A rural soul with roots in Sargodha and Wazirabad, Nain Sukh is in awe of the city and history of Lahore. A lawyer by profession, his real name is Khalid Mahmood. He is the author of three books of Punjabi fiction and a collection of Punjabi verse. His fictional anthologies include two books of short stories, Theekaryan (2005) and Uthal Pathal (2011), and a novel, Madho Lal Hussain: Lahore di Vel (2015). Kikkar tay Angoor (1994) is his anthology of poems.
Madho Lal Hussain: Lahore di Vel was recently judged as the best Pakistani Punjabi novel of the year by the Vancouver-based Dhahan International Punjabi Literature Prize jury. The novel is one of the most talked-about works among the Punjabi literati in recent months.
Nain Sukh started writing this story back in 1994; first intended as a short story, then as a book of oral history, finally after 20-odd years it came out in the form of a novel. He has spun his story around two main protagonists, Hussain (a painter) and Mehboob (an NGO employee), symbolically contemporising Shah Hussain and his beloved Hindu Brahmin disciple, Madho Lal. Around these two characters he narrates Lahore’s history, culture and politics over 25 chapters. He has covered almost every historic event, significant character and place linked with Lahore. The source material for his story is mostly oral narratives that he recorded over two decades from a diverse range of individuals, from the jogis to the thugs of the city. Further inspiration came from the 17th century book of Sufi thought, Haqiqat-ul-Fuqara, which details the life and times of Madho Lal Hussain, believed to be written some 63 years after the death of Shah Hussain.
The novel Madho Lal Hussain: Lahore di Vel represents the best of what contemporary Punjabi literature has to offer
Nain Sukh adopts a stream-of-consciousness technique to move in and out of the current timeline of his novel, which spans the years from 2005 to 2011, frequently moving back and forth through the historic period on a non-linear scale. The novel begins with the ban on basant in 2005 and culminates with the infamous Raymond Davis incident in 2011. However, the real charm of the story lies not in these six odd years but in the Lahore of the past. ‘Kanjar Khana’ and ‘Dada Ji di Diary’ are the most absorbing chapters of the book. Nain Sukh is one of the few Punjabi writers who didn’t come to Punjabi via Urdu. He has never written in any other language except his mother tongue. This makes his language and diction exceptionally natural and original with no signs of the lingual alienation we come across in so many writers who write in Punjabi these days.
Nain Sukh has composed an oral history of Lahore like never before; to give it a form and a structure that can withstand this combination of fact and fiction is in itself a great achievement. However, his novel generates many opposing ripples too. Despite what the traditionalists and purists might say about the compartmentalisation of literary forms and genres, it is a novel; nevertheless, it presents a challenging reading experience. I loved the stories within stories of Lahore, but repeated neglect of his main protagonists over entire chapters and their missing associations creates gaps that are too lengthy.