By Intizar Husain 

BEFORE me is a collection of short stories titled Injeer Kai Phool. I have just finished reading it and am in a state of shock. They are all sad stories about people who are doomed, with a deeply pessimistic mood running through them.

But let me first give an introduction to the book. The stories are from Balochistan, written in Pashtu, Brahvi and  Balochi. Short story writer Afzal Mirza has translated them into Urdu. Two Urdu story writers, Asif Farrukhi and Mohammad Hameed Shahid have commented on them.

I was introduced to Balochistan’s fiction through a collection of short stories written in Urdu by Tahir Mohammad Khan. They were finely written stories focusing on the social life in the region with particular reference to women, who seemed unfairly treated.

The story writers included in Injeer Kai Phool are far more critical of the social conditions in Balochistan. They are bitter, painting the picture in dark colours. As portrayed by them, here is a world where the poor man is doomed to live in the most wretched of conditions while the wealthy live in luxury. They make only rare public appearances and perhaps that too for the sake of highlighting the wretchedness of the poor. The poor don’t know where to go for help. In Abdul Qadar’s story “Doctor”, even the doctor blatantly refuses to help the woman whose dying husband requires emergency treatment.

Nature, too, appears indifferent to the plight of the poor. Fated to live in tents, they are at the mercy of the vagaries of the weather. In heavy rainfall their tents, along with their meagre belongings, are swept away, leaving them shelterless.

Arif Zia’s story “Barish ki Dua” brings before us an ironic situation. Suffering from a long drought, people gather to pray for rainfall. A little girl coming out from a nearby tent sees them praying and recalls her experience of the previous year’s rainfall and starts to worry about what will happen to her tent if the prayers are answered. The innocent girl prays to God to have mercy on her ailing mother and hold back the rain.

But the sufferings of the characters in these stories don’t emanate from their poverty alone. In these stories we come across deep-seated prejudices and age-old tribal customs which have created grave problems for society. An acute sense of honour has led to a terrible practice known as ‘honour killing’. A mere suspicion is enough justification for trigger-happy male members of any family to commit murder. The recurrence of this theme in different stories highlights the gravity of the problem.

The stories give the impression of reality. They seem to be pieces picked up from real life and reproduced with deeply felt expression which speaks volumes about the genuineness of the storytellers. That is why, while reading these stories, we cannot remain aloof for long. We soon forget that we are reading fiction and become involved in the situation and start feeling for the characters.

The depiction of social ills is steeped deep in genuine emotions. In this starkly realistic depiction we occasionally see potential for romance, such as in the story “Injeer Kai Phool”. But the female protagonist’s sense of duty does not allow her to enjoy the pleasures of these moments. She is soon awakened to the bitter reality of her life.

These stories bring to us awareness about a region which is sadly only vaguely known.