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			<title>A war-weakened Trump shows up at Xi’s door</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/2609797/a-war-weakened-trump-shows-up-at-xis-door</link>
			<comments>https://tribune.com.pk/story/2609797/a-war-weakened-trump-shows-up-at-xis-door#comments</comments>
			<pubDate>Sun, 24 May 26 03:54:02 +0500</pubDate>
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				<![CDATA[HAMMAD SARFRAZ]]>
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			<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category><category><![CDATA[T-Magazine]]></category><category><![CDATA[World]]></category>
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				<![CDATA[The US president’s Beijing visit signals a shift in both approach and rhetoric toward China across his two terms]]>
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				<![CDATA[If there was a geopolitical theatre, it was set in Beijing earlier this month, where US President Donald Trump arrived with a jet full of CEOs and tech bosses in tow, turning up at Xi Jinping&rsquo;s doorstep in a way that felt less like a routine diplomatic visit and more like a Trump-style performance &mdash; built for spectacle, but with little substance. If that was not enough, Vladimir Putin swung by the Chinese capital just days after the American delegation had left, adding another layer of symbolism to a week in which Xi appeared, almost casually, at the centre of the entire geopolitical frame, while Trump left with statements, photo opportunities, and much the same agenda he had arrived with.

But the visit is not only about choreography or the optics of great-power performance. It is also about tone, and the shifting language Trump brought with him before and during the trip. For much of his first term, he presented China as something close to an arch-nemesis, the enemy of the American people in a distinctly Maoist register of political language that he has often borrowed from and inverted, the systemic rival that Washington had to confront in Cold War terms. While that framing has not disappeared entirely, it has softened in ways that are hard to ignore.

Much to the surprise of parts of his MAGA base, which had been conditioned over years to see Beijing as an almost existential threat, Trump&rsquo;s posture on China has shifted &mdash; not just in rhetoric, but in policy as well. That change can be seen most clearly when you go back to the documents that shaped his first term and compare them with what is being produced now. The 2017 National Security Strategy spoke in blunt civilisational terms, describing China as a power seeking to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific, expand its state-driven economic model, and reorder the regional balance in its favour. Fast forward eight years and the language is noticeably different in texture, even when the underlying rivalry remains. The focus now is overwhelmingly economic, tariffs, supply chains, and technological competition, while the military dimension, though still present, sits more in the background.

If there is a line that captures this shift in emphasis, it is the idea that maintaining American economic and technological superiority is now seen as the surest way to deter large-scale conflict. The Trump administration&rsquo;s approach toward China is therefore less about confrontation in traditional security terms and more about dominance through economic architecture.



But that does not mean the security establishment in Washington has moved in the same direction. Pentagon assessments continue to describe China&rsquo;s expansion across military, cyber, nuclear, and artificial intelligence domains in far more alarming terms, almost in a different register from Trump&rsquo;s White House framing. As one analyst described it in the New York Times, it is as if two separate languages of threat perception are being spoken inside the same system.

What this divergence reveals is that the shift on Beijing is, at its core, centred on the president himself. In his second term, and perhaps shaped by the broader economic environment he has set in motion, he appears far more comfortable dealing with strong leaders like Xi and Putin, figures he seems to view as transactional, even legible in their predictability once deals are struck. Within that setting, whenever economic priorities collide with security concerns, it is usually the economic logic that wins out for Trump &mdash; a leader who is, in his own way, transactional.

For Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict at Uppsala University, the pattern is not contradictory so much as familiar: &ldquo;This was classic Trump. He used China as a campaign bogeyman and is now dealing with Xi as a negotiating partner. It suggests not strategy, but transaction.&rdquo; He added that Trump&rsquo;s anti-China rhetoric mobilises MAGA, but in Beijing he sought deals, flattery, and crisis management rather than confrontation. The trip, he said, produced spectacle but little clarity on outcomes that favour Trump or the US.

On the broader shift in how China is framed as a strategic challenge, Swain said the change is significant, moving from viewing Beijing primarily as a security threat to treating it more as an economic partner. The current strategy, he said, reflects a logic of &ldquo;winning the economic future while preventing military confrontation,&rdquo; with emphasis on trade rebalancing, technology, supply chains, and deterrence. It ultimately reinforces, he added, a long-standing reading of Trump: that he sees China less ideologically than commercially.



