Much of Intizar Husain's work contain shades of 'Jataka' or 'Jatak' stories.The Jataka refers to the literature native to India, which contains stories of Buddha. These Sanskritic stories are mostly supernatural and have a deeply vested Indian culture. Instead of describing different events directly in his work, Intizar Husain prefers a Jataka analogy of it. For example, in his short story "Nar Nari", a woman's brother and husband lose their heads. The woman pledges the goddess to return them. The goddess then tells her to put their heads on their bodies and they will return to life. The woman confuses the heads and the bodies and exchange the heads in hustle. They come to life but she does not have the same feeling for her husband any more. The analogy here is to the partition of the Sub continent. People and Land (dharti) are like the head and the body. Once they are displaced, nothing remains the same. In "Basti" too, Intizar Husain mentions the heads and the bodies on many occasions. Once when in a kingdom, people's heads are fed to the pythons, then at the later half of the novel, heads are hanging from a tree like apples. All these heads and bodies represent the same idea that Intizar Hussain presents.
Similarly, in his novel "Basti", Intizar Husain narrates the story of a father who is dying, he divides his knowledge equally between his two sons and advises them to divide the wealth equally too. After the father's death, greed takes over and they start fighting over the wealth. One brother becomes an elephant and the other becomes a turtle on each others wrath. The fight goes on and on and on. This clearly refers to the relations of India and Pakistan. In the last chapter, Buddha himself appears and one of his followers say "Bastiyan jal rahi hain".
Intizar husain is very careful in using these Jatakas. His language is purely hindi when he is narrating these stories.On one hand these sanskrit stories instill a feeling of Indian culture and style to his writing but on the other hand, they are very difficult to understand and sometimes divert from the main text.
Similarly, in his novel "Basti", Intizar Husain narrates the story of a father who is dying, he divides his knowledge equally between his two sons and advises them to divide the wealth equally too. After the father's death, greed takes over and they start fighting over the wealth. One brother becomes an elephant and the other becomes a turtle on each others wrath. The fight goes on and on and on. This clearly refers to the relations of India and Pakistan. In the last chapter, Buddha himself appears and one of his followers say "Bastiyan jal rahi hain".
Intizar husain is very careful in using these Jatakas. His language is purely hindi when he is narrating these stories.On one hand these sanskrit stories instill a feeling of Indian culture and style to his writing but on the other hand, they are very difficult to understand and sometimes divert from the main text.
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