I’ve wanted to read Intizar Husain’s classic novel ‘Basti‘ for a long time. I finally got around to reading it.
The story starts in the early 1970s, sometime before the start of the war in Bangladesh. Zakir is a history teacher in college. He lives in Lahore. (The city is not named in the story but it looks like Lahore.) There is a kind of unrest in the streets. It takes Zakir’s mind back to an earlier time, to the early 1940s, when Zakir and his family were living in a small town in India. We get to see the story and history unfold through Zakir’s eyes, as the story moves back and forth between the 1940s and the 1970s and even moves further back to the 1850s. All these time periods had traumatic events which resulted in many innocent people getting killed and getting displaced from their homes, and we get an eerie feeling that history as tragedy just keeps repeating itself.
The contrast between the 1940s and the 1970s is so beautifully depicted – different time periods, different countries, separated by a traumatic event. The depiction of the 1940s is charming at the beginning till things turn dark because of the Partition and the ensuing violence.
I loved the way Intizar Husain blends literature and mythology from different cultures seamlessly into the story. The notes section and the glossary at the end of the book were very informative and were a pleasure to read. I learnt a lot from there.
I loved many of the characters in the book. Zakir’s father Abba Jan was one of my favourite characters in the book and he speaks some of my favourite lines from the story. Zakir’s cousin and beloved Sabirah who ends up in India while he moves to Pakistan was another of my favourite characters in the book.
Intizar Husain’s prose is beautiful and it was a pleasure to read. I couldn’t stop highlighting my favourite passages – there were so many.
The book has a brilliant introduction by Muhammad Umar Memon which discusses and analyzes the plot. It is best read after reading the book. There is also a beautiful interview with Intizar Husain at the end, which is a pleasure to read.
These days ‘Basti’ is published by NYRB. I personally feel that NYRB just buys the rights of pioneering editions and translations which came out earlier and puts them out at prohibitive prices. The edition of ‘Basti’ I read is by Oxford University Press. If you can get hold of this edition, it is much better than NYRB – hardback, thick paper, big font, and so an absolute pleasure to read.
‘Basti’ is one of the masterpieces of Pakistani Urdu literature. It was moving, haunting and heartbreaking. I loved it and I’m glad I finally read it though it took me a while to get to it. I’ve heard that Intizar Husain is famous for his short stories and so hoping to read one of his short story collections sometime.
I’ll leave you with some of my favourite passages from the book.
“Just then thunder rumbled in the clouds, scaring them both, and at once the rain came down so hard that before they got from the open roof to the staircase they were both drenched.
How forcefully the rainy season began! Inside, outside, everywhere was commotion; but when it went on raining at a steady pace, the atmosphere slowly filled with a kind of sadness and voices were gradually silenced. When evening fell, the stray call of a peacock came from deep in the forest, and mingled more sadness with the sad, rainy evening. Then night came, and the rain-soaked darkness grew deep and dense. If anyone woke in the night, the rain was falling as though it had been raining for an endless eternity, and would keep on raining for an endless eternity. But that night was so well-populated by voices.”
******
“The rain poured down all night inside him. The dense clouds of memory seemed to come from every direction. Now the sky was washed and soft. Here and there a cloud swam contentedly in it, like a bright face, a soft smile. How deeply self-absorbed he was! For him, the outer world had already lost its meaning.”
“Other people’s history can be read comfortably, the way a novel can be read comfortably. But my own history? I’m on the run from my own history, and catching my breath in the present. Escapist. But the merciless present pushes us back again toward our history. The mind keeps talking.”
“Zavvar was the youngest of us all, but he established himself among us as a learned scholar, and his brilliance and maturity of mind fully made up for his youthfully downy cheeks. At such an early age, after reading books of all types and descriptions, he announced that wisdom doesn’t come from books, but from passing through the experiences of life. Thus, in search of wisdom, he sat for a few days with Afzal, trying out liquor. Then, believing it inadequate, he tried marijuana, hashish, and opium. Taking baths, changing clothes, and shaving he considered to be a waste of time, and insofar as possible he avoided such extravagances. Partly because his shoes were rather old, and partly because they were unpolished and covered with dust and dirt, they looked ancient. He himself took out and threw away their inner soles, and contrived to leave the nails protruding. He used to walk for miles, and come back to the Shiraz with his heels covered with blood.
“Yar, why don’t you get a shoemaker to fix your shoes?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“To become a man, one ought to have the experience of torment; and great art is born only through suffering.”
Anisah watched this whole scene with sadness. She said, The Imperial has gone into a total decline. How did it happen? When I left, the Imperial was really at its peak. Who could have imagined then that such a fate would overtake it?’
“That’s the trouble with peaks. Those who are on them never even imagine that they could be brought down from such a height! And when the decline starts, it can’t be stopped halfway. The decline doesn’t stop even for a moment, until it reaches its limit.”