The optics

During the trip, there were the carefully staged photo-ops with President Xi, including the familiar handshake moment where Trump tries to pull world leaders toward him as a signal of strength, even if the effect is more theatrical than decisive. Xi, for his part, hardly looked like a novice to the Trump ritual, having encountered his US counterpart on multiple occasions and long since learned how to meet that performance on his own terms. One image, in particular, stands out: Trump seated beside Xi, the Chinese leader upright and composed, while Trump appears slouched, almost sinking into the sofa, a visual that needed no commentary on the dynamic in the room.

From the outside, the choreography of the visit appeared seamless: military parades, cheering children, carefully staged ceremonies, and scenes of Trump being shown flowers inside the Communist Party headquarters in the heart of Beijing. But beyond the spectacle, there were remarkably few concrete announcements. Trump claimed China would purchase 200 Boeing aircraft and billions of dollars of American agricultural products. He also suggested Xi would help him end the war in Iran. Xi, meanwhile, wasted no time and used the visit to reiterate Beijing&rsquo;s position on Taiwan, pressing Washington to end arms sales to the self-governing island that China claims as its own, even warning that the issue could become a source of conflict between the two powers.

Analysts watching the trip closely were unanimous in saying that Washington achieved little, and in some readings even absorbed a few subtle snubs along the way. One moment that circulated widely came when Trump, during a visit to the gardens of the Communist Party headquarters, asked whether any other world leader had received a similar tour with Xi, to which the Chinese leader reportedly responded that Putin had been there before.

Overall, the optics, Swain noted, favored Xi. &ldquo;The Zhongnanhai garden walk, rare access, controlled tone, and Trump&rsquo;s deferential body language allowed Beijing to present China as an ancient but modern, rising but confident power receiving an American president on its terms. Trump got shows, Xi gained stature.&rdquo;

While the Middle East crisis shadowed the trip, Trump secured no concessions on that front in his meeting with his counterpart. The US president and officials from his administration sent mixed signals about how much assistance they were seeking from Beijing in pushing Iran back to the negotiating table. &ldquo;We feel very similar about how we want it to end. We don&rsquo;t want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the straits open,&rdquo; Trump himself claimed.

But any sense of alignment was quickly dispelled by Beijing&rsquo;s official machinery. China&rsquo;s foreign ministry made clear it would not be pulled into any expanded role beyond its stated position, reiterating that &ldquo;this conflict, which should never have happened, has no reason to continue.&rdquo; It added that China had been &ldquo;working tirelessly to end the fighting and strive for peace,&rdquo; pointing to Xi&rsquo;s four-point proposal on the Middle East issued prior to the visit.

Commenting on the exchanges between the two leaders on the most sensitive issues such as Iran and Taiwan, Swain from Uppsala University, said: &ldquo;On Iran, Trump wanted Xi&rsquo;s help. On Taiwan, he gave in to China.&rdquo;



Putin in Beijing 

Russia&rsquo;s leader Vladimir Putin visited Beijing for talks with Xi only days after Trump had done the same, and from a distance the choreography looked almost interchangeable &mdash; the handshakes, the military honour guards, the tightly staged smiles, even the crowds of children arranged as part of the show. But Putin&rsquo;s visit so soon after Trump&rsquo;s carried something more deliberate: Moscow&rsquo;s effort to signal that its relationship with Beijing remains intact, even central, despite shifting global alliances.

Putin and Xi used the meeting to deepen a web of trade and energy cooperation, while also touching on Russia&rsquo;s war in Ukraine. And even in the aftermath of what Washington had projected as a relatively successful summit with Trump, Beijing did not hold back in restating its broader critique of US power. Xi went on to caution that the world remains &ldquo;far from peaceful,&rdquo; with unilateralism and hegemonism posing profound risks, and with global politics in danger of sliding back toward what he described as a &ldquo;law of the jungle.&rdquo;

That language appeared appropriate within the broader strategic convergence between Moscow and Beijing, both carry a shared mistrust of the West and a parallel ambition to dilute what both see as a US-led unipolar order.

Taken together, the back-to-back visits also served China&rsquo;s broader diplomatic purpose. Hosting Trump and then Putin in quick succession allowed China to project itself as a central node in global diplomacy, a power capable of receiving rival leaders on its own terms, and of presenting itself as indispensable to any future global settlement.

