KLF: From writers to characters, politics is everywhere in a Pakistan novel

Muneeza Shamsie brings together writers to figure out whether subject matter comes first or the character.

KARACHI:

The world loves labelling Pakistanis. Writer Muneeza Shamsie was once asked at a literary event why Pakistani writers chose to write only on 9/11. Intrigued by this notion, she called writers Kamila Shamsie, Nadeem Aslam and Mohsin Hamid to fight this popular perception.

And thus, on a sunny yet pleasant day two of the fourth Karachi Literature Festival Aslam, Kamila and Hamid sat down with Shamsie to figure out whether the subject comes first or the character sketch.

For Aslam, it’s always the subject matter - which means he starts with politics and then proceeds towards characters. In fact, he admitted that the most emotional thing for him on TV was the news. “I wanted to write on honour killings, so I wrote Maps for Lost Lovers.”

Defending the politics in his novels, the writer believed that writing was his political contribution to society. “I vote every time I write a sentence.”

Before the audience could grasp the deeper meaning of this utterance, a group of chattering girls interrupted the discussion. It was hard to tell whether they were oogling at Hamid or Aslam - since both of them were on stage, we’ll never know.

Kamila continued the discussion by admitting that the process has changed for her through her five novels. Initially, she would start with a line and then the ideas would start orbiting around it until a novel was formed.

“The political or historical is embedded in the very character,” she said, adding that if you’re writing about the 1995 summer in Karachi, you can’t talk about driving to the beach. “Anyone who was in Karachi at that time knows that was not the time you could easily drive to the beach.”



Hamid, too, considered writing a political act. To explain his writing style, he read out a quote from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: “The secret to flying is learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss it.” That is how Hamid writes his novels - drafts after drafts until the final piece.

The writers did deny that the 9/11 element in their novels was not planned. Aslam discussed the idea of the Afghanistan civil war and the consequences of the Cold War with Shamsie as early as 1992. “But at that time, I wanted to write about honour killings more,” he said. He got down to writing The Wasted Vigil years later but the idea came much before then.

Explaining his stance on political engagement in novels, Hamid started off by saying that, “It is very hard to be from a Pakistani context, and not be attacked by flies.” He quipped as a fly buzzed around. Continuing his train of thought, he said that, “It is very hard to be from a Pakistani context and avoid politics because it is obvious, frighteningly obvious, that we don’t know what the narrative of Pakistan is.”

Kamila agreed that politics is embedded in our lives to a great extent. “We have people in our families who were witnesses to historical events, so at some point these political events become part of our families’ stories.”

When Shamsie asked the panel on gender divisions in novels, Aslam glanced at Kamila, to which she asked, “Oh, I should speak? Because the word ‘gender’ has been uttered?”

“Men don’t have gender,” Hamid responded, smiling.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2013.