Afghanistan in hopes of caring for the human collateral damage from the post-9/11 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Mikal immediately decides to join him.

Both young men leave behind their shared family, including the same beloved, Naheed – she who loved Mikal first, but married Jeo at last. The brothers embark on a Odyssean journey to nowhere fueled by a fierce hope to return home. With all their fates unknown, Naheed mourns and waits, her mother Tara desperately fights what she believes is inevitable, and Rohan attempts to save another man’s young boy as he was unable to save his late wife from eternal damnation. The family, splintered by ideologies and violence gone awry, will never be the same again … and yet somehow, a much-transformed new family will inevitably survive …

In spite of needing to finish Aslam’s fourth and latest novel because of a looming interview deadline (I know, lucky me!), I lost all my usual reading alacrity as I approached book’s end, so as to avoid actually reaching that final page. Now as I ready myself for the authorly exchange, I’m bereft that that preparation cost me any lingering comfort of knowing I still had more Aslam to read. Alas, I must settle into waiting mode for his next novel; and patience was never, ever my virtue.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2013

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March 18, 2013 · 9:43 am

Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid

Moth SmokeLet’s work ourselves from the outside in … that is, from the first and last pages, and so on towards the novel’s center.

Outermost layer 1 (presented in italics): The aging, ailing Emperor Shah Jahan asks a Sufi saint which of his sons will inherit his coveted throne.

Penultimate layer 2 (chapters one and nine, italics lost): An unnamed man in a jail cell “full of shadows” receives an envelope … and eventually begins to read.

The core: The prime characters just happen to share the names of Emperor Shah Jahan’s family. Did you pay attention? And what exactly are their relationships to each other?

Darushikoh Shezad is the man accused. In brave new Pakistan – powered by cell phones and the growing possibility of nuclear power – the once promising Daru has been fired from his bank job. Unable to find work, he loses himself further when his recreational drug use becomes abusive, fueled by his sometime dealer Murad. Recently reunited with his childhood best friend Aurangzeb (Ozi, to his nearest and dearest) who has returned to Pakistan with his American degrees, Daru is immediately enthralled by his almost-brother’s gorgeous new wife Mumtaz. As the title hints, think moths – far too close to the proverbial flame …

Mohsin Hamid – Pakistani-born, Princeton and Harvard educated, peripatetically domiciled – layers, weaves, and transforms his global experiences to create a rare debut novel that hit shelves 13 years ago with confidence and grace, engaging and disturbing both. If you’re wondering about the audible version, it’s read by actor Satya Babha (watch for him in Deepa Mehta’s film adaptation of Midnight’s Children, hitting U.S. theaters this May), and is quite an enriched experience – Babha’s affected stutter for Murad (not on the page), for example, is a daring enhancement.

In the decade-plus that follows Hamid’s lauded literary entry (Moth won a 2001 Betty Trask Award, was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Hemingway Award, and shortlisted for the 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book), time had only made him better: The Reluctant Fundamentalist and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia are both not-to-be-missed-read-right-now(!) titles. That said, I must responsibly offer a sobering reminder: savor Hamid’s novels wisely, because patience will need to be a virtue while we wait, wait, wait for his as-yet-unpublished titles to come.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2000

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March 13, 2013 · 9:35 am

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising AsiaI realize it’s only March, but I’m pretty convinced Mohsin Hamid‘s latest will be one of my top three favorites for 2013. True, such a pronouncement might seem rash in a year that will see new titles from Nadeem Aslam (The Blind Man’s Garden next month), Khaled Hosseini (And the Mountains Echoed in May), and Jumpha Lahiri (The Lowland in September). But life is short … so I judge instantly.

If Tash Aw’s latest Five Star Billionaire (his best novel thus far – my review’s been filed and will cross-post here soon-ish) was a savory, satisfying appetizer evoking a taste of accelerating economic power on the other side of the world, then Rich is a complex, rewarding dessert with the perfect blend of lightness and depth.