For Swain the significance of Putin&rsquo;s visit lay less in the bilateral substance and more in what it revealed about China&rsquo;s positioning. &ldquo;Putin&rsquo;s visit after Trump&rsquo;s allowed Beijing to signal that it is not choosing Washington over Moscow,&rdquo; he noted. China, he added, is showing that it can host both rivals and partners, manage contradictions, and sit at the centre of a shifting global order, with a broader message for smaller powers: &ldquo;do not outsource strategy to great-power promises.&rdquo;



No gains for tech bosses 

As President Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping, what stood out almost as much as the style of diplomacy itself was the presence of US corporate executives in the background, figures like Elon Musk of Tesla, Tim Cook of Apple, and Nvidia&rsquo;s chief. More than two dozen tech bigwigs accompanied Trump on what was his first trip to China in nearly a decade, a business-heavy delegation that appeared designed to signal scale as much as intent.

At one point, the US president himself pointed to the group and said they were there &ldquo;to pay respects&rdquo; to Xi and to China. But their presence went well beyond the respect Trump alluded to. These companies are deeply embedded in the Chinese economy in ways that are difficult to unwind, even under initial pressure from the White House. Apple still relies heavily on Chinese manufacturing for its iPhone production. Tesla&rsquo;s Shanghai factory is its largest globally. Nvidia, meanwhile, stands to gain billions if US export restrictions on advanced chips were ever eased or reshaped.

Some of the executives appeared cautiously upbeat after their meetings. Tesla&rsquo;s Musk, whose presence drew particular attention and occasional controversy, suggested there were &ldquo;many good things&rdquo; coming out of the visit when asked about the outcome, though he offered little detail on what had actually been achieved.

According to analysts, the broader presence of the delegation also exposed a tension running through the visit. In Washington, there is an increasingly vocal argument that the US should reduce its economic exposure to China, particularly in sectors that could become strategically sensitive in a conflict scenario. Long before being re-elected, Trump himself pushed a similar line of argument, often blaming Biden for failing to prevent it. Advanced technologies, especially AI chips and high-end semiconductors, sit at the centre of that debate, with concerns that commercial flows today could translate into military capability tomorrow.

Whether those issues were discussed during the visit remains unclear. Questions around advanced chip technology reportedly came up in some form, but no details have been released on any concrete understandings.

For Swain, the presence of such a large tech delegation pointed to something more fundamental about the nature of the trip. &ldquo;Trump&rsquo;s foreign policy increasingly treats geopolitics as deal-making, with American technology firms as instruments of state power and market access as the real prize,&rdquo; he said. That shift, he added, weakens the traditional language of the &ldquo;China threat&rdquo; and recasts it instead as bargaining, where strategic rivalry and commercial interest are no longer easily separated.]]>
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			<title>Why do the bereaved feel abandoned?</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/2609805/why-do-the-bereaved-feel-abandoned</link>
			<comments>https://tribune.com.pk/story/2609805/why-do-the-bereaved-feel-abandoned#comments</comments>
			<pubDate>Sun, 24 May 26 04:48:45 +0500</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>
				<![CDATA[Faiza Shah]]>
			</dc:creator>
			<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category><category><![CDATA[T-Magazine]]></category>
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			<description>
				<![CDATA[When the rituals of mourning end, grief is often left to be carried alone]]>
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				<![CDATA[Years ago, a friend lost her aged father to the great unknown. I didn&rsquo;t know much about him or how he passed away finally and I still don&rsquo;t recall. What is a clear memory even today though are my friend&rsquo;s words as I sat beside her. She said it meant the world to her that I visited her and that I checked up on her during her time of grief. &lsquo;Those who have been there for me through this time are etched in my heart,&rsquo; she said.

I did not comprehend her sentiment. It felt too big for me then. I knew she was expressing vulnerability, but I was not familiar with it, nor could I pretend to be.

After her dad&rsquo;s passing, her life as she knew it, as I knew it, changed. Only those who are well-versed in the loss of loved ones have faced this change.

It is a lonely and otherworldly change when it is upon us. When it comes, you will be unprepared. You won&rsquo;t have your gear or bags ready. No matter how farsighted we are, when the time comes, we are shot into the unknown. Alone, we drift on a landscape empty, frightening and desolate&mdash;just like the vast and limitless nothingness that surrounds Earth. Alone we each discover a new planet&mdash;the planet of grieving. You will land on this planet when you lose your child or children, your parent or parents, your spouse, siblings... the list goes on and varies for each of us.

Any space expedition requires a base and control room on Earth. When you are on this planet too you will reach out for validation to get your bearings. But why is there silence, many grievers wonder? How come I am left alone to explore this dark new vast world? You notice the absence of your base&mdash;friends or relatives or whoever you considered to be your support network before your loss.

&ldquo;Grief is lonely as hell. People vanish when you need them most&mdash;maybe because they don&rsquo;t know what to say, or they&rsquo;re scared of making things worse. But silence? That&rsquo;s worse,&rdquo; writes William Hunter Howell in The Pretty Painful Grief Book, a journal of sorts about processing grief.

