The Curse of Mohenjo Daro By Maha Khan Phillips Pan Macmillan, India ISBN: 978-1509859351 441pp.

The Curse of Mohenjo Daro by Maha Khan Phillips is a refreshing read, a bold venture into a historical and socio-spatial domain that remains largely absent from fiction from this region being written today. It narrates the story of multiple generations linked by genetic memory through its primary characters: Nadia (present) and Jaya (past). Sohail, Nadia’s father, had followed the hippie trail to India where excessive drug use led to a pseudo-spiritual awakening. He founded the Giving of Light Foundation, an Anglicised jaali pir [fake spirituality] society, enticing followers into blind submission for hallucinogen-induced promises of redemption. Nadia was rescued from the GoL, soon after which Sohail was killed. And so the story begins.

Phillips’ descriptive skills are commendable. She explores a variety of scenes, from technically detailed sets to romantic renderings of country life. The villa of the grandmother, Jahan Ara, in Karachi is described in all its “faded grandeur,” evoking the rustic nostalgia of the British era, echoing Peerzada Salman’s writings on Karachi’s Raj architecture. The market squares and street life of Meluhha are no less enchanting than bazaars pulled out of the Arabian Nights. The nature scenes — fishermen’s village, mundanities of primitive livelihoods, the idyllic life by the riverbank — conjure up the serenity and warmth of Rudyard Kipling’s rural India.

Certain globally relevant themes resonate throughout the novel. Phillips describes the cycles of a mighty civilisation: from scattered primitive tribes to the founding of a great city under a patron god, to the assimilation of political power and a gradual fall into decadence. Readers of Ibn Khaldun’s world history would certainly find this fictional depiction quite interesting. She also addresses modern urban issues: chaotic immigration, social segregation, secession attempts by vassal states, viciously guarded political positions, and corruption of the church where the priestly authorities (government) and the Bloodstone (resources) are used not for public good, but for the merchants’ (corporations’) personal demands — tax cuts, concessions, and market behaviour predictions.

While character development could have been stronger, this is a worthwhile attempt at archaeological fiction

The goddess Shakari had set up the Meluhhan society — as in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World where “everyone works for everyone else” — into clans with specific roles — hunting, trading, healing: “Each clan had a particular talent, ensuring that everyone was equally powerful, that everyone worked for the benefit of the whole.” This was to be an ideal utopian society, but was subsequently corrupted by the ruling priestly class. A rather painful example is the hoarding of food by the priests so they could organise large public banquets during the grand Karani festival, even when children were dying of hunger: “Yesterday, I saw a mother leave her child by the steps of the seminary … [she] could no longer afford to feed him and so left him in Shakari’s care. The child cried for so long that I thought the whole city would weep with him. But the priests never came out.” But feeding the population remains secondary to impressing foreign delegates: “Iaf will not sacrifice the festival for the Unclanned. He would rather we starved than have his nose cut off in front of all his distinguished guests, have his trade negotiations suffer in any way.”

Of course, the book has its weaknesses, namely, character development and the structuring of the conversations. The two main characters, Nadia and Jaya, are essentially the same person. They are sophisticated, mildly antisocial, “different” from their contemporaries, yet family-centric. Nadia’s character develops through fragments scattered throughout the book. The most striking feature is her impulse to start running away from situations even when getting answers is what she really wants. This pointlessly lengthens conversations — whether running away from Liam in the pub who is clearly there to help her, or from her grandmother whom she flew all the way from London to Karachi to meet, the dialogues become unconvincing at times. The argument between Jaya and Rafe follows the same pattern: an antagonism develops suddenly and subsides just as abruptly in a couple of paragraphs for unclear reasons, and Jaya pours out to her new friend details of her lifelong mission, escaping from the Temple, something she had been working on in secret for nine years.

Overlooking shortcomings that would otherwise have made for a powerful storytelling experience, The Curse of Mohenjo Daro is a commendable piece of archaeological fiction. It is well-researched and represents a genuine attempt at highlighting local history and archaeology, even at reviving local tourism, unlike the cosmetic, politically-charged Sindh festivals. The book is sure to promote interest in the Indus region and its obscure legends. How Phillips links the various extant relics to her historical world is also quite exciting; the reader is introduced to the origins and the prestigious social position of the famous Dancing Girl and the Priest King, two instantly recognisable emblems of Mohenjo Daro today, in elaborate detail in the novel. Of course, it would have been all the more exciting if the Bloodstone of the novel was an actual relic located in today’s Mohenjo Daro museum, but that is just a reader’s fantasy speaking.

The reviewer is an architect currently pursuing a doctoral degree at the Middle East Technical University, Turkey

Published in Dawn, EOS, March 5th, 2017