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profile Rowling
in adventure
City with antiquarian values
profile On a typical July
afternoon in Lahore, as crickets
and other invisible creatures trill madly in the bushes and velvety warm air
rustles away,Tehmina Durrani welcomes me at
her residence for an interview. The activist and author settles down on the
dark coral sofa in her bedroom comfortably and rather elegantly. With an aura
of poised confidence and a heart-warming smile, she begins to talk about her
activism, life, work, and her brand new novel, ‘Happy
Things in Sorrow Times’. Author of four books, she
seems confident talking about her writing techniques: “I write with my
heart. I write how I speak, I write how I think. I was a writer by accident.
My circumstances made me write. I got thrown into this very amazing way of
communication, so basically my writing is all about feelings.” Tehmina Durrani grew up
reading a lot of Enid Blyton. She laughs while telling me that she was into
reading comics, ‘Archie Comics’ in particular. As she
grew older she savoured Amin Maalouf ‘Samarkand’, works of Paulo Coelho and Noam Chomsky. It took her a year to write
her first novel, ‘My Feudal
Lord’. The book was about her traumatic and abusive marriage and it set
ripples all across Pakistan and shook the cores of the patriarchal society.
It also stirred controversy but that never stopped Durrani from campaigning
and advocating for what she thought was right. This made her into an
activist for women’s rights. Her second book, a
biography of Abdul Sattar Edhi, the most prominent philanthropist and
activist of Pakistan, took her three years to finish. Her third book ‘Blasphemy’encompasses the secret lives of Islamic spiritual
leaders and clergymen. The book focuses on the story of a woman and how she
has to battle for her rights in a so-called ‘religious’ environment. Durrani has done immense
work in highlighting gender-based violence in Pakistan’s rural and urban
society. This brings us to her fourth and latest book,
‘Happy Things in Sorrow Times’, in which the protagonist is a young girl. “It took me twelve years
to finish this book,” she tells me with a smile. When asked about her
writing etiquette, she holds her mug firmly in one hand and takes a sip of
her tea. “I write all night, usually till the morning prayers when there is
complete silence so that I can concentrate on my work properly.” ‘Happy Things in Sorrow
Times’ was a book she started writing
during the first Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. But it was a story that had
to be told later in time and hence as events of the region unfolded, the
story also evolved. Now with the current
situation, with the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and orphaned
children left homeless in the region, the book tells a story of a similar
young Afghan girl named Basrabia. “It is a little book, told very gently
from the heart and the eyes of a child which makes it not as harsh and
depressing as such a story would be,” she pauses thoughtfully and then
continues, “Everyone has a child in them no matter how old they become. So
it is easy for the reader to connect with Basrabia on a personal level. While
writing, many times I felt that I went into my own childhood and started
growing up with her.” A unique feature of the
book is that it has colourful illustrations in it that add distinctive
quality to this work. What makes this even more interesting is that the
author herself made all the illustrations. “The story was abstractly in my
head before I started writing it even though I didn’t know the conclusion
at that time. I visited various refugee camps in Chaman and started painting,
illustrating, and sketching what I saw. I spent twelve to fifteen days going
to different camps and that’s how I started painting the whole story,”
she tells enthusiastically. The book focuses on how war
changes lives of children for the worse. Durrani stresses on how oblivious
the world’s governments are towards these children. “These children need
serious counselling. They need love. Political leadership must become
conscious of this pertinent issue otherwise the backlash is on us. 70 per
cent of Afghanistan’s population is under the age of 25. This population
was born and raised during the war. How are they going to forget and how are
they going to forgive?” Durrani raises some valid
questions for the world community as her new area of focus will be children
of war in Afghanistan. In the light of her work as
an advocate for women’s rights in Pakistan, I ask her if she considers
herself a feminist, she smiles again, “Not really. The struggle for
feminism all over the world is admirable and we must learn from the examples
of our sisters in the West. But it is interesting the US still hasn’t had a
female head of state but we have. I have met so many women abroad and spoken
to so many who are suffering from the effects of patriarchy in the West. They
don’t have equal rights in the workplace. I think we should learn from that
the balance that Islam gives us. The Quran tells us women are equal in spirit
to men. An excellent example is that of Edhi and Bilquis Edhi. They have an
extremely supportive relationship. Edhi Sahib now claims that 99 per cent of
his success is due to Bilquis. I believe that men and women complement each
other and both have a huge role to play in the society.” I ask her if she feels that
the trend of misogyny is changing in Pakistan or not. She analyses, “toxins
of our society are coming out. Women are no longer silenced; they are
expressing their opinions. The discussions are healthier.” This shows a positive move
from the time her first book ‘My Feudal Lord’ was published. Durrani talks about how our religion is often
misunderstood, “It is important for women to fight for their rights that
Islam has given them. There should be more awareness for women when it comes
to their Islamic rights. Which is why I think Arabic must be compulsory in
schools so that children can read the Quran for themselves and understand it.
