Tag: Pakistanis

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Review: Salt And Saffron

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Salt And Saffron by Kamila Shamsie is a light-hearted book about family history, class divisions, prejudices and familial love. Shamsie has created a fictional aristocratic family, proud of its roots that go back many centuries. She has used this family as an example of the elitism and caste system deeply embedded in our culture in the guise of family values and pride.

The very name of the family, the Dard-e-Dils (the Heartaches), is so unreal that you know what will follow can only be satirical and tongue-in-cheek. This family, the Dard-e-Dils, is proud of its heritage and they love to tell stories, mainly about their ancestors. Most of these stories are about the “not-quite” twins. These “not-quite” twins have been born quite frequently through history, and have always brought about the downfall of this family.

Aliya is the main protagonist, going back from the US to her family in Karachi, by way of London. She last talked to her Dadi (paternal grandmother) 4 years ago when they had a massive falling out. After avoiding her for 4 years, Aliya thinks that it’s time to heal the breach. But first, she makes a stop in London to see her older cousin with whom she is very close. And it is there that her own story seems to take an unexpected turn. She not only finds herself attracted to a boy who might be unacceptable to her family, but also meets the Indian side of her family.

The Indian and Pakistani sides of the Dard-e-Dils refuse to acknowledge each other, and still carry old wounds from the time of the partition. Aliya learns something about herself during her meeting with her Indian relatives. This makes it even more imperative for her to go back home and figure out what she wants from life.

Essentially a love story, Salt And Saffron also takes a look at the deeper consequences of the Indo-Pak partition; the deeply ingrained prejudices that are passed down through generations in the form of class and caste. How family history is written through stories that become legends as time passes.

Kamila Shamsie is an excellent writer and it is hard to find fault in her writing. She takes very real elements from her surroundings and turns them into a riveting story. The only problem is that since this book is written from the perspective of a particular class, it might be difficult to relate to for people who do not belong to that class. However, this does not stop me from appreciating her craft and her command of words. She is definitely a master storyteller.

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Sunday Discussion: Are We Giving Up On Our Mother Tongue?

My mother tongue is Urdu. As an expat living in the Middle East for the last 10 years, one of the things that I am most ashamed of is that I have not been too diligent in teaching my children my mother tongue. Of course, they speak the language and understand it. Two of them can even read it, but it is like a foreign language to them; they will never use it if they can get away with using English.

When we first moved away from Pakistan, my children were 5.5 years, 2 years, and 10 months old. The eldest knew how to read and write Urdu. Today he is the only one who is most comfortable speaking it. The younger two have not known a single day of schooling in Pakistan. It was always up to me to teach them.

I remember I asked my aunt to send me some Urdu and Math workbooks when the younger ones became old enough to go to school. My aunt, being the teacher that she is, got a huge stack of workbooks, 3-4 different ones, each ranging from kindergarten to Grade 7. I would love to say that I was able to teach my kids something from them, but that isn’t true.

Over the next few years I would try and fail time and again to get them to learn the language. The eldest one, being the quick study that he is, and because he already had a rudimentary knowledge of the language, was the only one who seemed to get something out of these exercises. The middle one has only recently started taking Urdu classes along with the eldest, and is making better progress. It’s the youngest one who makes me despair. She is the weakest when it comes to Urdu. Yet she is the only one not taking a class to remedy this situation!

While this is a problem for me and my husband because we love our language, and want our kids to remain in touch with their motherland, it is not the same with all parents, even the ones living in Pakistan! Over the last 10 years, the thing that has pained me the most while visiting my country has been the fact that people have stopped using Urdu. Everywhere I go, I see parents talking to their small kids in English. It is like they are trying to prove something that doesn’t need to be proven.

I used to be happy going back because I felt that my kids would learn something while they were there. All 3 of them had strict instructions to talk in Urdu to everyone. Unfortunately, many adults still think that my kids provide the perfect opportunity for their kids to polish their English language skills! It might seem over the top, but I have had women ask me to tell my children to speak in English to their kids, as they don’t allow their children to talk in Urdu in their schools, and as a consequence, at home! (This was truly a facepalm moment for me, and the lowest when talking about my language, sadly.)

Language is a big part of national identity for any nation. It is one of the major factors that differentiates people from the rest of the world. When I see young people in my country saying that they took easy Urdu in school, and feeling proud of it, I feel a pang in my heart. All over the world people take pride in their mother tongue. They prefer to talk in their own language than in any other; why is it that we are so different? Why are our schools not promoting our own language? I have seen schools here in the Middle East insisting on teaching Arabic to all students, especially the locals, so that they don’t lose their language to modern schooling and English. Yet, here we are, churning out students who are proud of the fact that they are weak in their own language.