In another ‘gawww’-induced case of less-is-more (just read Rich already!), here’s a simple overview: the youngest child in a poor rural family moves to the city, becomes a wealthy magnate, and reveals in 12 seemingly simple steps the secrets of his vast success. Lest you think such a tale is all too familiar, I promise you this is a lasting original.

Hamid is a most clever trickster – masterfully sly like no other! – and in just 228 pages, he manages to create a literary tapestry comprised of an everlasting first-love story (“‘Do I look as old as you do?’”), a skewering parody (“The master at whose feet you metaphorically squat is a middle-aged man with the long fingers of an artist and the white-tufted ear hair of a primate resistant to lethal tympanic parasites”), a Midas-scale tragedy (“You take this news as well as possible, which is to say you do not die”), and ultimately, quite the treatise on reading and writing and the intricate relationship in between (“Readers don’t work for writers. They work for themselves. Therein, if you’ll excuse the admittedly biased tone, lies the richness of reading.”)

Presented in a playful, almost cajoling vernacular addressed to ‘you,’ Rich is too delightful to miss. As I said, life is short … read this instantly.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2013

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February 8, 2012 · 11:39 am

The Wish Maker by Ali Sethi

I confess the main reason I finally plucked this debut novel (written by its author when he was just 23) from my never-shrinking ‘to-read’ pile was because I found the audible version is narrated by Indian American actor Firdous Bamji. After finishing Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, I was missing Bamji’s transporting characterizations … alas, even Bamji couldn’t bring enough sparkle to the ultimately disappointing, overwritten family saga.

Wish Maker basically begins where it will end (don’t worry: no spoilers): narrator Zaki Shirazi arrives in his native Pakistan from his U.S. college in the first chapter to attend the wedding of his cousin-raised-as-his-sister Samar Api, the event which will mark the novel’s end. Over the 400-plus pages in between, we meet the many women – yes, the men are mostly absent – that shape and influence Zaki’s young life: his imperious, power-wielding conservative grandmother who is the family matriarch; his widowed, liberal, feminist mother often at odds with the matriarch; and, of course, his free-spirited, rule-defying cousin-sister Samar Api (who is, actually, Zaki’s father’s first cousin, the daughter of his grandmother’s younger sister, to be absolutely accurate).

Sethi gingerly overlays three generations of Pakistan’s tumultuous history – from its violent separation from East Pakistan-turned-Bangladesh to the controversial leadership of Benazir Bhutto to the country’s ongoing struggles toward democracy – with reminders of the unexpected influences of western pop culture (The Wonder Years!) and the closer-to-home fantasies created by Bollywood. Sethi is never overtly political except to allow Zaki’s mother an occasional anti-colonial diatribe, but he does remain keenly aware of the inequity of gender-based privilege throughout. Undoubtedly, the characterization of Samar Api’s mother remains the most memorable by story’s end.

I (again) confess that I don’t have any glaring, obvious reasons as to why Wish Maker eventually proved so lackadaisical a read (and listen); surely it seems to have had all the potential elements to be stupendous (including that 23-year-old wunderkind bravado!). But bottom line: at 432 hardcover pages or 11 hours in narration, such a time commitment is inevitably better spent with others … in Pakistan alone, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Kamila Shamsie, Mohammad Hanif, Mohsin Hamid, Bapsi Sidhwa all beckon with unforgettable tales.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2009

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December 10, 2010 · 9:49 am

Leo the Snow Leopard: The True Story of an Amazing Rescue by Juliana Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff, and Craig Hatkoff

Given this morning’s short flurries here in DC, had to post something with SNOW in the title!

Welcome to Leo‘s world, brought to you by the same bestselling, award-winning Hatkoff family team that introduced the world to the heartwarming hippo/tortoise duo, Owen and Mzee. That literary sensation has spawned a whole series, The Turtle Pond Collection, which brings “remarkable stories of hope and friendship about real animals and real wold issues …” Inspiring indeed, huh?

