Two lucky coincidences made Mustansar Hussain Tarar a writer who was otherwise an avid fiction reader and a travel enthusiast. In 1958, Majeed Nizami who was then Nawai Waqt correspondent in London asked Tarar to write a travelogue about his days in Soviet Union. Tarar was among the first common Pakistanis to cross the iron curtain. He visited Moscow with a student delegation while he was studying in London. Thus, he became a travelogue writer nearly six decades ago and the legacy still continues. The second coincidence occurred in 1974. Tarar was known for his travelogues by then and was leaving for Europe once again. He went to his publisher friend and asked for some money.
The publisher said:
“I loved your travelogue Undlas mein Ajnabi (A Stranger in Spain). Why don’t you rewrite it as a novel for me and I’ll give you the money you need.”
Tarar left for his village, made himself comfortable and constantly wrote for ten days. The result was Pyar ka Pehla Shehr (First City of Love), his debut novel. It not only paid for his visit to Europe but to this day pays half the expenses of his kitchen. Pyar ka Pehla Shehr is a beautiful romantic/travel story set in Europe and has always been very popular among the readers for its interesting theme and simple language.
In the years to come, Tarar wrote many great novels and established himself as a master novelist alongside a gifted travelogue writer. Although he has always been more famous for his travelogues than his novels, Tarar’s contribution to Urdu novel is remarkable. His works have been compared with the finest masterpieces of English and French literature. His novels discuss contemporary themes and attempt to answer the questions of the age. He is the storyteller of our time. This article explores the best of Mustansar Hussain Tarar’s novels.
Rakh (Ashes) is considered Tarar’s most representative novel. It is believed that Rakh is more of an autobiography in the form of a novel. The protagonist Mushahid bears a sharp resemblance with Tarar. The story develops around Mushahid’s life and the life of his country, Pakistan. Threads of personal and collective tragedy weave the plot to a vast scale where tragedy of a person becomes the tragedy of a nation. Rakh introduces the reader to many tragic images from Pakistan’s history. The entire Shahalmi Darwaza of the walled city of Lahore is reduced to ashes during the partition riots in 1947. Shahalmi was inhabited by wealthy Hindus. Every day on their way back from school, children dig up ashes in hope of finding a coin, a piece of jewelry or some other valuable. Fast forward twenty five years, military and bureaucratic establishment of the last days of East Pakistan is immersed in their ignorance and pleasures and the common people are being subjected to humiliation and death. After Pakistan’s dismemberment, democracy brings a new hope for the country soon to be extinguished by another military regime. In the late 1980s, Karachi the once shining metropolis of Pakistan has become the city of death. Every day its soil is soaked with innocent blood. Doctors at a postmortem table keep waiting for their colleague to show up and finally realize that it’s his body they’re going to postmortem. Priceless remains of Gandhara civilization are being stolen and smuggled abroad. These vivid images provoke the readers to feel the extent of human tragedy the people of this country have suffered on the hands their countrymen.
A very special part of Rakh, which makes it worthier, is the appearance of great writer Saadat Hassan Manto as a character. He was Tarar’s neighbor at Luxmi Mansion, Hall Road Lahore in his final years. The story describes the great writer who looks like an angel with his refined manners and white spotless attire. Due to personal and collective tragedies, Manto is addicted to alcohol and sometimes needs a hand to come down from the tonga and reach his apartment. Rakh is also a labor of love. From wandering in the high mountains and hunting in the plains of Punjab and from the charm of Europe to the mystique of the narrow lanes and havelis of old Lahore, Tarar has adorned his story with what he loves in his real life. Underlying theme behind Rakh is to break the silence and reflect upon the dark pages of our history.