Islamic rights empower women much more than what we see in the West.” She tells that she is
working on a sequel to this book and we should expect it to be out very soon.
“The first one took me twelve years, this one should be out in a year; we are living in a time that is moving
much faster.” She told me now she is a
grandmother of five children. Surprised, I asked her what is her beauty secret. She smiled again, blinked her
eyes and told me, “Happiness!”
Rowling
in adventure It is difficult to
say what works for Robert Galbraith. Some endearing characters for one thing.
Also as a man, he seems to have a good eye when describing women’s apparel.
When ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ was first published with the pseudonym,
Galbraith, sales in hardback were around 1,500 and around 7,000 in ebooks and
audio books formats for three months. The moment it was revealed that
Galbraith was J.K. Rowling’s pseudonym, booksellers sold approximately
17,000 copies in just one week. ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ ranked number
one at Amazon. It has been categorically
denied by Rowling and her publishers that revealing the author’s identity
was a marketing gimmick. Still, the figures in sales indicate that J.K.
Rowling has written another bestseller. Is it really a bestseller or does
Rowling have the sort of cult following that will buy anything she writes is
not an easy one to answer. One can safely say that Rowling has once again
done what she does best, create an endearingly misfit-character, think Hagrid
with more brains and the oomph factor and you’ve got Cormoran Strike, an ex
soldier with service in Afghanistan turned out-on-his-luck detective. He has
a troubled past, and an equally troubled ex relationship; and an equally
unlikely smart and resourceful secretary Robin. You will have to read the
book to get the comparison with Hagrid. For once, review of a who-dunnit
murder mystery should surely keep some surprises. An interesting part of the
detective’s makeup was his interaction with women, for it was markedly
smart and down to earth. Just because he is a macho detective he does not get
to mistreat any of the female characters in the novel. A breath of fresh air
after the likes of James Bond whose films at least are accused of sexism.
Cormoran Strike listens well and till the end, he does not divulge what he
knows, keeping the suspense alive. In this work, one can
detect on Rowling’s part a certain compassionate sensibility towards the
luckless and the downtrodden that show up in the narrative from time to time.
The characters are drawn with warmth, even those that appear for a short time
seem to have depth. Indeed, this is the type of characterising J.K. Rowling
excels at. A murder mystery set in the
high fashion echelons of London somehow manages to give a pretty accurate map
of the city itself. Just like Agatha Christie makes one think English Village
and tea with cakes and scones, in the urban narrative the detective in London
provides a fascinating picture of the city. He turns from one lane into
another when shadowing people. He arrives at certain London addresses and
rings the bell. The clubs and pubs all become as much a part of the story as
the main plot itself. There is an interesting sense of place in ‘The
Cuckoo’s Calling’ and it would be great to see if JKR means to develop
that further. Like Agatha Christie’s ‘English Pastoral’, where
night-and tea-time rituals take centre-stage, lanes and subways in
Rowling’s London become living breathing parts of a city’s mystique. And
again, like Christie’s books where the identity of the killer is sometimes
revealed when the detective finds out about the victim’s dinner guests, the
killer in ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ is revealed through the city lanes and
suburbs. There are some fissures in
her work, such as the villain whose character can be formulaic to some
extent. In the beginning the killer comes across very well disguised. It is
only later in the book, when the killer’s motive is revealed that one feels
a sense of anti climax. Still, if the killer’s portrait was drawn with a
bit more insight, it would have made an even more morbidly scary character
than it already was. Compared with You-know-who this killer was indeed more
complicated. But if it’s one thing Rowling needs to work on, it is her
characterisation of villains. At the end of it all,
it’s a pity that a decent writer like Rowling is scrutinised against her
Potter series books. ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ is not such a sensation,
but in terms of writing and story it is a good read. The threads that JKR
builds into the book like Cormoran’s past and a secretary whose fiancé
abhors her working for a detective all make up for tantalising carrots waved
in the reader’s face. By the end of the book, we know who the killer is but
we also want to know what happened next to Strike. With due apologies, I
never felt this way about Hercule Poirot. For some fun answers and
JKR’s gentle sense of humour that accompanies ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’,
a website by the name of Robert Galbraith has been put up where Rowling
