The Political Chess King
By Nadya Qamar Chishty-Mujahid
Royal Book Company
ISBN: 978-969-407-551-8
106pp.

Nadya Qamar Chishty-Mujahid’s play The Political Chess King, first published by Edwin Mellen Press in 2020, is now republished by Royal Book Company. The play is set in the Saeed School of Business and revolves around campus politics.

Some of the characters gracing the pages of the play are also found in the author’s later work, Timeless College Tales. Even though the genres are different, The Political Chess King can be deemed a prequel to Timeless College Tales.

Nadya Qamar Chishty-Mujahid is no stranger to the literary world. She is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Sciences and Liberal Arts, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi. She has also taught English at the college level in the US, Canada, Egypt and Pakistan, authored 10 academic monographs and written innumerable book reviews for this section. That she has ventured into playwriting bodes well for theatre in Pakistan, where there is a great dearth of indigenous plays.

The title of the play is an indication that Chishty-Mujahid is a chess aficionado. Readers of the play, who are not chess enthusiasts, might not catch the chess allusions in the cast of characters and the fine points of the chess games played on stage. Fortunately, this does not unduly detract from the enjoyment of the play.

The cast of The Political Chess King is almost entirely male. The lone female student featured in the play is used in part as a narrator. Apart from her, there is a small role of a female faculty member in the last act.

A play about campus politics shines a light on how conflicts are resolved by the various political parties active among the students

The young men all drink and smoke tobacco and weed. Cigarettes are constantly lit up, and the brand matters. Bensons are for those who are lower in the hierarchy. The top brass chooses Dunhill and Marlboro, while the rougher crowd goes for Gold Leaf. The play establishes that such behaviour is typical of elite college-going males.

The language the young men use is laced with choice Urdu curse words and phrases. Each has an explanation in the footnotes. Probably written originally for the benefit of international readers, the footnotes seem unnecessary in the Pakistani edition and distract the reader. Read in context, the curse words add spice to the storyline and do not seem out of place when spoken by young men.

The play shines a light on how campus conflicts are resolved by the various political parties that are active among the students. The actual problems occur off stage. It is the fallout from these crises that have to be contained by political party leaders.

Jazba is the premier party and its leader, Umar Kapadia, is the titular chess king. He has to participate in almost every contretemps and is constantly bombarded with knotty issues. He is recognised as the one in charge and retains his position with aplomb. The feuds are settled through negotiations, which include persuasion, bribes and threats, much like party politics at the national level.

Chishty-Mujahid has set the play not on campus but at a college beach retreat. Each political party has a beach hut, and the huts are located close enough for members to walk over to visit, talk to or fight with their counterparts in other parties.

The beach setting cleverly precludes discussion, or even any mention, of academic matters. The action on the stage can thus concentrate on the power play between the young men and the pursuit of leisure activities.

Girls apparently do not take part in politics, at least in Saeed School of Business. Therefore, they are excluded from the dramatis personae. Only one young man has a girlfriend, who is also the narrator (as indicated earlier) and the two are occasionally spotted holding hands and walking on the beach.

Why are the other characters bereft of female companionship? It seems odd that romance is absent from the lives of the male characters of this drama, when they are presented as macho on the one hand and sensitive enough to shed tears on the other.

In fact, the young men of the cast tend to be one-dimensional. We know of their party affiliations and their methods of dealing with college imbroglios, but we have no idea about any other part of their lives. What they are studying is not divulged, nor are their life aspirations, their academic achievements or their family backgrounds and obligations.

As a play, The Political Chess King does not have one single overarching issue that needs resolution. Instead, each act throws up a new challenge which is handled by Umar Kapadia and ably shepherded to a conclusion by Salal Zahid, head of the Laiq political party. The climax, therefore, comes as a surprise. Though dramatic to the hilt, it in no way solves or clarifies any dispute dealt with in the play. The author’s motivation to opt for such an ending remains unclear.

The outstanding quality of The Political Chess King is the expertly written dialogue. The lines spoken by the characters are the mainstay of any play, since narration is held to a minimum. Chishty-Mujahid has shown her mettle by never letting the back and forth between the cast sag or become artificial.

The play is engaging on other levels as well. The intricacy and diplomacy of the negotiations keeps the reader involved. Male bonding and tolerance of the idiosyncrasies of others, even of differences of sexual orientation, go down well in today’s world. The author’s command of the language comes through glowingly. She is on top of her game as she effortlessly maintains the witty banter on the page.

People of all ages can find The Political Chess King appealing. It is aimed toward the younger generation, but older readers can learn much from it about how the young men of today think and act.

At the same time, it would not be surprising if the play were to gain popularity amongst young males, a segment not known to be avid readers. It portrays their life experiences and the clever repartee and use of curse words can be an added attraction.

The reviewer is a freelance writer, author of the novel The Tea Trolley and translator of Toofan Se Pehlay: Safar-i-Europe Ki Diary

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 28th, 2024