Why are your friends and relatives unable to keep in step when you are grieving?

In Islam, there is great emphasis laid on the rights of God and the rights of people. Included in the rights of people is the advice that one should check in on their neighbour and see if they are not going to bed hungry or wanting or if they are ill. We no longer live in such communities where we have daily interactions with next-door neighbours. But if not physical neighbours, then what about those in your social circle? Maybe among them are those who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Are they not lacking, needing comfort, and possibly going to bed hungry because they cannot cope with their loss?

Death is the inevitable reality which Muslims believe in and, in many ways, it forms the basis of our creed. It is the great equaliser, for as you live, so shall you die. It is also the great divider, for Muslims believe what you do in this life will help or hurt you after death. Culturally, we do honour and pay respect to those who pass away. Janaza (funeral), soyem (the third day of mourning), chaleeswaan (40 days after), barsi (death anniversary); these days numbering the passage of time after death all are marked with a communal gathering. Muslims feel it incumbent upon them to attend the janaza especially&mdash;the participation is said to bring you reward in your afterlife. However, that might be the last occasion you see many relatives and acquaintances. You may hear from them next when another religious day comes around, like Eid. On days when you feel alone on your planet, you can&rsquo;t help but wonder why they have not kept in touch? Or notice that they have not reached out since you departed from your old reality. For them you are present on the same Earth going about your routine life, meanwhile you are floating without gravity and unanchored in your new existence of bereavement.

Why does social support fade after the rituals are over?

What makes talking about death awkward?

On American TV and film, a lasagne casserole is a cultural token of extending sympathy for the bereaved family. Neighbours and friends show up with dish upon dish to ensure the family has comfort food. The excess of carbs is intended to make up for the grief that is too much to talk about. The people who know you try to keep you well fed while you sort out the practical tasks of burying your loved one.

In our society, the family going through the loss must feed the condolers who come to pray for the deceased. Relatives usually pitch in to get degs for at least 3 nights&rsquo; dinner if not a week&rsquo;s but the mourning household has to do their part of hosting the visitors, ensuring an endless supply of fresh tea and refreshments. (And yes even those meals get the same criticism as meals catered for weddings.) In a week, the doorbell stops ringing and there is silence for dinnertime.

Writing about the death of her father, Bryna Talamentez, a licensed family therapist, posts: &ldquo;Then, the meal train and people stopping by just ended. After a few weeks, our friends went back to their daily lives and we seemed to be forgotten. We went back to our simple meals at home with just us or my mom and I with my Grammy. Yes, my friends would still come and go from the house as usual, but everyone had suddenly stopped talking about my dad and stopped asking how I was doing with my grief. Did they just forget? Did they no longer care? These were questions I and others who are grieving have asked when the &lsquo;lasagna period&rsquo; ends.&rdquo;

She continues about the growing isolation experienced by the bereaved after the funereal rites and condolence visits are over: &ldquo;In reality, we cannot expect people to continue to bring us meals months on end, but what I was most upset about is it seemed like my dad&rsquo;s existence had never happened. People stopped saying his name. Many of our friends stopped asking how we were in our grief. They were wonderful about asking if my mom needed help with rides after school and to activities, and we were grateful for that. But I was hurt that all of a sudden they just didn&rsquo;t care that my dad was dead.&rdquo;

Grief is something each of us experience in our lifetime yet it is a subject we avoid talking about, according to Talamentez. Through her work, she is raising awareness and starting conversations on grief.

Talking about why social support largely fades away for the bereaved in our Muslim society, Rabeea Saleem, a mental health researcher based in Toronto, Ontario, says, &ldquo;A major reason for this is the widely held religious belief that mourning lasts only three days. While that&rsquo;s true, the process of grief does not end after three days.&rdquo;

She stresses the importance of differentiating between grieving and mourning. &ldquo;Grieving is the internal, personal experience of loss, which includes thoughts and feelings like sadness, pain, or loneliness. Mourning is the outward expression of that grief&mdash;the behavioural, social, and cultural rituals used to process loss,&rdquo; she explains. From the Americas to the Middle East, death wailing and keening is a socially sanctioned ritual to process grief. The vocal expression of grief is meant to show social support by publicly sharing the burden of grief, bringing the community together, and signalling the profound magnitude of the loss to surrounding members.

However, in modern times, we crave quieter strength and support from our society.

