Zakir, Intizar hussain and Basti

For me, unlike other Partition literature, Basti avoids direct, graphic reportage on the psychological and physical violence inherent to Partition. The political chaos at one level is also interiorized by Zakir. There is, then, an intense feeling of alienation and emptiness that Zakir, as a migrant in a new country, feels. It should be remembered that Husain, now considered a torchbearer of progressive thought in Urdu language and literature, was never a firebrand revolutionary in the way that other luminaries in Urdu are known as. In fact, Zakir’s ambivalence towards politics and resistance is partly reflective of Intizar Sahib’s ideological moorings in the new discourse on jadeediyat or modernism.

Moreover, Zakir’s response to the 1971 war is also intriguing: “sometimes I have absolutely no idea where I am, in what place.” Deep down, Zakir’s fear of a permanent partition, an evergreen wound, becomes fortified with the events of 1971. Displacement, thus, turns into a permanent state of being. This is a feeling that is shared across cultures, if one thinks of the Afghan and Iranian émigrés, of the Congolese and the Rwandans, and so many other people disconnected by history from their “Bastis”. The compact canvas of the novel, as a result, becomes even more poignant.

The grand nature of Basti’s tale, therefore, grows on the reader; like an anti-hero, Basti weaves an epic and also challenges it from within by underlining the grains of nothingness in our everyday lives. Also the ending of the novel was very intriguing as for a moment it seems that it does not have a well-defined ending but when one goes deep into the previous events, no other ending seems very plausible, as it reinforces the melancholy mood and raises more questions about the emptiness of human existence.

also I was greatly influenced by the idea of Kabr (grave) in this novel also mentioned in detail by Mahsa in one of the blogs. the part where Abba jee and the mother are talking about the Kabr and the Kafan was very different in a way that even though they are explicitly talking about the death and the Kabr, but the things like Kahak e Shifa and the Kafan etc have got so much importance for them over the actual matters of death and Kabr and till the last moment abba jee hands out Zakir the rare and sacred things from his box which are extremely important to him.