The Pilgrims
By Muhammad Asif Nawaz
Liberty Publishing
ISBN: 978-627-7626-280
233pp.

Someone once asked me what makes pizza so popular, given that it is basically just cheese toast. I responded that, when something is well-made, and sprinkled with desirable toppings, one can understand its popularity without having to question it.

Muhammad Asif Nawaz’s debut novel The Pilgrims is fundamentally a love story, peppered with myriad historical and mythological allusions and references, which reflect an authorial intellect that is both erudite and brilliant.

Although marketed by the jacket blurb as being set in, and honouring, Old Lahore, a fair bit of the novel’s vital interactions take place in Sindh, where Feroze, the scion of a feudal family, and Bina — literally the Hindu girl-next-door — have grown up.

A capable medical doctor, Bina was friends with a girl named Mehar while at medical school. Mehar came from a low-income family, and had the ill-fortune of being wedded to a cruelly abusive husband. Trapped in a hellish marriage, she was able to get out of the relationship in one piece when her husband, Ahmad, divorced her after seven years.

A debut novel from Pakistan revolving around multiple plotlines and characters caught in their own tragedies, showcases its author as erudite and as good a literary craftsman as he is learned

In order to figure out the real reason as to why Ahmad flung those blessed divorce papers at her one day, one needs to be patient and read the novel carefully till the very end.

There are so many unexpected twists (Nawaz is as good a literary craftsman as he is learned) that it is difficult to review a book of this nature without giving away a number of them. I will, therefore, protect the novel’s plotlines and machinations by speaking in general terms, while still enticing readers to explore this unique and fascinating book themselves.

Aariz, a friend of Bina, Mehar and Feroz was close to his father, Old Papa, while growing up. His mother had died when the child was very young, and his stepmother outlived Aariz’s father. She remarried, and Aariz was treated shabbily by his stepfather who abused him. These traumatic experiences left deep psychological scars on the hapless Aariz.

He sought refuge in travel and memories of Old Papa and, although he was heir to a considerable inheritance, money never truly made up for the lack of love in his life. At the commencement of the novel, he returns to Pakistan from Dubai, and one is made privy to Aariz’s memories of a deeply touching father-son relationship, which is the polar opposite of what the wretched Feroze had with his feudal father.

To be fair to Feroze’s corrupt, overbearing, and wealthy male parent (I realise that this sentiment comes across as oxymoronic, but everyone deserves a defence) the land-grabbing and sex-trafficking aspects of his family had very deep roots in the patriarchal male fabric of the society Feroze hails from.

As the novel begins, Feroze is left bewildered as to what his own role should be within the framework of this establishment. We are told that his cricketing dreams were nastily snuffed out by his disapproving parent when Feroze was young. The character’s tragedy is that he is terrified of turning into his father but, like a genetic disease, it appears as if abuse of power runs in his very blood.

Although Feroze cared deeply in his own messed-up way for Bina, they fell out over a personal matter that had political overtones. It is at points such as these that Nawaz departs from straightforward storytelling towards expanding the scale and scope of his writing, by referring to things such as the horrors of Partition, the Kashmir conflict, and the central role played by Lahore in these matters.

The intimacy they shared couldn’t be comprehended by many. It went beyond the carnal desires, and knocked at the realm of the unknown. Their bond was special, almost ancient. It was a bond that men have had with their angels, that the believers have had with their souls, that the Sufis have had with their hearts. It was so much and so little. An escape as well as homecoming. It was a bond so complete that it would always remain incomplete. Both enjoying each other’s shadows but never sharing their stems. — Excerpt from the book

I found myself chuckling at the fact that, although a brief yet adequate glossary of Urdu terms is provided, the author might have been equally well-served by footnoting his references. But then I realised that the novel would have ended up being twice as long.

This meta-universe of references within the novel can best be described as the invisible ghosts of history being given visible form and shape by means of authorial narrative. In fact, there is, quite literally, a scene delineated whereby ghosts of famous personalities buried in Lahore (such as Anarkali, whose soul spends eternity immersed in archival documents) are given voices by the author.

Lazy readers will complain that going back and forth between present-day reality and an overwhelming barrage of myths and historical snippets gets confusing, but the novel is worth the mental effort of careful perusal. However, there is no denying that, for many readers, the pathos of Mehar’s story will steal the show and one is happy that she gets a much-needed break later in the novel, even if it is brief and fleeting.

Her memories of Muharram commemorations honouring the lamentations of Bibi Sakina are beautifully penned, and Nawaz is to be commended on writing with genuine sympathy when it comes to tragic aspects of both genders in his book.

Asif Nawaz’s knowledge of Western mythology is as good as his comprehension of the rich heritage of the East. He informs and educates as much as he entertains; for instance, many of us are aware of the importance of Mohenjodaro, but Nawaz makes sure that we also get clued into how important the ancient archaeological site of Lakhanjodaro (in the Sukkur district) was in its time.

That he is a writer of many talents is evident from the close attention he pays to both plot development and structure, as well as the inner stream of consciousness of every single one of his four main characters. I groaned at the fact that, like Thomas Hardy who appeared to rejoice in making his characters come to tragic ends, Nawaz holds out the promise of happy denouements to us like fruit before Tantalus, and then snatches things away determinedly.

However, this isn’t because the author is being perverse or sadistic; it appears as if he genuinely believes that what makes humanity beautiful is its tragic side. Every single one of his characters is (or has been) a prisoner in some sense of the word. Mehar was trapped within an ugly marriage, Bina pigeonholed by people’s prejudices, Aariz embroiled in harrowing childhood memories, and Feroze (arguably the most tragic of the four) shackled by the trappings of wealth and status.

There are many brilliantly sketched scenes and episodes in the book, and the beauty of it is that Nawaz’s writing, while completely original, causes the reader’s memories of great books to waft into the consciousness.

For instance, when writing of a couple’s bond, he notes that they were “[both] enjoying each other’s shadows but never sharing their stems.” On reading this, anyone who is familiar with Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet will hear the spiritual echo of “And the oak tree and the cypress/ Grow not in each other’s shadow.”

One of my favourite scenes was when a Hindu girl gets married and does the seven pheras (circles of movement) around a sacred fire with her husband. An obsessed, jilted boyfriend who is trying to locate her makes seven frantic phone calls that each coincide with one of the pheras.

It is anguished moments such as these, among other things, that make one appreciate that Asif Nawaz’s talent is such as to have already made a notable impression, and one looks forward to reading more of his creative endeavours in the future.

The reviewer is associate professor of social sciences and liberal arts at the Institute of Business Administration. She has authored a collection of short stories, Timeless College Tales, and a play, The Political Chess King

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, September 30th, 2024