Their latest heartwarming true story takes readers to the high peaks of the Karakoram mountains in Pakistan where baby Leo was found mewing, lost, and hungry, his mother nowhere in sight. Because snow leopard cubs need some two years with their mother to learn the skills to survive life in their treacherous natural habitat of freezing temperatures amidst tall mountains, Leo was at grave risk out there “all alone.” Temporarily adopted by a goat herder and his family, Leo eventually finds his home thousands of miles away in New York’s Bronx Zoo.

If I tell you too much here about Leo’s journey filled with seeming impossibilities, then you won’t need to read the book …. and that would be a shame because you need to at least see all the wonderful photos within. Leo is not camera-shy, that’s for sure. Plus, happy stories read together cuddled under warm blankets while the world outside turns snowy white are what this holiday season is all about, right …? So don’t miss this cozy sharing opportunity …

Readers: Children

Published: 2010

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November 14, 2010 · 8:02 pm

At Home with Madhur Jaffrey: Simple, Delectable Dishes from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka by Madhur Jaffrey

What perfect timing! Madhur Jaffrey‘s newest cookbook makes for a toothsome companion to one of last week’s posts, Indivisible, the first anthology that brings together contemporary American poets who trace their roots to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Put the two titles together and you’ll be salivating over the unlimited possibilities for literary feasts: read a few choice pieces from Indivisible, then prepare and share some delectable delights from Jaffrey’s latest. Without a doubt, Jaffrey is the empress of the South Asian kitchen for the most delicious reasons and her new cookbook is a gorgeous, colorful spread for the eyes as well as the palate.

South Asian cooking often seems “daunting,” Jaffrey admits, because of what seems to be a complex combination of just-right spices and seasonings. But Jaffrey is determined to simplify some of those recipes for you here, and even promises to “hold your hand through the entire process with clear instructions and detailed explanations.” How can you turn away from such an enticing offer as that?

My tummy’s already rumbling again … Salmon in a Bengali Mustard Sauce, Everyday Moong Dal, Green Lentils with Green Bean and Cilantro, Peach Salad, all enhanced by the perfect cup of Masala Chai … read and eat. Read and eat some more … mmmm, mmmmm, mmmmmmm …

Readers: Adult

Published: 2010

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Filed under ..Adult Readers, .Nonfiction, Bangladeshi, Indian, Indian American, Pakistani, Sri Lankan

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May 26, 2010 · 11:33 am

In the Name of Honor by Mukhtar Mai with Marie-Thérèse Cuny, translated by Linda Coverdale, foreword by Nicholas D. Kristof

Mukhtar Mai’s story is heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, even nauseating … but ultimately, her story of inexplicable violence is not about being a victim but a testament to inspiring empowerment of girls and women all over the world through the power of education.

Eight years ago, I got an email from a longtime friend that the New York Times‘ Nicholas D. Kristof (who provides the foreword here) was raising funds to help a gang-rape victim keep her school going in rural Pakistan. After reading the shattering story, I had no choice but to immediately send a check. As Kristof and co-writer/wife Sheryl WuDunn write in their bestselling, life-changing title, Half the Sky, even $27 can change lives for the better forever.

By order of the village council, Mukhtar Mai was brutally raped by four men, as justified punishment for a crime her younger brother did not commit. As a skinny 12-years-old, Mai’s brother was jailed and repeatedly beaten and sodomized for allegedly raping a woman in her 20s who was part of the village’s powerful, lawless, ruling caste. Brutalizing the alleged perpetrator was not enough; Mai’s body became further battleground for degradation.

Expected to commit suicide to save her family from further disgrace, Mai was prepared to die. But something propelled her to get up, report the crime to the police, and demand justice. The police tried desperately to silence her, taking advantage of her illiteracy to create false reports on blank papers which bore her thumbprint.

In spite of such illegal efforts, Mai’s story began to make national headlines, and then the world literally arrived at her door, ready to hear her voice. The Pakistani government was forced to respond, and awarded her a sum equal to $8,500. Having spent most of her life unable to read and write, Mai had been victimized not only by her attackers, but also the police and government because of that illiteracy. Mai was determined that what had happened to her would not happen to other girls and women: with that blood money, Mai started a school, to give the girls strong voices and to teach the boys that a woman’s body is not a war zone.

