Akbar in Wonderland
By Umber Khairi
Moringa Books/Reverie Publishing
ISBN: 978-627-7742-06-5
341pp.

Longtime journalist Umber Khairi’s debut novel Akbar in Wonderland is an origin story, but whether it is the origins of a superhero or an even superior villain, shall be left to the reader to decide.

Akbar in Wonderland opens in 1991, when “EVERYBODY knows” that the national leader, called simply “the PM”, and her equally, instantly identifiable other half, called only “the Spouse”, are the most corrupt people in the land of the otherwise pure.

This sentiment echoes vehemently through elite drawing rooms, middle-class drawing rooms, and the newsrooms of all the major and minor papers. The consensus is that the PM is a “witch, always making trouble, always. Just like her father.” As for the Spouse, one only has to look at him to know he’s up to no good.

To Akbar Hussain, the freshly appointed editor of a soon-to-be launched monthly magazine, this tsunami of vitriol strikes as odd. It’s too much. Too widespread. Too uniform. But Akbar is young, somewhat idealistic and, as we soon discover, surprisingly naïve for someone who’s been in the news business for half a dozen years.

The true triumph of a debut novel inspired by real life political machinations from early 1990s Pakistan is in putting into perspective how outlooks have changed over the last three decades

And, as everybody knows, the naïve types make for the perfect fall guys.

Akbar’s magazine launches with an explosive cover story that shakes the very foundations of Pakistan’s system of governance. Other newspapers, until now cautious about what they published for fear of losing lucrative government advertising and newsprint quotas, take this act of daring as a green light to go further. They tear off the muzzles that have silenced them for so long and begin screaming in inch-high headlines.

Corruption is the new buzzword, and accusations are flying in thick. Unverified rumours are suddenly well-established facts. Evidence? It’s all there in the papers, isn’t that evidence enough? Hang on a minute, are you going to doubt the veracity of these solid institutions? Deny the truth of the pen? Question journalistic integrity? How dare you slowly come to the realisation that everyone is for sale?

So what if there’s a television channel licence on the fast track, or if persons of dubious provenance are nabbing influential positions on the editorial boards? A mid-level hack is just as qualified to become a federal minister as any wadera’s nephew, and if you don’t buy what the papers are selling, it simply confirms that you’re depressed and suicidal.

Trust us on this; your little company car parked by the desolate seaside, with your lifeless corpse positioned inside just so, may be a clear indication that something is rotten in the state of Pakistan, but those bruises on your face were self-inflicted and we’ve got your suicide note to prove it.

By this point in the book, the reader may recognise several characters as real people, and incidents that mirror actual events. This should not come as a surprise as, in the preface, Khairi states that Akbar in Wonderland is a work of fiction and while it does not seek to “malign or defame any person or organisation, it is inspired by a number of real events.”

Does this make the novel a historical recap of sorts? Perhaps an attempt to provide the other side of the story, that might have been bypassed by recorders of officially sanctioned history? It is possible, although I would not be so generous as to call it a revelation of suppressed information.

But I will concede that Akbar in Wonderland presents a compelling case for sympathising with at least one of the many, many villains populating the power corridors of Pakistan. As for the Spouse, whatever one’s (low) opinion of him may be, whatever his (alleged) increasingly brazen acts of thuggery in real life, nothing against him has ever been proved, therefore one must hold one’s tongue.

Of course, allegations against the Spouse or against any of the blood-sucking leeches governing us will never be proven because one half of our judiciary lives in the pockets of whichever ruffian is currently in power, and the other half is married to them. Everybody knows that.

Political machinations, though, are hardly the draw of Khairi’s novel. Its true triumph is putting into perspective the manner and magnitude in which outlooks have changed over the last three decades.

We take so much for granted — smartphones, washing machines, human rights — without realising that, at one time, these were earth-shattering notions. The sensational exposé published in Akbar’s magazine seems almost quaint by today’s standards, because we’ve seen far worse scandals splashed all over the news.

The discovery that a bigger, darker, dirtier game is afoot elicits an ‘Ah, there we go!’ from the reader, because we’re 30 years ahead of it. Every which way the game can be played, we know it, we’ve seen it. What was groundbreaking in 1991 is just another day in 2024.

That might well be the essence of Khairi’s book: to show that the reason we can talk so freely, even casually, about so many things is because someone risked life, limb and dignity to bring those subjects into mainstream discourse — people like Akbar, and Raza, and Aneela and Zaheer, and all the real-life journalists and social activists they represent, many of whom were not so lucky as some of Khairi’s fictional characters.

In that vein, Akbar in Wonderland classifies as a must-read for 21st century journalists, for the insights it gives into an era when print media was the mightiest tool at the authorities’ disposal to shape public perception and direct public opinion.

Even now, when the overlords would have us believe that Orwellian control of Pakistani media is over and done with, “everybody knows” that our newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television channels are nowhere near as free as they are told they are.

The internet initially brought a modicum of respite but, every few days, our access to online freedoms is snatched away at the whim of the insecure guardians of our nation. The owners of X, Y and Z platforms are too rich and too foreign to be bought or coerced by our real estate developers, but they’re also indifferent to a Third World country’s internal squabbling, and least bothered whenever our telecommunications authority cuts us off.

In this environment, the strongmen broadcast whatever they like, while those with the real stories tremble in silenced, impotent rage. The puppets thrive, the ‘renegades’ are murdered in cases of ‘mistaken identity’, and when these are the only two options available, what will become of our celebrated young magazine editor Akbar Hussain?

The reviewer is a former staffer.
X: @SarwatYAzeem

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 15th, 2024