I wanted to focus on as to how a literary work can be reflective of the major events that are taking place in a particular place in a particular time period. Godavari is not only a piece of fiction but portrays in many ways what was actually happening in the life of the author Fahmida Riaz. It also depicts the communal violence that was taking place in the region. And to add to all of this, the novella also has bits and pieces of the history of the subcontinent and how the politics and the caste system shaped the future of a community. The mention of the clash of the Marhattas with the armies of Aurangzeb and how the local ‘adi vasi’ tribes were incorporated into the Hindu caste system is a source of pure fascination and takes one back into time.

Apart from the regional Hindu-Muslim communal violence that is took place during the time when the novel was written, the book to some extent shows us how the more global socialist movement was affecting the lives of the people. As with the characters in the novel, Fahmida Riaz herself had to go into exile because of her leftist tendencies and being politically on the wrong side of the Zia regime. But during her time in India she was also disillusioned by the rising secular Indian state, because she found that the state of affairs there was not very different from its neighboring country Pakistan. I would conclude on quoting from her poetry which she wrote after this disillusionment:

تم بلکل ہم جیسے نکلے اب تک کہاں چھپے بھائی وہ مورکھتا وہ گھمارپن

جس میں ہم نے صدیاں گنوائیں آخر پہنچی دعا تمہاری ارے بدھائی بہت  بدھائی

(You turned out to be just like us; Similarly stupid, wallowing in the past, You’ve reached the same doorstep at last. Congratulations, many congratulations)