AGAME OFSHAME
A Pakistani novelist explores questions of morality
On reading Farooqi’s luminous first novel, The Story of a Widow, I intuited it might prove a hard act to follow. And so it has. Not that this new work is in any way an inept offering— it simply suffers painfully from comparison with its outstanding precursor. The story gets off to an excruciatingly slow start; setting the scene takes nearly 40 pages with quite a bit of repetition. However, once it gets going, what we have are two parallel tales of pride, ambition, and the inevitable fall from grace of the joint protagonists— a wrestler and a courtesan.
Ustad Ramzi, the pahalwan, is the top title- holder in his sport, with many aspiring trainees and a huge fan following. Gohar Jan is a tawaif, a kothawali who is similarly at the top of her game, with a house full of young nayikas or trainees, and a large clientele which faithfully arrives each evening to be bewitched by her singing and dancing skills. Ramzi has a brother, Tamami, far younger than he, who aspires to take over the title of Ustad- e- Zaman, held by his brother. Tamami is the most appealing character in the book, with a doglike devotion to the inflexible diktats and punishing regimens imposed upon him by his elder brother who is driven by a pigheaded adherence to what he claims are the traditions of his forefathers, but which he realises too late are the result of false pride and a reluctance to cede his preeminent position. He refuses to let Tamami take part in title bouts, asserting that he is not ready, despite the pleadings of his brother and other pahalwans in the akhara. Similarly, Gohar Jan has adopted Malka— a foundling left on her doorstep, and has inculcated in the girl all the accomplishments and graces required of a tawaif, but is steadfast in her refusal to let her perform in front of audiences. As Ustad Ramzi is coldheartedly aloof from his brother, so is Gohar Jan stonily unloving with Malka, whose whole existence is dedicated to obtaining a word of praise from her adoptive mother.
These relationships set the scene in the akhara and the kotha for the kind of explorations of motives, actions and causes that Farooqi does so well. The key characters are aware of their ethical dilemmas and moral ambiguities vis- à- vis the people they have a duty to protect. There are some superbly written set pieces, including a segment on the training regimen of Tamami before a fight, and another which dwells on the cynical manipulation of rising young stars by promoters and managers who flatter only to deceive.
Despite the quality of writing, what mars the novel is that its tone is relentlessly glum. There is none of the humour, sometimes gentle and sometimes astringent, that enlivened The Story of a Widow. The tenor of this tale is sombre, unrelieved by lighter sentiment. At one point Farooqi describes Ramzi’s life as an “exhausting journey through the pits of humiliation and shame”. That phrase could just as well be a summary of this novel.