Found: A Treasure In Translation

Were it not for translations, we the reading public would, in a word, be mehroom of many unknown-unt­old-unimaginable delights. Reading Bilal Tanweer바카라�s almost seamless translation of Muh­ammad Khalid Akhtar바카라�s novella Love in Chakiwara & Other Misadventures, one is rem­inded afresh of the role of translators in opening windows into new and exciting worlds, worlds that would regre­ttably be closed for a great many due to the picket fences of script and literary cultures. Tanweer바카라�s translation brings to life a world that is hard to believe, but actually exists in Urdu. For it contains elements that are far removed from the stereotypes of popular imagination.

Imagine the puckish humour of Mark Twain mingled with the whimsicality of a P.G. Wodehouse. Imagine the cosmopolita­nism of a James Hadley Chase meeting the gentle ribbing of Urdu바카라�s best-loved humourist, Mushtaq Yousufi. Imagine, if you will, Jerome K. Jerome living in a lower middle class Karachi neighbourhood and recording all the strange and wonderful happenings in a daily chronicle of three friends and a motley group of neighbours and acquaintances. Or for that matter, imagine the strange and evocative world of Robert Louis Stevenson바카라�an apt com­parison as Akhtar has admitted to calling himself a 바카라�disciple바카라� of the Scottish writer바카라�transposed from its Victorian-era high noon of colonialism and adventurism to a post-colonial Pakistan.

Love in Chakiwara, then, is the sum of its parts; it is like nothing one has ever read in Urdu literature yet manages to evoke a sense of deja vu in its description of people and places rooted in their time and circumstance. The blurb by Faiz Ahmed Faiz emblazoned on its jackets proclaims it as 바카라�the greatest novel in the Urdu Language바카라�; Akhtar바카라�s book might not be the 바카라�greatest바카라� Urdu novel ever written바카라�I doubt one has been written yet, for Urdu fiction has been notoriously lagging behind its brilliant, exotic and exuberant cousin, Urdu poetry. But it is certainly a delightfully unusual book and well worth the read. I, for one, have never encountered anything like this in Urdu, and have no qualms in hailing it as the most charming book in Urdu about local colour. For, I feel, never has a neighbourhood been so immortalised in such vivid colours as this somewhat run-down quarter beside the Lyari river in lower Sindh.

Chakiwara, one of the neighbourhoods in Lyari Town in Karachi, gets its name from the Chakee, a community of Gujarati Muslims. By the early-1950s, whence this novel is situated, its native population of Pakhtuns, Balochis and other Gujarati communities such as the Memons and Ghanchis had seen a healthy infusion of muhajirs, 바카라�asylum-seekers바카라� from India, who flocked to the land of the pure in search of new beginnings. Being a port and a commercial hub, the flotsam and jetsam of the world finds itself tossed in the melting pot of a bustling, culturally and linguistically diverse city finding its feet in a post-partition, fledgling republic. And so you have an eclectic list of dramatis personae: Ah Fung, a Chinese dentist on the run from a mysterious past; the bored but rich Mary Harris, owner of the Harris Chain of Stores, who picks up a gigolo at the Tony Beach Luxury; Chakori, an out-of-work comedian who has left behind a lucrative film career in Bombay and now finds himself hard pressed for new employment opportunities; Qurban Ali Kattar, writer of novels such as 바카라�The Long and Helpless Scream of Love바카라�; Dr Ghareeb Muhammad, Pakistan바카라�s 바카라�first original scientist바카라� and inventor of the 바카라�love metre바카라�; a gaggle of local worthies each more piquantly named than the other who routinely meet at the Ghareeb Nawaz Hotel, to wit Haji Bhale Deeno, Hazrat Farsh Langoori, among others.

But it is Mr Iqbal Changhezi, proprietor of the Allah Tawakkul Bakery, a passionate collector of writers, author of the 바카라�Chakiwara Chronicles바카라�, a 7,000-page long unpublished and unpublishable 바카라�biz­arre, tragic and somewhat preposterous ser­ies of events (yes every tragedy has a smattering of comedy after all)바카라� who is the real hero of this rambling narrative written in the true picaresque tradition. It opens with the following disarming admission: 바카라�In these times of sluggish markets and a general indifference to literature, I don바카라�t think any sane publisher would even touch this manuscript with a bargepole. I don바카라�t care. I only write to feed my habit...바카라� The chronicle, naturally, is full of bilge and drivel, much like mys­elf.바카라�  And so it continues with its insouciant, devil-may-care narration of the curious goings-on in Chakiwara: a place where the usual meets the unusual in the most unpredictable way possible.