While the international articles made the world aware about Mai’s story, her memoir adds further depth to her ongoing journey towards justice. Change has come slowly, but the struggle continues. She talks about how silence, obedience, and the denial of knowledge are passed on from mother to daughter in an endless cycle of ‘honor’: “Submission is compulsory,” she explains, then insists, “… knowledge must be given to girls, and as soon as possible, before their mothers bring them up the same way they were raised themselves.” She talks about the three different legal systems women must adhere to, religious, governmental, and tribal which can too often trump all official laws. She talks about the importance of deep relationships with other women, and how her own friendship with a distant cousin gave her courage and literally saved her life.

Read and weep. And then be inspired, energized, empowered to make the world just … in small, major, any, many ways.

To read further updates about Mukhtar Mai since the release of this memoir, check the New York Times news page.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2006 (United States)

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March 18, 2010 · 12:45 pm

Half Life by Roopa Farooki

I don’t know why the galley’s back cover touts “shades of Slumdog Millionaire and The Namesake” because this book has no overlaps with either of those titles, much less their authors, or even locations! Really, not all brown people look alike – authors or their characters! Slumdog (based on the even-better than-film book Q&A)  is a Mumbai story by an Indian diplomat now based in South Africa. Namesake (with the film version better than the original book) is about an immigrant Indian family and their American-born son by a Brooklyn-based Indian American.

And don’t even get me started on the cover – it represents no one in the book, much less any situation within the book’s pages!

All that superfluous stuff aside, once you get about 30 pages or so into Half Life to familiarize yourself with the three alternating voices, you’ll probably not be able to put it down. Roopa Farooki, a Pakistani-born, London-reared, Oxford-educated, southeast UK/southwest France-domiciled author of three previous novels, follows a pair of lost lovers and a father from London to Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, with memory stops throughout the South Asian subcontinent.

“It’s time to stop fighting, and go home,” Aruna reads in a poetry collection one morning partway through breakfast in her London flat. And that’s exactly what she does. With only her purse and passport in hand – at least she changed out of her sleepwear – she leaves her house keys, her too-adoring doctor husband of a year who has already left for work, and their London flat that was never a home. She heads to Heathrow in a daze and boards a plane to Singapore. On the other side awaits her past – Jazz, her childhood best friend and lover since adolescence, the first person she left without a word. Meanwhile, in a Kuala Lumpur hospital, Jazz’s elderly father Hassan desperately awaits his son’s forgiveness for untold secrets so he can finally be free of his painful life.

Together, Aruna and Jazz must figure out who they are, especially who they are to each other. While she’s managed to wean herself from the harder drugs, Aruna’s addictive habits keep her not quite balancing on the right side of alcoholic smoker and sex addict; self-medication is clearly not working. Jazz has shut down his own heart, squandering his literary talents and churning out one exotic-setting, happy-ending romance after another. His father, a lauded poet, is fighting his failing body, hoping to stay alive just long enough to tell his son the truth of his relationship with his son’s late mother. With so many swirling secrets, you’ll probably guess one or two along the way … but don’t get too comfortable, because Farooki is very adept at turning your expectations upside down yet again …

Half Life debuts in May, so hopefully the galley’s back page at the very least proves to be just a temporary marker and the publishing-powers will realize Farooki’s original work can very-well-thank-you-very-much stand all on its own.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2010

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November 11, 2009 · 10:48 pm

Kartography by Kamila Shamsie

KartographyOh, how sad to think this is the very last book by Shamsie I had left to read … I actually stopped for a few days thinking I might savor it bit by bit, having been told by Shamsie herself last weekend at SALTAF 2009 that she hadn’t even started her next title because she was going to too many festivals all over the world. Oh, the irony, the irony … to think we hunted her down to come to the Smithsonian and now we’ll have to wait that much longer for her next volume!

