Three years ago, someone bought me a collection of short stories from Pakistan, titled 'Do you suppose it's the East Wind?' It was a well-thought-out gift for someone who was a sporadic reader with an interest in stories from 'across the border.' Somehow, the book stayed untouched and unattended to till today. It's not uncharacteristic as I tend to accumulate titles, even when there is no urgency to read them. This evening, I picked it up on an impulse. Five stories and a hundred pages into it, I can't help thinking that something is off.
None of the stories I have read so far has drawn me out of a reader's space and into the author's world. The stories and its characters seem strangely distant. At first I put it down to the translation. The originals are all in Urdu so maybe the English translation has robbed them of their depth and idioms. Or maybe it's something else. Maybe the partition- and shared-identity-narrative has run its course. These stories don't move us much because the wounds don't hurt as much. The next generation will probably see the neighbours as just that and not have to tie knots to the stray ends of our history. We may even realize that the partition is not the blemish we have made it out to be, but a resolution. Of course, by that I mean partition as an outcome and not an event, which will hurt forever. Maybe the next generation on both sides will be able to get along just fine without having to call upon the shared heritage and history. If so, such stories will become less relevant. They will always remain important but will no longer run through our veins. That healing might have started already.
Or maybe, I'm reading too much. Either way, I will persist with this book and let it speak to me in a manner it chooses.
None of the stories I have read so far has drawn me out of a reader's space and into the author's world. The stories and its characters seem strangely distant. At first I put it down to the translation. The originals are all in Urdu so maybe the English translation has robbed them of their depth and idioms. Or maybe it's something else. Maybe the partition- and shared-identity-narrative has run its course. These stories don't move us much because the wounds don't hurt as much. The next generation will probably see the neighbours as just that and not have to tie knots to the stray ends of our history. We may even realize that the partition is not the blemish we have made it out to be, but a resolution. Of course, by that I mean partition as an outcome and not an event, which will hurt forever. Maybe the next generation on both sides will be able to get along just fine without having to call upon the shared heritage and history. If so, such stories will become less relevant. They will always remain important but will no longer run through our veins. That healing might have started already.
Or maybe, I'm reading too much. Either way, I will persist with this book and let it speak to me in a manner it chooses.
