A New Pigeon on the Block & Other Stories
By Shahbano Alvi
Liberty Publishing
ISBN: 978-627-7626-32-7
106pp.

Shahbano Alvi’s short fiction is always easy to read. Alvi has the facility to write in an engaging way both in English and Urdu and her power of expression makes her stories very accessible.

She has written children’s books in the past but, in the last five years, Alvi has been especially productive. She has put out two collections of short stories in English, one in Urdu and edited the House of Treasures: Perspectives in Urdu Literature. Together with all this creative work, Alvi has also set up, and has been running, her own publishing house, Ushba.

A New Pigeon on the Block & Other Stories is the second of the two collections in English by Shahbano Alvi. It is a slim volume, with 15 short stories. Some of the tales are only a couple of pages long but even the longest one does not encompass more than 16 pages.

The vocabulary used by Alvi is uncomplicated. She only chooses words which are in common use. Sometimes this engenders a false idea that the stories themselves are simple. But the strength of Alvi’s fiction lies in the clarity of her thoughts and the authenticity of the feelings she projects.

A second collection of engaging short fiction from writer Shahbano Alvi, often centred on unhappy marriages, death and disease, shows the author at the peak of her craft

If there is a rationale in the order in which the stories are presented, it is not apparent. But they can roughly be divided into three types, according to their settings. The first lot are set in Karachi. Many others are about the South Asian diaspora in the British Isles. In some of these stories, harking from the UK, the nostalgia that is evoked is of Karachi. These form the second group of stories and in the third section, the memories called forth are of East Pakistan/ Bangladesh.

The title story, ‘A New Pigeon on the Block’, is set in Karachi and written in the time of Covid, while the author was particularly sensitive to her surroundings. This hyper-awareness is transferred to the protagonist, causing her to spot the new pigeon that joined the usual flock. Because of the use of magical realism in this tale, however, there is an overlap of fact and fantasy and reality is ambiguous.

The outstanding story in the Karachi batch is ‘My Turn’. Succinctly, Alvi brings out the role of the supportive parent and shows how this trait needs to be practised selflessly, generation after generation. ‘Little Boys of Karachi’ is the superb English translation of the author’s Urdu story, ‘Pyaas’. It is impressive that Alvi can be equally forceful in both languages when it comes to making her point.

Many of Alvi’s tales centre around unhappy marriages and abusive husbands. Such stories are set both in Karachi and in the UK. ‘Acrimony’, with a Karachi background, is short, a mere three pages. But the author’s art paints the complete picture of a dysfunctional marriage in just a few strokes. It is a very well-constructed story and its horrific end leaves the reader gasping.

To give a balanced view of matrimony, ‘The Black Cat of Wimbledon’ is about a manipulative wife. This story is about a Pakistani family settled in the UK and belongs to the diaspora group of tales. Once again, Alvi has used her skill to fit the ramifications of almost an entire Pakistani drama serial in just 10 pages. Written from the point of view of the pet cat, the story unfolds through dialogue between the husband and wife. The ending probably satisfies only the cat in that house.

Among the UK stories three are especially adept. In ‘Kaffir’ we see how sometimes the elderly, who have too much time on their hands, can turn to religion with a vengeance. Their belief system becomes both a shield and a weapon for them and they tend to disregard the spirit of the creed.

In the four page story ‘Bereft’, we meet a woman whose husband has left her. Her only solace is provided by a Pakistani immigrant couple, particularly the husband. She manages to pull herself out of the mire of despair with his help, knowing that his aid is given selflessly and with no expectation of return.

‘Scent of Loneliness’ is a highly poignant tale of loss. The sudden and unexpected death of the husband makes the wife look at material things around her with greater insight, as she ponders the fragility of human life.

‘Deluge’ and ‘Kushtia’ are diaspora stories with memories of East Pakistan or Bangladesh. In the first one, it is the beach at Brighton which reminds the protagonist of Cox’s Bazaar. The reader is then given a brief account, sans explanation, of how her family was dispersed and the father lost in the upheaval that heralded the birth of Bangladesh.

‘Kushtia’ talks of a man who attends a funeral and later the same day encounters a Bangladeshi man in a chance meeting. This meeting and the earlier funeral together generate a memory from his childhood in Kushtia, East Pakistan. The wonder is that the passage of time has altered almost everything in his world, except for the impact of that memory.

The story that is quite different and falls in none of the three arbitrary categories is ‘The Quilt and a Thousand Books’. It centres around the dire illness and death of an immigrant from the Malay Peninsula. He has made good and achieved great success. But that does not give him immunity from fate and the scattering to the winds of all his plans.

In fact, death and disease are recurring themes in these 15 stories. But, in each one, these subjects are treated deftly and with varied nuances. The author’s life experiences are obviously at play here, as she steers each narrative with honed expertise.

There are a few errors in the text, particularly in the last story and sometimes plot developments are not clear, leaving linear thinkers slightly puzzled. But, all in all, it is evident that Shahbano Alvi is at the peak of her craft. Her topics have relevance and her handling of the themes is masterly. We hope to be regaled again soon by Alvi’s pen.

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

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, March 30th, 2025