While searching for more translations of Tahira Naqvi, I discovered that she has also written a novel. This one, ‘The History Teacher of Lahore‘. I was so excited and couldn’t resist getting it.
Arif is a history teacher in a school in Lahore. It is the ’80s, the general is in power, and things are hard for the people. People are persecuted by the government if someone complains against them. Arif bumps into an old friend, with whom he has lost touch, who was like a mentor to him. This friend does underground stuff which helps in saving innocent people who are persecuted, but because of this the law is always pursuing him. What happens after this – how Arif’s teaching goes at school, how his colleagues react to the political situation, how he collaborates with his friend to save innocent people and how by doing that he risks his own life, how a beautiful woman walks into his life and what happens between them – all these form the rest of the story.
The book brings back the Lahore of the ’80s and ’90s alive. It is beautiful, and we can feel the spirit of the city, see the scenes, hear the sounds, experience the smells. One of the beautiful parts of the book is the poetry. Arif writes Urdu poems and he shares it with friends. Sometimes they ask him to recite them and he does that. Some of the other characters quote poetry to describe a situation, especially during tense moments, and it is charming and beautiful. The author Tahira Naqvi says that she has used her dad’s poems in the book – she has taken the original Urdu poems and has translated them into English and made them into Arif’s poems. I loved that story. Wish the author had included the original Urdu versions too. Would have loved to read them.
Another of the beautiful parts of the book is this. There is a delicate love story woven into the book. (There are actually two love stories, but if you read the book, you’ll know which one I’m talking about.) It starts very beautifully and the way it progresses, and how the two lovers try to keep the delicate flame burning and what happens when the outside world threatens it in real and imaginary ways – this is all so beautifully described. This was one of my favourite parts of the book. I hoped and prayed that the two lovers get together in the end. I’m not going to tell you what happened. You have to read the book to find out.
I loved most of the characters in the book. Arif, his mentor Kamal, his friend Salman, then the wonderful Roohi, Zehra, Nadira. I loved them all. Roohi was one of the most beautiful characters in the story. Nadira was one of the most fascinating characters in the story. The author gives us clues to her mysterious past, but I feel that she deserves a book of her own.
One more thing I loved about the book was the cover. So beautiful, isn’t it?
I loved ‘The History Teacher of Lahore’. It is one of my favourite reads of the year. These days, translators, after a while, write their own novels. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Tahira Naqvi is a veteran translator and she has been translating Urdu works into English for many years. She has single-handedly managed to put the works of Ismat Chughtai into the hands of a wider reading audience through her translations. So I wondered how her own first novel would be. I needn’t have worried. It was beautiful and exceptional. I hope this is not just a one-off effort, that Tahira Naqvi did for fun. I hope she writes more novels. I’d love to read them. As the old saying goes, ‘Dil Maange More’ (‘The heart demands more’).
Have you read ‘The History Teacher of Lahore’? What to you think about it?
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