&ldquo;In a collective society like ours, there is a strong emphasis on injunctive norms&mdash;behaviours that one is expected to follow and expects others to follow in a given social situation,&rdquo; Saleem continues. &ldquo;Erving Goffman&rsquo;s theory of impression management relates this to people wanting to control how others perceive them in the service of personal or social goals. Showing up is a visible way of signalling care, respect, and that you&rsquo;re a &lsquo;good&rsquo; member of the community. It&rsquo;s not just about supporting the grieving family; it also communicates something about your own values. But once those formal rituals are over, the social pressure and visibility wear off. Support often fades not because people suddenly stop caring, but because there&rsquo;s no longer a clear social script or expectation pushing them to keep showing up. In other words, grief is highly supported when it&rsquo;s public and structured, but much less so when it becomes private and ongoing.&rdquo;

That is the irony of it all. There is not much vocabulary to reach for when someone dies. Many of us feel inadequate in mumbling &lsquo;Sorry for your loss&rsquo;; the words &lsquo;God give you strength to bear this loss&rsquo; might ring hollow. However, these are the simple social graces we cling to when there are no other words. They are not to be skipped. For when said with a hug, or physical touch to show support, they carry weight and comfort for the aggrieved. Even a sincere text message, if meeting in person is not possible, is better than not reaching out at all.

Perhaps, what will create more empathy is when we pause to think how life is changing for those whom the departed leaves behind. Placing ourselves in their shoes requires only a little imagination to picture what they might need during a time of loss: the bereaved are still counting the hours and days without their loved ones after the lasagne period is over.



The perils of isolation

When much of the support offered in early grief diminishes quickly, the bereaved, while navigating one loss, might get bewildered with the absence of more people. While we get back to our routine lives, their need for support continues.

Some studies show that both the quantity and quality of social support may influence well-being for grievers. Those who have more frequent contact with family and friends reported better quality of life-- whether this support comes through technology (email and the internet) or in-person. The meaningfulness and solace comes from the quality of relationships not the number of people contacting you.

&ldquo;Scientifically, the evidence behind the role of social support in facilitating grief adaptation has been inconsistent,&rdquo; argues Saleem, who has previously worked at Aga Khan University Hospital and Dow University of Health Sciences. &ldquo;While some studies suggest that social support in the first six months after loss can prevent [post-traumatic stress disorder] PTSD and depression later, other research suggests that the emotional suppression that occurs when people feel pressured to mask their mourning or &lsquo;hold it together&rsquo; to meet social obligations can prolong their process of grief. It all depends on whether the person feels safe enough to be honest about their grief within their social relationships, rather than having to perform coping for others.&rdquo;

Therapists often urge you to ruminate about your grief and stress the importance of getting catharsis while you are holding a myriad of emotions and thoughts inside. The bereaved person may need to express, vent, or make sense of their emotions by talking it out with someone they can trust. But if the other person takes the approach of offering solutions as if grief were a problem to be &ldquo;fixed&rdquo; rather than an experience to be held, the griever may distance themselves. They will shut down emotionally when people around them answer by avoiding conversation (e.g., changing the subject or signalling their discomfort through body language), or encouraging them to move on or offer religious platitudes (like &ldquo;they are in a better place&rdquo; or &ldquo;it was destined to be this way&rdquo;).

The bereaved individual feels intense social disconnection following their loss. &ldquo;This can show up as feeling distant or cut off from others and difficulty trusting them to relate to their loss,&rdquo; explains Saleem. &ldquo;Because of this, it&rsquo;s important to give them space to grieve in their own way, without trying to steer, correct, or &lsquo;fix&rsquo; the experience,&rdquo;

If not processed, grief may turn into emotional numbness or detachment and can become increasingly disconnected from their own emotional experience. Coping with their routine and connecting to their social support network becomes challenging. Without the &lsquo;normalcy&rsquo; in daily functioning it is harder to process and adapt to the loss over time.

Prolonged grief disorder is characterised by intense longing for or preoccupation with the deceased. It is accompanied by symptoms such as identity disturbance, disbelief about the loss, avoidance of reminders, intense emotional pain, and feelings of numbness, loneliness, or meaninglessness. These experiences can cause significant distress and interfere with important areas of daily functioning. There are noticeable signs to watch out for in people who have experienced loss: Impairment in daily functioning, emotional volatility in romantic relationships, and addictive tendencies. One or all of these changes should be taken as a silent cry for help.

Some scholars have found a relationship between loneliness and post-bereavement depressive symptoms, adding to the global burden of mental illness. This situation worsened considerably by the Covid-19 pandemic. The medical journal Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology published a paper on the link between suicidal ideation in adults who are grieving and social withdrawal. The paper identified thwarted belongingness, withdrawal from others, lack of connection, and loneliness as significant risk factors for suicidality in grievers.

