THE love triangle has ruled the world of fiction since ages and has done so like little else. It has transcended boundaries geographical and linguistic, for the elements that are integral to such a situation remain ingrained in human nature. It is all but impossible to locate a fiction writer in any age, language or location who would have made it big without touching in one way or the other this triangle. In a manner of speech it is the Bermuda Triangle of fiction and writers tend to get sucked in rather willingly.

Set in rural Punjab, Gondni Wala Takiya, reprinted now by Oxford University Press under its Urdu Asasa banner, is no different as far as the theme is concerned. It is a story created around the lives of Sultan, Moulo and Mehtab Bibi. But this of course is as over-simplistic a description as there ever can be. The beauty of the tale lies in the telling, and the narrative here is characteristic Ghulam Abbas; precise, lucid and layered without being pompous and pretentious.

Being a storyteller in an era when luminaries ruled the world of Urdu fiction was not an enviable option at all, but it is to the credit of Abbas that he stood his own alongside the likes of Saadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Ismat Chughtai, Krishan Chander and a whole lot of stars that were part of the galaxy of Urdu literature in the mid-20th century. As if the peers were not enough, the grand shadows of Munshi Premchand and Sajjad Hyder Yaldram were still a relevant marker to assess literary finesse.

The beauty of the tale lies in the telling, and the narrative here is characteristic Ghulam Abbas; lucid and layered without being pretentious

Abbas stood firm in his creative output. ‘Aanandi’, his most quoted piece of writing, is representative of his craft that also gets reflected in Gondni Wala Takiya. His choice of words is always simple, and deceptively simpler is his storyline. There are no dramatics.

Abbas, the dispassionate narrator that he is, tells the tale as a silent bystander who just observes characters and things that move around him. There are times when some things do not make immediate sense to the reader who might treat them as unnecessary details, but the climax puts everything in place, and the whole makes more sense than the sum of its parts.

There are apparently two elements that have given Abbas the niche that he was able to create for himself in the annals of Urdu fiction. One, his amazing understanding of human psyche and emotions that helped him weave the tales that he wove. And, two, his committed distance from any school of thought of which there was no dearth in his time.

Being a storyteller in an era when luminaries ruled the world of Urdu fiction was not an enviable option at all, but it is to the credit of Abbas that he stood his own alongside the likes of Saadat Hasan Manto, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Ismat Chughtai, Krishan Chander and a whole lot of stars that were part of the galaxy of Urdu literature in the mid-20th century.

The Progressive Writers Movement was at its peak and there were serious debates — unnecessarily serious debates, some might argue with the aid of hindsight — over the role of literature in society. A little later came the wave of ‘new’, and then Pakistani literature, followed by the modernist and postmodernist streaks. Abbas found nothing of substance in any of it and remained what he always was: a storyteller. His approach was later adopted by Qurratulain Hyder, and much later by Intizar Hussain. They all told stories without bothering about the various philosophies and intellectual nitty-gritty floating all around them.

It is understandable, as such, that the stories penned by Abbas don’t have even a speck of sermonising in them. They carry no messages. They teach you no morals. They are not harbingers of any revolution. They don’t aim at changing anything. They just tell a story. If a story can change anything, it will do so on its own, but the writer is not anyone’s conscience-keeper or a catalyst of change. This is literature of the purest form and Abbas excelled in it, as one can see in Gondni Wala Takiya.

Another running thread in most stories penned by Abbas is his penchant for the common man and his life in all its misery and glory. ‘Overcoat’ and ‘Katba’ are wonderful examples of this, but even in ‘Mujassima’ in which the protagonists happen to be royals, Abbas touches a nerve that is applicable across the board and the narrative, as usual, remains perfectly simple.

Gondni Wala Takiya is no different on this count either. Khuda Bakhsh who moves to the city and becomes Ustad Falak in order to make a living for himself leads the pack. But Nageena Saa’een and Shamsuddin Patwari are as potent characters, and do carry the elements of the good and the bad in human nature with ease and aplomb. Khursheed makes an appearance that is just short of fleeting; her characterisation is silent. But it is the silence that speaks and there is absolutely no ambiguity about who she is and what she is up to.

The main characters are the ones who, for the better part of the story, remain three out of many. But Abbas unfolds his story in layers to build the climax, and when the narrative changes from its third person orientation to first person, the change is largely imperceptible. Apart from his grip on human psyche, Abbas clearly has professional understanding of the reader’s mind and this helps him capture it with amazing facility. The 90-page story is a single-session read. If this is not gripping; what is?

The reviewer is a Dawn member of staff.

Gondni Wala Takiya
(NOVELETTE)
By Ghulam Abbas
Oxford University Press, Karachi
978-0199402618
90pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 29th, 2016