Urdu has been the chosen language of great poets and authors for centuries, yet these great writers find very little readership today. How many young people can boast about having read Manto or Naseem Hijazi or Intizar Husain? How many know about Quratulain Haider or Khadija Mastoor or Ismat Chughtai? Are there any twenty-somethings who can claim to know Mir or Ghalib or even Faiz or Faraz or Nasir Kazmi?

We, as a nation, and I’m not excluding myself, are doing a grave injustice to our beautiful language. It is good to move with the world and become a global citizen, yet it is also essential to keep your own individual identity, to be unique in your own right. In trying to keep up with the world, we seem to be losing out on keeping up with our true selves. We have to collectively try and undo the damage that we have done to our own language. We need work hard to teach our future generations, or we are the ones who will turn out to be the eventual losers.

I don’t mean to say that everyone should suddenly start reading huge tomes written in a language that you find incomprehensible. I just want us to start loving our mother tongue and trying our best to show that love. Once we start trying, our future generations might also follow suit and save Urdu from becoming a forgotten language.

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Sunday Pet Peeve: The Pakistani Stereotype

Last week I read a book by a well known Pakistani author. I was looking forward to reading it, the author being someone I really admire in real life. As I delved deeper into the book, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. On the surface, there wasn’t anything wrong with the story or the characters, yet something kept nagging at me. After a while I realized what it was that was bothering me so much. It is the same thing that I have encountered time and again in many books, some of which have been popular worldwide: Stereotype.

When you’re reading about a place close to your heart, or about people like you or like someone you know, you become sensitive to the smallest of details and nuances. You start seeing discrepancies and false facts, sometimes exaggerations and even blatant lies. Ideally it shouldn’t matter too much. Everyone has the right to put their original thoughts on paper, and the world can go hang! Sometimes, however, it is not so easy to overlook this perpetuation of stereotype.

My problem has never been with the stories or the actual things happening in these books. My beef is with authors who seem to be writing things that they have no idea about. It shows lack of proper research and lazy editing.

Many people accused me of being oblivious to the multitude of sins this city hides, when I criticized Karachi, You’re Killing Me. It makes Karachi seem like a city of drug filled parties and sex and booze. I have always considered Moth Smoke an amazing book, and that whole book is about drugs, parties and all such. While one paints the 20-somethings of the whole city with the same brush, the second one makes it clear that it is talking about one segment of the city. And this is where the difference lies.

When you read The Party Worker, you will see the political under belly of this very city. A city where drugs, alcohol, sex and murder are rampant and unapologetic. Yet you will never think that this is all that Karachi has to offer. It is not the story, the characters or their actions that are problematic, it is the way they are presented in the text. Any metropolitan city in the world has many shades, no one can claim to know all of them. The least a writer can do is realize that what they’re writing does not represent the city as a whole. It is but a subset that the writer has had experience with.

Then there is the Urdu in these books. With the example of so many Hollywood Movies and TV shows getting the language wrong, one would expect the local writers to put a little more effort in using proper Urdu words wherever necessary. There have been countless instances where the word used has been correct, but its tense or form is wrong. To a person who knows the language, this just seems like sloppy writing.

In my opinion, this has mainly to do with the fact that most of our English writers are not very proficient with their mother tongue. They come from a certain educational background which makes them unaware of what they are doing wrong. This is what editors are for. Unfortunately, foreign publishing houses and editors take it for granted that the writer would know their own language. They don’t realize that knowing how to speak a language doesn’t automatically make you an expert at it.

It is unfortunate that we as a nation don’t own our language, and that it is Urdu that is a foreign language for us. The disparity in our education system is such that it is difficult to find writers proficient in both languages. Educational institutions that give importance to one and ignore the other, leading to this unfortunate result.

Now I come to the problem with how Muslims are depicted in books. I am so tired of reading the same depictions of Muslim, either religious fanatics or complete liberals. It is time to move on from the Bollywood stereotype of topi-wearing, checkered handkerchief-carrying men, with eyes full of kajal, and mouths full of Astaghfirullahs! The world happens to be full of Muslims who are not at either extreme. It seems like most writers are trying to pander to a set narrative. They are writing that which appeals to the western audience. And when you write to please someone other than yourself, it shows in your writing.

I wanted to write about all the books that I find problematic in this sense. However, I’d rather talk about books like A Place For Us and The Family Tree. Books that show the face of millions of Muslims living all over the world not up in arms or drowned in alcohol. Again, I’m not denying the existence of militants or people who have turned away from religion. But in all fairness, it is absurd to stereotype all Muslims and make it seem that these are the only ones left on this earth.

While I can rant and rave about the injustice of misrepresentation for hours, I think I should stop here. This blog is just a way for me to let out some steam. It is in no way meant to offend or please anyone. I write my thoughts without censoring them (much!) So, that’s all for today. Until next time.

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