On Reading Mirza Waheed’s ‘The Collaborator’ GUEST COLUMN BY SIDDHARTHA GIGOO
I first got to know of Mirza Waheed through Sameer, a friend of mine, who goes on postponing a rendezvous with me. It must have been the summer of 2009. I had read Sameer’s riveting short story, ‘The Brave’ and was in awe of it, particularly the visual imagery and characterization.
I had come to know that Waheed was writing a novel whose locale was Kashmir. I sent him a message. Waheed responded a day or two later. Sometime later I revealed a secret to him; that I too was in the process of writing a novel -------- a novel about Kashmiris. I also wrote to Basharat Peer whose ‘Curfewed Night’ I was reading that time. I kept on going back to Basharat’s book (even after having read it), partly because of my fascination with the way Basharat narrated a real story, and partly because I read it the way I read novels. Many people still think that ‘Curfewed Night’ is a novel. Even some papers refer to it as fiction. Strange, how people read books! Can’t we say that it is a novel in disguise or a memoir aspiring to be a novel?
Emails from Basharat and Waheed came from far off lands. I wrote to them that I had been to both New York as well as England and that both were ideal places for writers to write. The environment there is so much conducive to creative writing. Besides, one writes well when writing from afar. I imagined Waheed sitting on a pew at Hyde Park and scribbling notes, reflectively, traversing rivers of memory. I imagined him travelling in the London Tube, reading a book and jotting down points for his novel, unruffled by the chaos of things around.
And then in the silence of the nights I went to my manuscript. At times, I felt distracted by the characters I had created. Some characters refused to obey me and tricked me mischievously into following their ways. In some cases I relented, helplessly. I let them behave the way they wanted to. The plot took me to different places, some hazy and some vivid. The scenes unfolded magically and invaded my creativity. I struggled, even wept at times, in desperation at my incompetence and helplessness and I turned to the novels that adorned my bookshelf. I leafed through a page here and a page there. A Kazantzakis, a Bellow, a Pessoa, a Sebald, a Gorky!
And then I thought of Waheed. I imagined him atop a magic carpet flying to the Kashmir of the nineties and meeting Captain Kadian and the nameless hero. Sitting all by himself by a roadside on a pass, mumbling a Rafi melody, listening to the echoes of the people from Kashmir, looking at his characters, seeing the lanes of Nowgam, the village which saw its people disappear. Later, for me, Nowgam became Nogam (NoVillage).
Was I trying to seek inspiration?
Time sped past quickly. I trudged from one draft to another, sometimes with certainty and sometimes with stark uncertainty. The only thing I was sure of was the title I had thought of. When I started writing I typed the words THE GARDEN OF SOLITUDE in capital letters on a page. Later, when someone asked me the title of my work-in-progress novel, I said: ‘The Garden of Solitude.’ I paused and added, ‘It is a working title, but I am sure it will not change even if I change my mind later on.’ Other titles had flashed. ‘The Last Solitude’… But I was stubborn. Yet, I tried to go about things patiently and methodically. Did I expose my imperfections, I fear?
I was fascinated with how writers create a universe. A universe more alive and more magical than the one in which we live. I always wanted to write a story of a boy who gets to journey through the vicissitudes of life in search of something ineffable. An odyssey of sorts in which the protagonist is trapped in a world riddled with love, hate, hope, despair and madness. I imagined myself at strange places: a refugee camp, a dwelling by a riverside, a decrepit house with windows open, a no-place. I saw exiles for whom freedom had become a prison. I saw history descend upon innocence and trample it.
The hands of the clock on the wall of my room moved towards a destination. I was reading Roberto Boleno’s collection of short stories ‘Last Evenings on Earth’. The stories are about Chilean exiles, their lives and travails and exploits. I was learning how Boleno constructs sentences. He begins a story: “The way in which my friendship with Sensini developed was unusual. At the time I was twenty-something and poorer than a church mouse….”
How does one write like this, I wondered? Simple, yet mesmerizing!
In my hands I held Waheed’s ‘The Collaborator,’ which had been released the previous evening. I had stopped reading novels the way I used to. There was a time when I would buy a novel and keep it on my bookshelf for days, flip through the pages, bury my face in them to smell the fragrant paper. This ritual would last weeks. I liked to grow old with the novel. I would never care to dust the books on the bookshelf. The dust is part of my life.
Then one quiet hour of a night I began to read Waheed’s novel. The first line is important. I read the first line over and over again and imagined the worlds awaiting me. (Quaint habits of a demented mind, perhaps.) I read the novel, line by line. I read it to see how Waheed wove scenes and constructed sentences. I tried to understand characterization and plot and structure. And inevitably I found myself transported in Nowgam.
Yet my reading of ‘The Collaborator’ turned out to be a different reading, given that I was reminded of the time when I was writing and revising my novel. I could see the writer’s toil; in a land far away, writing about Kashmir, where young boys ‘came home in coffins’.
I wanted to pen my thoughts on the novel. Not a review! I have never written a review of any book. But I have poured some thoughts, scattered thoughts on some novels. The term papers which I churned out during my days at a university were horrendous. I pocketed several C minuses. Failure seeks failure. I have always reveled in failures. Even today, I still cherish those times when reading novels was the only worthwhile activity I indulged in.
The nameless hero of Waheed’s novel is my hero too. He is alive, so much alive even now and will always be. So is Captain Kadian. He will be remembered for generations. Does he seek redemption? Does the nameless hero come out liberated towards the end? Is his search over? Difficult questions! As a reader, I was moved by the description of the horrors of life, the suffering, the longing. Is there any salvation in suffering?
The last two lines of ‘The Collaborator’ - The fires burn brilliantly now. It is time I left - are haunting. What does one do after one finishes reading such a book? Years ago, I went into a strange state of being after finishing Thomas Mann’s ‘Magic Mountain’. One feels like renouncing things and going on some sort of a pilgrimage.
I took a long walk and remembered the forsaken and forgotten people of Kashmir; the old and the young who didn’t return to their homes.
The following evening, I sent a few lines to Mirza Waheed.
“Dear Waheed,
I have kept your novel alongside Garcia Marquez's, 'Living to Tell the Tale.' There are some other novels on my bookshelf. And fortunately, there was room for just one more. And ‘The Collaborator’ fits in quite well.”
Siddhartha Gigoo is the author of The Garden of Solitude.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by replica salvatore ferragamo handbags, February 16, 2012
-
- +0
-
-
written by 15 cm high heels, March 21, 2012
-
- +0
-
-
written by anime clothing, March 21, 2012
-
- +0
-
-
written by antique antimagnetic, March 21, 2012
-
- +0
-
-
written by louis vuitton handbags, May 05, 2012
louis vuitton outlet online louis vuitton outlet online
-
- +0
-
-
written by barbour sale, May 07, 2012
http://www.barbourshops.com/
-
- +0
-
-
Powered by 