explains why she chose to write about London and why as Galbraith. According
to the information provided there, the next Galbraith novel will be published
in 2014 as Rowling has decided to continue with this pseudonym. The Cuckoo’s Calling Author: Robert Galbraith Publisher: Mulholland
Books, 2013 Pages: 464 Price: $15
City
with antiquarian values
Dr Anila Naeem, the author,
prefers to call it a monograph rather than a book. Launched somewhat
hurriedly by the EFT in Karachi in February this year, this is the first of
an exhaustive two-volume study which is still not available for purchase. Naeem is an architect who
also has a Master’s degree in Conservation and Historic Preservation from
the Middle East Technical University, Turkey, and a Doctorate from the Oxford
Brookes University, UK. She has been a consultant to various conservation and
research projects undertaken by the Heritage Cell of the Department of
Architecture and Planning, NED University, Karachi. Her interest in Shikarpoor
was awakened in 1999 while she was touring around Sindh with a group of
students, and paid a visit to this remarkably unusual city which left a
lasting impact on her. She took it up as her research study for her Doctorate
in 2006. Since then it has been a long and passionate involvement, finally
resulting in this monograph. This is the result of five years of intensive
study, involving several visits, starting with no maps available. Shikarpoor was established
in 1617AD by the Daoodpotras. At the height of its prosperity in the 18th and
19th centuries, the city developed as an important hub of trade, commerce,
banking, as well as political clout. It became one of the two cities of Sindh
(the other being Karachi) having a Hindu majority in an otherwise Muslim
dominated region. Although the city never enjoyed the distinction of being a
capital or seat of administrative power, it had an influential control on the
economics and politics of the region. Following Independence in 1947, exodus
of the Hindu population from Shikarpoor brought a drastic decline in the
state of the city. Although remnants of its unique historic past are still
evident today, these are rapidly disappearing due to market forces and lack
of administrative control, leading to a change in architectural vocabulary
and lack of aesthetic value in the new constructions throughout. The author realised during
her field work that, in spite of the socio-economic degeneration and
demographic changes, a sizable percentage of the resident community (the
educated elite as well as the common man on the street) still holds
appreciation for the historic fabric and feels a sense of loss at the
continuing pillage of the city’s antiquarian values for the benefit of a
privileged few. The monograph is basically
a compilation of inventories of 1,203 properties notified as protected
heritage of Shikarpoor Historic City. These include 1163 buildings/ historic
structures, 27 urban elements and 13 open spaces. Volume 1 (being reviewed)
comprises properties in Union Councils 1, 2 and 3. Volume 2 will continue
with properties in UCs 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Being a true academic,
Naeem explains her methodology and the structure of the monographs in an
author’s note at the beginning of Volume 1. She describes Shikarpoor in its
historic perspective, goes on to explain her documentation process, her
criteria for the listing of properties and, lastly, her format and
connotations for the inventory forms. Each one of the 1,203 properties has a
separate standard inventory form that gives comprehensive information related
to that particular entry, including pictures and a location map with
analytical information enabling the understanding of the significance and
value of that specific entry. Each Union Council starts
as a separate section with a key map, followed by the single page inventory
of all properties that lie within that UC. The whole compilation has been
divided into two volumes mainly for easy handling, as these are meant to be
used as field catalogues and tools for the management and monitoring of the
listed properties. The same format will be followed in the second volume.
Whereas Volume 1 contains an introductory section (described earlier), Volume
2 will end with appendices. Naeem’s contribution is
thus a first step to achieve following objectives: -Capture and record the
fast disappearing historic environment. -Make a comprehensive
database on cultural properties in the form of a handy manual for city
managers, planners and decision makers supporting the cause of heritage
conservation. -Provide a resource for
researchers, scholars and students interested in the history and traditional
built environment of the region and, above all, raise public awareness
towards the historic significance of the city and build a sense of pride
among its residents and other stakeholders. Shikarpoor Historic City, Sindh,
Pakistan Inventory and Mapping of
Heritage Properties, Volume 1 Author: Dr Anila Naeem Publisher: Endowment Fund
Trust for Preservation of the Heritage of Sindh, 2013
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