“You’ve started talking about the decline of nations. I was talking about the Imperial.”
“Whenever and wherever decline begins, it works in exactly the same way.”
“What’s happened to my walk today? He hesitated, then reflected that before today he’d never even paid attention to his walk. We keep on walking, and never pay attention to how we walk. Here I am, walking along. Immediately he was brought up short. When he observed his own non-human walk, the strange thought came to him that it was not he who was walking, but someone else in his place. But who? He fell into perplexity. Gradually he controlled his doubt. He walked in measured paces, and listened to the sound of his footsteps. No, I’m myself all right. I’m walking here on a paved sidewalk in my city, and this is the sound of my footsteps. But while he was reassuring himself like this, a sudden impression came to him that the sound of his footsteps was gradually drawing away from his footsteps. It’s a strange thing. I’m walking along here, and the sound of my footsteps is coming from over there – from where? Or perhaps I’m here, and I’m walking somewhere else? Where? Where am I walking? On what earth are my footsteps falling? He looked around him in surprise. Everything was silent and desolate. As though the town had emptied, the way a matchbox empties. “Houses and inns and places, all empty.” No noise, no voice, no sound of footsteps, no nothing…”
“Yesterday when I was drinking tea with Sabirah, my eyes fell on the part in her hair. How elegantly straight a part she had made. I saw that among the black hairs one hair was shining like silver. So, my friend, time is passing. We’re all in the power of time. So hurry and come here. Come and see the city of Delhi, and the realm of beauty, for both are waiting for you. Come and join them, before silver fills the part in her hair. and your head becomes a drift of snow, and our lives are merely a story. That’s all.”
“Well, listen now, where is the key to the storeroom?”
“Storeroom? What storeroom?”
“Ai hai, you’ve already forgotten! Was there not a storeroom in our mansion?”
“Oh, the storeroom in the mansion.” Abba Jan was silent, then said, “Zakir’s mother, twenty-five years have passed.”
“Well, I’m asking about the key to the storeroom, not the number of years.”
“When you asked about the key to the storeroom, I thought I ought to tell you how much time has passed.”
“Oh, what does time have to do with it time always goes on passing, but if the key to the storeroom’s been lost, it’s a disaster! All our old family heirlooms are shut up in there. All the things from my dowry are in there…”
******
“From somewhere deep within the bag, under some papers, he brought out a bunch of keys. He looked at them closely, and said, “That day you were thinking about the keys to the mansion, and here they are.”
Her lined face brightened. “Truly?” She looked longingly at the bunch of keys. “Well, you wouldn’t believe, that day when you said you didn’t know where they were, my heart almost stopped beating. I thought my soul had left my body.” She paused, then said, “And the rust hasn’t gotten to them?”
Abba Jan examined the keys once more. “No, I didn’t let them get rusty. From now on, it’s up to Zakir.” Then he addressed him : “Son, these are the keys of a house to which we no longer have any right. And when did we ever have any right? The world, as Hazrat Ali has said, is a guest-house. We and our desires are guests in it. Guests have no rights. Whatever the earth deigns to bestow on us guests, it’s a favor, and the earth has shown us great kindness indeed. These keys are a trust. Guard this trust, and remember the kindness shown by the earth we left, and this will be your greatest act of dutiful behavior.” As he spoke, suddenly his breath choked. He closed his eyes with the pain, and pressed his hand to his chest. Ammi at once jumped up anxiously, “Why, what’s happened?” She helped him to lie down. “Son, call the doctor!” Abba Jan opened his eyes. He made a sign to say no. Slowly, with the greatest difficulty, he said, “Hazrat Ali has come!”
“Afzal was right. This was indeed the time to have a long sleep. A man should go into a cave, apart from everyone, and sleep. And go on sleeping for seven hundred years. When he wakes up and comes out of the cave, then he’ll see that the times have changed. And he has not changed. It’s a good idea, it’s better than getting up every morning and looking in the mirror, suspecting that his face has changed, and being tormented all day by the thought that his face is changing! When a man sees people changing all around him, such suspicions arise. Or it also happens that no suspicions arise, and then a man changes. How? How have they gone on changing? Those people, every one of whom believed that the others were changing, while he himself looked the same as before. Everyone looked at everyone else and was stupefied. “My dear friend! What’s happened to you?”
“To me? Nothing’s happened to me. But I can see that something’s happened to you.”
“My dear friend, nothing’s happened to me But I do see that your face –”
One tangled with another, the second tangled with a third. One clawed at another, the second clawed at a third. They all clawed at each other and were injured and deformed. I was afraid that I too – I came away. I should go into my cave and sleep. And keep sleeping until the times have changed.”
Have you read ‘Basti’? What to you think about it?
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