The tears of monsoon
Shahnaz Parveen’s latest novel ‘Ketni barsaton ke baad’ is a ‘peace project’ and an extremely valuable addition to the list of accounts written on Pakistan’s indescribable history of 1971 war. It is an incredibly moving true story that speaks to the experience of living through war and surviving the aftermath. Interestingly, the book, yet to be formally unveiled, was making the rounds in literary circles at a time when people of Pakistan were grieving over the loss of an integral organ, while massive Independence Day celebrations were underway in the dateline in question, Bangladesh.
‘Ketni barsaton ke baad’ tackles human emotion and trauma of 1971 east Pakistan conflict. It covers the elements of political victimisation and economic deprivation that led to a civil uprising. The book could be labeled as the author’s best venture as an ethical contribution to Pakistan’s political history. Shahnaz, in a very tricky technique of generating opinion, carefully toggled between first person and third person narration. The story is told by a powerful character of great grandmother addressed as ‘fairy grand mom’, who was a witness to the breaking of Pakistan and formation of Bangladesh. The ‘fairy nani’ narrates the history to an impatient audience, her great granddaughter, Fatima. Nani’s long story-telling is a reminder to the storyteller ‘nani’ in Sudarshan Faakir’s 1982 famous poem ‘Woh nani ki baaton mein pariyon ka dera, woh chehre ki jhurriyon mein sadiyon ka phera.
Grandmothers in all societies have a steady supply of stories that they narrate to young grandchildren. These stories are retold hundred times but Fatima never got tired of it. However, this time Fatima was caught in the middle of a story that she was never told before. It was about the narrator’s life in former East Pakistan, before the family moved to Pakistan and the USA. Seamlessly weaving in the present day with the past, the grandmother blends a woman’s memory of her life before a profound granddaughter. Nani’s captivating narrative explores themes of identity, tradition, and belonging, showing what it really means to exist in a culture of war and hatred. The illuminating and deeply personal narration of the story told through a senior member of a four-generation family explores Bengal’s vibrant weather, custom, culture, and people, set against the backdrop of East Pakistan of 1971.
Shahnaz has picked up the title from ‘Khun ke dhabbe dhulen ge ketni barsaton ke baad,’ a line of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s famous 1974 poem ‘Dhake se wapsi per’ that invokes curiosity among Urdu speaking Fatima, Bengali Zainub and their common social media contacts. Here the author has used Fayez’s poetry to open up ‘nani’s nostalgic account of her life in former East Pakistan and the richness of the land. The breathtaking display of nature’s elegance takes readers to an imagery of rain-soaked soil, rivers, and paddy fields of a divine land so beautiful that breaks the harshness of war and death.
With a moving narration, powered by many quotes of renowned poets and writers, Parveen presents a larger peace campaign to stand together not only with stranded Pakistanis, but also with Rohingyas and all displaced and suppressed communities of the world. The novel ends with Fatima and Zainub’s submission to the bilateral love and peace between Pakistan and Bangladesh, as they sing together a Bengali patriotic song written in the early years of Pakistan, Despite doing a sincere effort to patch up the differences that had developed between the two provinces decades ago, the author’s vision for a global and bilateral harmony looks utopian as no such society or territory actually exists in reality.
The book’s larger than regional canvas occupies beautiful colloquial diction. The tone is as lyrical as a Tagore’s composition used in the book. Having grown up in Bengal, Parveen couldn’t imagine a better place to live; especially in terms of its landscape and culture. She has depicted her silent love for the land through her characters. When she finds out her daughter Fatima, an expat in the USA is interested in Fayez’ poetry, she decides to pass on the bowl of task to her mother to tell the story, while her mother passed on the bowl to her grandmother, who soon finds herself on a journey tracking back her life in Bangladesh; unaware that Fatima and her Bengali friend Zainub will group together to travel to the land of rivers to find out the truth.
It doesn’t take long for Fatima to notice the subhuman life of Urdu speaking people living the Geneva camps set up for stranded Pakistanis. The group of youngsters are extremely saddened by the plight of internally displace dwellers of the camps, never sure where they belong in a community deeply divided between the Bengali and non-Bengali. Friendship slowly grows into bonding, and together, Fatima and Zainub navigate a changing world where there will be only peace and love.
The novel is characterised by visionary force and expressive import, through which she gives life to an essential aspect of human kindness. Her narratives mingle the voices of men, women, and children and in layered polyphony. Landscape, environment, culture, wealth, prosperity, poverty, love, hatred, and people are inextricably intertwined with everyday verities, a technique that produced Parveen’s novel to become worth reading.
The 278-page book published by Rang-e-Adab is Parveen's global peace effort. While the author recalls her life in former East Pakistan, she has touched the brush mild on the basic social and economic factors that had caused a sense of deprivation among people of former East Pakistan. At one stage the author is concerned about hanging of senior Islamist leaders on charges of conspiring war against Bengalis. She is rather hesitant to underscore the points of differences that broke Pakistan. “It was deliberate,” Parveen admits to The Express Tribune. “Much has been written on these. But this has simply increased bitterness among the people of two countries.” We just cannot undo the fact that Bangladesh, an independent nation was born in 1971, she said. Talking about the facts of 1971 war, Shahnaz said that the generation that had witnessed war has gone too. Now the new generation like the characters in my book Fatima and Zainub, don’t even know the true history. The time has come that we should work for bilateral peace and cooperation and stop nurturing hatred.
Shahnaz Parveen’s famous fictions include ‘Alice wonderland men’ and raushni chaahiye zindagi ke liye, She has been an educator for nearly 36 years and taught in different educational institutions in Chittagong, Dacca and Karachi. She was also a member of the Syllabus Committee and Board of Studies in the Urdu Department of Karachi, and intermediate Board of education.