But back to Kartography. At its core, Shamsie’s novel is a wrenching love story. Raheen and Karim, introduced to one another almost at birth, are destined to grow up intertwined, the very best of friends. Their parents are a seemingly carefree, laughing foursome who have a long history together. Raheen’s father was once engaged to Karim’s mother, while Raheen’s mother was paired with Karim’s father, until everyone magically realized who really belonged with whom … and everyone was supposed to live happily ever after …

As Raheen and Karim enter adolescence, their home city of Karachi, Pakistan is in dangerous turmoil. Concerned for their safety, the parents send the two to stay with old friends in the country. There Raheen starts asking questions she is not prepared to hear the answers to … but a shift happens in her perception of an idyllic past and she is right in suspecting that all the lightness and good humor of her happy young life is about to collapse.

Karachi is no longer safe, especially for Mujahir, or immigrants. Reminders of the horrors of the 1971 Indo-Pakistani/Bangladesh Liberation War – which the four parents somehow survived without too many visible scars – threaten to resurface as violence escalates. Karim’s family moves to London – Karim leaves Raheen with a map of their lives together in hopes of keeping them connected. For seven years, they remain separated by distance, not only in miles but by their own emotional stupor over their loss of one another. Karim’s parents’ marriage fails. Raheen leaves Karachi for college in New York. Karim – who continues to use maps to order his world – wanders the globe.

When the two are finally reunited in Karachi for the engagement of one of their closest mutual childhood friends, misunderstandings continue to keep them apart. Again, Karachi’s streets are anything but safe. Secrets threaten to sever all hope of reunion until memory by memory, landmark by landmark, the lovers must figure out  – through their Karachi Kartography and beyond – their way back together again.

Kartography marks a turning point in Shamsie’s writing. The effortless cleverness of her first two novels, In the City by the Sea and Salt and Saffron, has matured into deeper, intense emotions that begin here and continue through Broken Verses, although moments of clever humor have certainly not disappeared in either. Her writing is addictive in its ability to simultaneously break your heart and make you laugh – no pain, no gain, right? But the book that takes your breath away, that will continue to haunt you long after, remains Burnt Shadows. You should have been in the audience last weekend when Shamsie mesmerized all. She really did save the best for last. For now, anyway … but hurry up with that next book, already!

Readers: Adult

Published: 2002, 2003 (United States)

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November 1, 2009 · 8:38 pm

In the City by the Sea by Kamila Shamsie

In the City by the SeaKamila Shamsie’s debut novel is now the same age as her first protagonist, 11-year-old Hasan, the only child of a lauded artist and a once powerful lawyer. The trio live surrounded by extended family and friends in ‘the city by the sea’ of Karachi, Pakistan. Up on his roof one afternoon, enjoying his favorite pomegranate, Hasan cheers with great excitement as the sea breezes catch the yellow kite of another young boy a few rooftops away. The delighted flyer watches his colorful dancing speck rather than his own footing, and plummets to his tragic death.

Hasan shrinks into silent denial … and tragedy begets more tragedy as his idyllic existence crumbles. His beloved uncle Salman, once a powerful political force, has endured house arrest surrounded by entertaining family members who indulge him his silly jokes and his love of pine cones. But suddenly, he is arrested and disappears. His reeling family has 40 days to figure out how they might save him. Hasan, imaginative and obsessed, is convinced that if he can only figure out what Salman’s spirit wants, he can win his precious uncle’s freedom.

Shamsie somehow manages to effortlessly mix Shakespeare, The Wizard of Oz, and Turkish prison poems into a whimsical prose that never fails to entertain, even in light of tragic death and unjust political persecution. Her characters both haunt and delight. Whether mourning or celebrating, Shamsie is just so surprisingly clever, you can’t put her good books down.

Tidbit: Don’t forget that Shamsie arrives at the Smithsonian THIS Saturday, November 7, for SALTAF 2009. You’re not going to miss this chance to meet her in livetime!

Readers: Adult

Published: 1998 (United Kingdom)

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