Strong social support for those dealing with intense grief may not expedite recovery, but it may improve their capacity to cope. Much of the responsibility for grief support falls on family and friends. Yet, bereaved people often report insufficient support from these sources. Each person has unique needs. For instance, those who have lost a spouse at an early age or a child often need more support than family or friends can provide. Additionally, while the death of a loved one sometimes strengthens family relationships, often these relationships are strained, as family members may also be grieving, adding to the psychological distress of the bereaved. In such complex cases, professional therapy and grief counselling would prove most beneficial.

Just as the initial wave of social support begins to fade, the true, complex work of grieving begins. We often hear about the seven stages of grief. This is a mid-century psychology concept which tried to categorise the chaotic aftermath of loss into a predictable sequence: shock, denial, pain/guilt, anger/bargaining, depression, the upward turn, and finally, acceptance.

But anyone who has ever sat in the wreckage of a major loss knows that grief is not neatly experienced. It is a bombardment of feelings and thoughts every day. You do not &quot;graduate&quot; from shock to denial, nor do you leave anger behind forever once acceptance arrives. Grieving individuals tend to loop back, skip steps, and experience multiple stages at the exact same time. On Monday, they might feel the quiet resolve of acceptance; by Tuesday morning, a sudden scent or memory can plunge them right back into acute pain and anger. Grief is non-linear, unpredictable, and deeply exhausting.

When someone we care about is trapped in this emotionally volatile landscape, we must be patient and learn to figure out what kind of support they require for healing at different times. To truly help someone carrying this weight, we must learn how to meet them exactly where they are&mdash;regardless of which stage they happen to be enduring today.

&ldquo;One of the most meaningful ways to support someone grieving the loss of a close family member is to stay present and regularly check in in a consistent, low-pressure way, especially in the weeks and months after the loss,&rdquo; recommends Saleem. What helps most is being compassionate, nonjudgmental, and emotionally available&mdash;someone who can sit with them in it, rather than try to take it away.&rdquo;

When routine breaks, so does your reality. When someone precious to you is taken away, you leave behind your old life, the one you lived with their presence and you forget your old self because you are facing a new life, without the ones who died. In this isolation, you can hurt and lose even more. The fragile link between this new reality and &lsquo;normal&rsquo; life can only be built by social interaction that provides a healing space for you.

To support those in grief, we don&rsquo;t have to make elaborate gestures. &ldquo;You just need to show up, send a text,&rdquo; as Howell writes in his book. &ldquo;Grief is heavy, but when someone holds even a fraction of that weight, it becomes a little less unbearable.&rdquo;

&nbsp;]]>
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			<title>When time stalls, stories begin</title>
			<link>https://tribune.com.pk/story/2609804/when-time-stalls-stories-begin</link>
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			<pubDate>Sun, 24 May 26 04:40:36 +0500</pubDate>
			<dc:creator>
				<![CDATA[Farrukh Kamrani]]>
			</dc:creator>
			<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category><category><![CDATA[T-Magazine]]></category>
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			<description>
				<![CDATA[How the story—an account of an event—acts as a substitute for life]]>
			</description>
			<content:encoded>
				<![CDATA[The first and foremost duty of a story is to entertain in uneventful, dull, and monotonous times&mdash;at least this is what our dastans (tales) and their counterparts in other cultures suggest.

In Qissa Chahar Dervish, a classic 13th-century allegorical story traditionally attributed to Amir Khusro, the main characters accidentally meet outside the city of Constantinople after having &ldquo;cast about like dust from place to place.&rdquo; The gates of the city are closed and this is probably the reason why these strangers decide to sit together in the dim illumination of a lamp in their collective wait for a rather distant dawn. Here one of them proposes that they have before them a dull night &ldquo;as long as eternity,&rdquo; and that it would be better if each of them were to tell his own story so that &ldquo;the night may pass in conversation&rdquo;.

The uneventfulness of the situation also serves as the pretext for storytelling in Boccaccio&rsquo;s Decameron.

The noblemen and ladies who have withdrawn to a villa on the outskirts of Florence amid a raging plague have various pursuits&mdash;carousing, music, singing, dancing, strolling, and games&mdash;to immerse themselves in during the evenings and nights of their voluntary confinement. However, unlike the outcasts in Qissa Chahar Dervish (Tale of the Four Dervishes), who face a long, dull night, it is the hotter part of the day after breakfast that proves more tedious to the Florentines in Boccaccio&#39;s story. To cope with this uneventful hour, one of the ladies suggests narrating stories. &quot;By the time each of us has finished telling a story, the sun will have gone down and the heat will have lessened, and then we can go out and enjoy ourselves wherever we please,&quot; she says.

