Journalist and teacher Rifaat Hamid Ghani has intrepidly decided to venture into the realms of novel writing with her debut novel, A Tale Told.

Although the publisher is to be applauded on giving Ghani a well-deserved chance, so sketchy is the promotional blurb on the back of the jacket that the reader perusing it has very little idea of what the story truly entails. Indeed, as the back cover correctly proclaims the book contains a Bemisal (nonpareil), a Musallat (imposition) and a Daulat Ghulam (worshipper of wealth) but what it fails to underscore is the sharp political allegory that underlies the basic plot and extensive critiques embedded throughout the text.

Ghani’s novel counts as social commentary of the most subtly acerbic kind, and ranges in tone and scope from incisively in-depth to occasionally long-winded. Readers searching for a clear, straightforward, and well-defined plot will be foiled from the very outset; the novel is deliberately divided into five complex acts and an epilogue titled ‘Forward’ (that comes right at the end) and is expected to signify an unravelling political drama with Pakistan as its predominant backdrop. Central to the action is the powerful, albeit slightly ridiculous ruling figure of General Musallat, whose main rival is Bemisal, the beautiful daughter of assassinated politician Shamsheer Zeb. One hardly needs to stretch one’s imagination much in order to ascertain the allegorical references such characters connote. A fictional, developed nation named Kibria figures rather prominently in the action, though to be perfectly candid there is precious little ‘action’ per se in the book, a large portion of which consists of the reflections and thoughts of the main dramatis personae.

A chessboard analogy of politicians is an extended metaphor … Rifaat Hamid Ghani’s debut novel is a teaser that is not without its weaknesses

In essence, Musallat comes across as a besieged figure — a problem that any major politician of Pakistan invariably faces. Bemisal also has to contend with the Noor brothers, Shaukat and Qudrat, who are the pawn-like sons of an enormously wealthy Punjabi industrialist, whom they refer to as ‘Abbaji.’ They remain forever at the mercy of their paterfamilias whose ultimate demise does little to remove his psychological influence over them. Musallat gains great moral and political support from a fellow army man, the largely loyal General Kabir whom he affectionately refers to as Bherya (fox). Also significant to the machinations of the text are the frontier’s leader Ain, a surprisingly transparent and honest individual, and Aalim, the head of the powerful ISCI (Pakistan’s Inter-services Secret-agencies Coordination Institute). The first couple of ‘acts’ revolve around the main characters greedily vying for power and marking out their territories.

There is no question that a number of the book’s Pakistani readers will not be able to help finding parallels between Ghani’s chessboard pieces and well-known historical figures, though the author disclaims the existence of such parallels at the very beginning of the book. The chessboard analogy however, is markedly deliberate; indeed the writer delineates this as an extended metaphor for us herself as she notes: “When the country is a chessboard, though, the only ones who love it are the pawns. It is their habitat. The rest make moves to win, players of a game. … One pawn may not matter, but a full array on a chessboard makes battle array.” One does not have to delve too deeply into the novel to locate the pawns, since a number of them make up the sub-plot of the book.

General Kabir is an old family friend of an affluent and cultured Kashmiri family called the Butts, who live on Queen’s Road. Ghani anchors some of her musings in firm fact; certain geographical places need no introduction as far as most Pakistanis are concerned, though ironically Jinnah is the only major politician who is referred to by his actual name. Kabir still carries a torch for the matriarch of the family, Asmat Butt whose children Rohail and Sarwat are supporting characters; the daughter fuels some minor romance plots in the book, and Rohail and his friend Imdad find themselves roped into clandestine activities for the ISCI. Aalim is by far the brainiest character in the text, though Bemisal gradually develops a raw shrewdness; much of the book displays an ongoing tussle between the brawn of the military (of which Musallat is the most typical personification) and the undeniable mental finesse of Pakistan’s secret service agencies. Prior to sacrificing herself on the wedding altar with Imdad, Sarwat dates a rich but distinctly middle-class businessman named Ahsan and later his more intellectual brother, Majid. With characteristically low-key aplomb, Aalim lassoes Majid into working for him as well, and while I hesitate to reveal the rather exciting denouement of the book, I will add that Majid plays a crucial role in Act V.

Yet in spite of all the energy that the various characters put into attempting to rule the country (not to mention influencing the wider Asiatic area consisting of Iran and Afghanistan) Ghani determinedly illustrates that ultimately they are all the pawns of destiny. A spirited terrorist named Mausam al Jabr destroys three towers in Kibria, an act of terrorism that galvanises the developing world into consolidating Musallat’s position as a much-needed ally in the global war on terror. However, the holding hostage of three Chinese businessmen in the Pakistani White Mosque, and the massacre of innocent civilians that their army-led rescue entails, inevitably topples Musallat from power, and establishes Bemisal as the head of the country — though not for long.