Another of Tarar’s great novels is Bahao (Flow). It can be easily said that with respect to its theme and setting, creative drive and audacity of imagination, Bahao has created a class of its own. No other work of fiction in Urdu can match Bahao in its ambition. It takes you thousands of years back in time to the Indus valley civilization which was spread along the banks of twin rivers Indus and Ghaagra. The story is set in a city which was contemporary of Mohenjo Daro and tells the spellbinding tale of how a civilization died when its lifeline, the river Ghaagra dried. Tarar has created a lost world with the strength of his imagination. Characters and their circumstances do seem medieval but today’s man has a lot to relate with them. One very strong aspect of Bahao is its natural imagery and feeling. The novel starts with a bird’s eye view and goes on to describe trees, soil, river, weather, time of day and much more. The author extensively toured archeological remains of Indus valley civilization along the dried bed of river Ghaagra during the course of writing this novel. Great is a small word for Bahao.
Tarar’s novel Qila Jungi (The Fortress of Jungi) is dedicated to Afghan children who became crippled by accidently stepping foot on land mines and can only play as goalkeeper in a football game. Taliban regime has fallen in Afghanistan, NATO and Northern Alliance are fighting the final battles in Northern part of the country. A few Taliban fighters are stuck in the basement of a 19th century fortress Qila Jungi near the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, waiting to meet their deaths. To kill the time which is killing them and to reduce the agony of waiting, they share their stories of what political, social and psychological factors motivated them to join the Taliban. Their backgrounds varied from son of a rich and corrupt Pakistani general to a Punjabi village entertainer to a Pashtun laborer to a British Muslim to an Arab. What they had in common were the ghosts of their pasts and a higher cause which seemed to them, worthier than their insignificant lives. Qila Jungi is a first rate sociological and psychological study of terrorism in contemporary and local context. In the age of Jihadi terrorism, a novel like Qila Jungi which sincerely attempts to understand human condition of the Taliban without any cloud of judgment is highly audacious and proves that literature, like life knows no boundaries.
Khas o Khashaak Zamanay (Times like Dust) is a recent masterpiece from Tarar’s pen. This novel is an ode to Punjab, a tribute to its history, culture, language, music, poetry, religions, landscape, crops and trees, hardships suffered by its people, its men, women, its wisdom and its ignorance. Khas o Khashak Zamanay is a vast social saga which tells the story of many people, generations, times and eras. It draws an amazing analogy about how people change from one generation after the other and from one society to another in face of social and political realities and yet show traces of their past. Khas Khashak Zamanay is a novel so full of feeling and a very interesting read. When the story unfolds a hot afternoon in Punjab, the reader feels its heat. Its characters are so strong and real. The novel paints a lively and realistic picture of rural and semi urban Punjab. Khas o Khashak Zamanay emerges as a highly authentic and genuine novel based on Punjab.
Mustansar Hussain Tarar’s latest novel Ae Ghazaal e Shab (Gazelles of the Night) is a great epic written in the background of fall of communism, which was perhaps humanity’s greatest dream. Idea of this novel started developing in the author’s mind when he visited Moscow after half a century. It tells the story of four young men of Pakistani origin who were maddened by the dream of human equality. They left their families and homeland to pursue their dream and built a new life in Soviet Union or Communist Eastern Europe. Their dreams and life ambitions were matted to earth with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. In their twilight years, bearing the wound of a dream gone sour, they come back to their origin and search for forgotten places and long lost relatives. It is not the Pakistan they left behind. Some find solace here, others return to their lives. “Ae Ghazaal e Shab” is an absolute masterpiece of storytelling and characterization. With its major theme, it also carries many minor interesting themes along the story. The images of life it presents are very lively and rich. Tarar takes a step further and adds his poems to the novel which are attributed to a gypsy girl character. Like other novels by the author, Ae Ghazaal e Shab also uses some little details to express greater realities, for example A Lahori comes back to Lahore after forty years and wonders what happened to the tongas which ran on the Mall Road. Or the statues of Lenin and Stalin which once adorned the public squares of Moscow and Leningrad are piled up in underground godowns and sold as junk. The strong irony is that statues find their place in the luxurious gardens of rich Americans. To say the least, “Ae Ghazaal e Shab” is a most valuable addition to Urdu novel.
It seems improper to give a conclusion to an article discussing Tarar’s novels yet, for he is very much alive unlike all great Urdu novelists and still dragging his magical pen on paper. Let us hope that he lives a long and healthy life. Who knows maybe his greatest novel still resides inside his head and is yet come out on paper.