In de Navarre&rsquo;s Heptameron, a group of noblemen and ladies is confined to a monastery&mdash;Abbey of Our Lady of Serrance&mdash;due to torrential rains and floods that have washed away a key bridge leading back to their hometowns in France and Spain. They now seek to devise some pastime &ldquo;to relieve the weariness of their long stay,&rdquo; which has separated the men from &ldquo;chase and hawking&rdquo; and the women from &ldquo;their household cares, work, and dance.&rdquo; They also ultimately find relief in stories, a remedy suggested by one of the ladies.



However, even when one is not confined to a place&mdash;by nightfall, pestilence, or torrential rain&mdash;but is instead on the move, the monotony of the landscape or the road can prove equally oppressive.

Harry Bailly, the host at Tabard Inn in Chaucer&rsquo;s Canterbury Tales, understands this as he proposes to the pilgrims&mdash;who are to set out for Canterbury the next morning&mdash;to entertain themselves with stories on their journey.

&ldquo;I know well that, as you travel, you intend to talk and amuse yourselves, for there is no pleasure in riding along the road as silent as a stone,&rdquo; he says, thereby setting the stage for a storytelling contest in which each pilgrim tells two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the return journey.

A story is arguably the account of an event&mdash;action, movement or change&mdash;and therefore it is natural that we need it the most in monotonous situations and tedious times of inactivity. We long to be agents of events or participants in action in real life. But when we are stuck in stagnant waters of time, we turn to stories&mdash;accounts of events and actions&mdash;as a compensation or a substitute for real action and eventfulness. But constant immersion in the thick of events can also be exhausting. Moreover, eventfulness is not inherently desirable, for at times a chain of events may culminate in catastrophe and a tragic end which we seek to avert at all costs.



Here comes the second duty of the story: to delay, keep at bay and, if possible, altogether avert an undesirable happening. But, in dastans and romances, the storyteller often has to cloak his real intention&mdash;of delaying or averting an outcome&mdash;behind the avowed wish to entertain.

Scheherazade, the erudite heroine of Alf Laifa [One Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights, a renowned collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age] , starts narrating a story, ostensibly at the request of her sister Dunyazad. Dunyazad has been summoned to Scheherazade&rsquo;s wedding chamber before the consummation of the latter&rsquo;s marriage with King Sheheryar.

The bride is to be executed in the morning according to a brutal norm that the disillusioned king has set after betrayal by one of his beloved queens.

Before tying the knot, Scheherazade has taught her sister when to demand a &ldquo;new, delectable and delightsome&rdquo; tale in the presence of the king to &ldquo;speed the waking hours&rdquo;. But once granted permission to tell a tale, the heroine of the Arabic masterpiece always leaves her story unfinished&mdash;at a cliffhanger&mdash;at the break of dawn, forcing the king to defer her execution for 1,001 nights out of curiosity.



The parrot in Sanskrit story Sukasaptati&mdash;and its Urdu adaptation Tota Kahani&mdash;&quot;uses&quot; stories for forestalling an undesirable eventuality. This eloquent bird&#39;s mistress&mdash;Prabhavati in the Sanskrit story and Khajasta in the Urdu dastan&mdash;has found a paramour during her husband&#39;s long absence.

She is ready to leave her house one night to finally meet her lover but the parrot starts a story&mdash;apparently instructing her how to maintain her illicit affair without sparking any scandal.

However, the story&rsquo;s real purpose is to stop her from committing adultery. And the bird successfully does that as he prolongs the tale he starts in the evening until the dawn&mdash;for 70 odd days in the Sanskrit dastan and for 35 days in the Urdu adaptation.

The Baital&mdash;vampire&mdash;in the Sanskrit story Baital Pachisi starts narrating a riddle-story to brave King Vikramajit when the latter puts him on his back and walks towards the charnel ground where a Jogi is waiting for the two. The Baital&#39;s professed reason for narrating stories is that he is &quot;loquacious by nature&quot; and cannot stay silent for the long stretch of an hour-long walk between the tree where he lives and the Jogi&#39;s place&mdash;a reason somewhat similar to the one mentioned in the Canterbury Tales.