Ghani repeatedly refers to a metaphoric spider working at and controlling the heart of things, although as she has one of the characters claim “no one of us ever finds or knows the master spider: Its broods weave too many webs.” In point of fact, Ghani herself is the master spider of the book, using skeins of historical narrative plus fiction in order to weave her novel, which takes its name from the famous “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, ... ” speech in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

“She foresaw it all! The increasing paralysis of state power, the failure of civil writ — clearly boding anarchy of the sort where al Jabr-linked Taliban could find Pakistan’s nuclear material waiting, like Richard the Second’s crown, for them to pick up. Kibria would be implored by the whole sanity-loving world to enforce order and the rule of law there, safeguard civilisation and confiscate Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The conclusions that were so chafing her resolved her personal political conflicts. She loved Pakistan, she identified with its pawns even if that took her into identifying with their dream of a Muslim homeland where the subcontinent’s Muslims could define and be themselves, however fractiously, however misguidedly. Freedom to err! Freedom to self-correct! Pakistan’s own errors. Pakistan’s own reforms.Sovereignty.You couldn’t hold on to personal cultural self-determination without it. She shopped Dior, but she was damned if that meant she followed his fashions blindly! He couldn’t rule on taste and style for Pakistan’s Shamsheer Zebs! They were patrons, not clients! They bought his creations if it pleased them. She giggled. Papa would have chosen another metaphor but enjoyed the innate frivolity of hers. After all she was a female Muslim prime minister! ‘A woman is always a woman Be-me,’ she could hear him say. ‘And will always try and beguile her way through, Papa.’” — Excerpt from the book

Except that Ghani is far from being an idiot, or even a clueless holy fool for that matter. Her underlying commentary throughout the book stems from a deeply erudite and well-read consciousness that provides insightful observations on topics as diverse as the British domination of India, Partition, the darbari (courtier) mentality of muhajirs (immigrants), the justified resentment of Punjab and Sindh on the part of the relatively oppressed Pakhtuns, the Taliban threat, and the class stratification pervading the country on both the contemporary as well as historical levels. Moreover, she does not whitewash the far-reaching ramifications of local terror either. One of the novel’s most chilling and horrific moments involves the bloody murder of two schoolchildren in a cruel and deliberate attempt to incite sectarian violence. Given all this, I was surprised to find that Pakistan’s minorities were underrepresented in the text almost to the point of being absent — in fact, the only memorable reference to Parsis and Hindus emerges from a set of colourful chalk patterns that Sarwat places outside the door of her apartment. Perhaps the minorities were simply not central to Ghani’s overarching agendum.

This is not to say that the book consistently resonates with grim, serious undertones; there are several humorous, tongue-in-cheek interludes throughout. One almost laughs out loud at Musallat’s boorishness and Bemisal’s repeatedly thwarted attempts to be taken seriously by a deeply patriarchal society. Sarwat chucks men aside with the rapidity with which one disposes of Kleenex, and Ghani’s initial recounting of the rise and fall of Shamsheer Zeb makes for enormously entertaining reading.

Then where, and why, one may ask does the novel begin to flounder? I do not believe that there is any fixed point when this begins to happen, though unfortunately it does. Part of the problem arises from the fact that far too many of the characters become inordinately reflective over the course of the book. While this may not have dragged down the pace and plot had Ghani limited herself to demonstrating the inward contemplation of just Bemisal or Musallat, her insistence on informing the reader of what even the supporting ‘actors’ such as Ahsan and Imdad mentally experience makes for very tedious reading. Paradoxically, the reason for this weakness springs from the same stimulus as the strength of the novel — Ghani’s specific expertise. Struc­tural aspects of the book are sacrificed to intellectual considerations. At times the sections begin to read like a set of political treatises, occasionally degenerating into rambling which, though far from meaningless, is undeniably hard to follow.

In spite of being a fine television producer and media editor, it becomes evident that Ghani has little to no training as a novelist. One may quibble over the point that good writers are born, not made, but that does not alleviate the fundamental problems affiliated with the plot development and characterisation within the book. To be fair-minded one should add that writers of Ghani’s generation rarely engaged in creative writing workshops. A Tale Told’s weaknesses could have been largely eliminated had the author worked extensively with an experienced book editor — perhaps the publisher is to be faulted more for this serious omission as opposed to the author herself. Had Ghani been of the generation that can partake of the literary advantages offered by the exhaustive writing practices mandated by groups such as the Desi Writers’ Lounge she might have more readily created a text that would have been eminently accessible to both national readers as well as international ones.

Being able to savour Ghani’s writing requires that the reader possess a superior English vocabulary, and while following her syntax is ultimately rewarding, to be perfectly honest it can be downright painful at times. Intimidating sentences such as: “Interventional strikes now would neither seem nor be interpreted as defending questionable wannabe democratic ‘others’ to the home audience or a sly masking of ‘neocolism’ to uncooperative outsiders and sceptics” require massive amounts of unpacking and deconstruction, making the book anything but a fast read. However, in spite of that, it is well worth the effort, and leaves the doggedly persistent reader feeling as pleased with himself or herself as with the author’s sincerely well-meant endeavours.

The reviewer is assistant professor of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts at the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.

A Tale Told
(NOVEL)
Rifaat Hamid Ghani
Sama Editorial and Publishing Services, Karachi
ISBN 978-9698784829
400pp.