The Baital tells the king that he will distract his thoughts by means of &quot;sprightly tales&quot;. He also describes stories as &quot;profitable reflections&quot;&mdash;a hallmark of &quot;sages and wise men&quot;. However, the real reason why the Baital narrates stories that end on a difficult riddle is to stop Vikramajit from falling into the trap of the Jogi, who actually intends to kill the king to become the lord of the worldly and spiritual domains.



So each time the king answers the riddle correctly, the Baital immediately flies back to his tree, compelling the king to fetch him again. Thus, 24 times the king solves the riddle, and loses his burden, only to begin the weary task anew&mdash;protracting his journey to the Jogi.

But the narrators in dastans and romances do not always feel the need to hide their real purpose and they also present stories as direct exhortations toward&mdash;or warnings against&mdash;a particular course of action as cautionary tales&mdash;the third duty of the story.

Here storytelling becomes a contested instrument of persuasion, deployed by opposing sides toward contrary ends. While performing its third duty, a story intervenes directly in the course of events, slowing or accelerating action, and in doing so becomes an active agent in the shaping of fate.

In Alf Laila, when Scheherazade expresses her wish to marry Sheheryar, her father&mdash;a vizier responsible for arranging girls for the murderous king&rsquo;s one-night marriages&mdash;vehemently opposes the proposal. In an attempt to dissuade his daughter, he narrates a story to her.



In Bakhtyar-Nama (a medieval Iranian romance), Bakhtyar is originally King Azadbakht&rsquo;s only son, who was abandoned in infancy during the king and his wife&#39;s flight amid an invasion and thereafter raised by a bandit. This young man manages, through his intelligence, eloquence, and uncommon bearing, to rise high in the court of his own father, much to the chagrin and envy of the king&rsquo;s viziers.

One day, under the influence of wine, Bakhtyar loses his way in the palace, accidentally wandering into the king&rsquo;s harem and falling asleep in Azadbakht&rsquo;s private chamber.

This mistake offers the jealous viziers an opportunity to remove this thorn in their side. One of them convinces the queen&mdash;who is in fact Bakhtyar&rsquo;s mother, though neither knows the truth of their relationship&mdash;that she must accuse the young man of making advances to her to dispel suspicion from the king&rsquo;s mind. Provoked by his counsellors, the king orders Bakhtyar&rsquo;s execution. However, before being led to death, the young man begs leave to speak and implores the king not to act rashly, supporting his plea each day with a cautionary tale about rulers undone by haste, credulity, or bad counsel.

His stories cause the king to postpone the sentence, and thus ten successive days are won. At the end of this reprieve, the hidden truth comes to light and the prince is finally saved.

In Sindibad-Nameh&mdash;an earlier story, probably of Indian origin&mdash;it is the king&rsquo;s concubine who seeks to seduce her stepson and, upon being rejected, accuses the young prince of sexual assault.

The prince, however, is unable to defend himself, for his tutor, Sindibad, having foreseen mortal danger in the stars, has instructed him to remain silent for seven days, warning that a single word spoken in that period would cost him his life.

Taking advantage of his silence, the concubine strengthens her accusation before the king.

Each day, however, one of the seven wise counsellors comes forward to plead for delay, narrating an exemplary tale to restrain the king&rsquo;s wrath, while each night the concubine counters with a story of her own urging swift execution.

But does a story also have some other duty apart from addressing exigencies like breaking the monotony of an uneventful situation, postponing and averting an undesirable outcome or acting as an exhortation for some desirable outcome?

In Alf Laila, Scheherazade&#39;s real intention behind prolonging her stories is not only to defer her execution. She also wants to put an end to this custom, once and for all, which has already consumed the lives of hundreds of innocent girls. Before going into her wedding chamber, she tells her sister that she will narrate a tale &ldquo;which shall be our deliverance, if so Allah please, and which shall turn the King from his blood-thirsty custom&rdquo;.

This is the fourth duty of the story: to educate people indirectly and transform them into better individuals. A story here is an exercise in empathy. It allows us to inhabit the experiences of others and gradually leads us to question our own assumptions and biases while recognising the shared vulnerabilities of human existence.

It is through this indirect engagement with diverse lives that stories refine perception, soften judgment, and open the possibility of ethical transformation. In this sense, storytelling becomes a subtle form of moral instruction, not imposed through preaching but achieved through imagination.

In the last few words on the power of stories: if we go by dastans and romances, we will have to conclude that the curiosity invoked by stories is something more powerful than human passions such as hate, rage, revenge, lust, and even sexual desire; that stories and real life are interwoven; and that we need stories like sleep, water and food.

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All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer]]>
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