EDITOR’S CHOICE
Reviews, Vol I, Issue II
How
do you tell a tale which can’t have a regular ending? As the closure we look
for, eludes us even in real life. However, these stories need to be told – they
are screaming to be told. To leave them untold would be such a loss for
humanity- there are lessons to be learnt. Also, it’s said that one thing more
difficult than the beginning of a novel is knowing how to end it. The
challenges would require deft handling of the content and mastering the craft
of storytelling. Shahnaz Bashir’s debut novel The Half Mother does all
these and more. Published by Hachette India, the novel is set in Kashmir in the
1990s.
The
novel is divided into three parts – Book I, II & III. The first two parts
are narrated in the authorial voice. Book III represents the Random Notes by
one of the characters in the novel, Izhar, a correspondent working for the BBC.
Relegating the job of taking the narrative forward to one of the characters
makes it interesting and shows the craft of the writer. Izhar as a character is
both the observer and the observed, being and becoming the narrator.
The
novel tells a story of a woman - Haleema - searching for her disappeared son,
Imran. Haleema is the only child of Ab Jaan – real name Ghulam Rasool Joo and
Boba of Natipora. Ab Jaan is an industrious man making his ends meet by
dabbling into various odd jobs and finally keeping a general provision store.
At
the age of eight, Haleema lost her mother Boba to tuberculosis. Haleema married
a medical assistant. The marriage ended in just three months when Haleema learns
that her husband is having an affair with a nurse. Imran is the
child of this marriage.
Shahnaz
Bashir captures the emotion of a single mother raising her child delicately:
He (Imran) did not resemble Haleema, though – the
medical assistant came through in the face. He had the same long face, yet
sharper and unflinching eyes. But he had Haleema’s dimples and his fingers were
short and stubby like hers, with cuticles overlapping the white crescents under
the nails.
Ignoring the stark similarities between
him and his father, Haleema passionately and desperately lied to herself. She
dismisses the similitude and likened the boy to herself, declaring that he was
a part of her being. ‘See, my dimples, my fingernails’, she readily offers
while praising the baby before people could begin saying that he resembled his
father.
Haleema
desperately erases the absent father from the frame of reference. She is
resolute in claiming Imran as her and hers only and she is resolute in seeking
Imran out when calamity hits.
The
following paragraph captures the childhood sensibilities of Imran beautifully:
The birds that darted about the farm
always brought back a painful memory for Imran. He had once let his catapult
loose on a sparrow that had made her nest in a small hole on a wall. He had
killed the bird to impress himself with his sharpshooting skills, which he had
not believed he had until the pebble hit the bird right on its rump. He dug a
tiny grave for her behind the cowshed, and after completing all funeral rites,
he discovered naked chirping nestlings. He tried to redeem himself by feeding
the chicks and guarding them from eagles and crows. But one by one all three of
them died. To assuage his guilt, he would allow birds to bite into the collard
saplings or the bottle-gourds whenever Ab Jaan wasn’t looking.
Now
the tempest hits the valley and the people of Natipora. The year is 1990.
And then, suddenly, gunfire tore the
still air. Two insurgents attacked the contingent from two alleys – the first
attack on the army in Natipora. . . . All the other boys who were playing
cricket with him immediately dispersed and ran for their lives.
. . . At dawn, Natipora sluggishly came
back to life. . . .Haleema and Ab Jaan stonily surveyed for Imran.
Imran emerged a few hours later. Haleema felt breathless while hugging
him.
. . . Imran explained everything. How he
had escaped to another locality he had hardly been to. How difficult, while
running randomly in desperation , it had been to decide where he should have
actually gone.
And
then the response came from the army:
The next morning, a patrolling party led
by a Major Aman Lal Kushwaha began to search the houses. Almost all the men in
the neighbourhood received their share of beating in turns. The army was still
angry over the attacks.
Bashir
captures the humiliation and shame that the civilians have to go through in a
battle between the army and the insurgents.
The army called out the male members
once they were outside the gate. Ab Jaan decided to go and open the gate but
Haleema didn’t let him. ‘Don’t worry, I will be all right’, Ab Jaan assured her
darkly. . . .What is this? You beat everyone. There are civilians in this
locality yet you burn down our shops, you snatch away our living and now you
are torturing us. Don’t you have shame?’ Ab Jaan argued bravely, yet trembling.
‘Shut
up or I’ll kill you! Kushwaha threatened.
. . . Three bullets were pumped into Ab
Jaan. One in the neck. One in the heart. One in the stomach.
The
‘truth’ of this raid by the army is reported to the world by Izhar Ahmad, the
correspondent working for the BBC.
‘I was here in Natipora the whole day,
recording the tragedy. I went around to the burial too. Just need some details
from you, if you are willing, to substantiate the news. The truth needs to be
confirmed, as you know’, he said.
In
another raid, Imran is picked up by the army leaving Haleema devastated.
The trooper bundled Imran into the Gypsy
and hastily leapt behind him. . . . Haleema ran in front of the vehicle and
knelt in front of its bonnet, breathing hard, begging and crying for Imran’s
release. A trooper dragged her aside and the Gypsy picked up speed.
Haleema
pleaded,
‘What is his crime?’ What has he done?
You are mistaken! You know you are mistaken! Why do you do this to me?’
. . .
“He is my only son, Sir! He. . .’
Haleema was desperate.
But for
army personnel, “A man means a medal.”
This
is where the search for her disappeared son begins for Haleema. She becomes a
half mother.
‘Since we don’t know the status of your
respective relatives who have disappeared... we don’t know whether they are
alive or not ... we cannot describe you as widows, or whatever the case may be.
We are talking legal language here, and the status matters. So, for all such
uncertain cases for women whose husbands have disappeared, we will prefix their
status with “Half”,’ Advocate Farooq Ahmad explained.
Half.
The word ringed in Haleema’s head. A cold pinch.
‘And what about mothers, Farooq sahib?’
Haleema asked. ‘Are they half mothers by rule?’
Everyone turned to her. Silence. . .
.Whether their children were dead or alive or missing, mothers would remain
mothers – but Advocate Farooq was not sure. He didn’t know how to respond to
Haleema. He couldn’t be certain what status of victimhood should be attested to
her.
‘So am I a half mother?’ Haleema
repeated.
This
legalese of being a half mother occurs, though, much later in the narrative.
The frenetic and desperate search for her son becomes the reason to live for
Haleema. She becomes the symbol for all the mothers who have lost their
children to this barbaric, involuntary disappearance.
Haleema
goes from one place to other, from prison to prison, from one army camp to
other, from the prayer halls to the politicians, from one torture camp to
another. However, nothing seems to help. Every small hint prepares her to
search more and even more.
These
expeditions bring her and the readers to the reality of the torture camps and
the social-political reality of Kashmir of the 1990s.
Almost
a decade later, in 1999, after a long enquiry, the army is willing to
negotiate, however, the justice they offer is not justice at all. They offer
monetary compensation which Haleema refuses.
‘I won’t live longer than the money I
have saved. And what would I do with the money you
are offering me? Would it assuage my pain? No. I don’t want any justice from
you. Not really. You are incapable of justice. If you honestly want to help me,
tell me what happened to my son? What did they, I mean Major Aman Kushwaha, do
with him? Is my son alive or . . . ‘ She broke down.
To
assuage her feelings the colonel informs Haleema:
‘The least I can tell you is this: Major
Aman Lal Kushwaha was killed long ago in an attack on the border.’
Kashmir
of 1990s is such a paradox that a search for the victim is also a search for
the victimiser. Hearing the news of the death of Kushwaha, Haleema felt sad.
Kushwaha was her one and only hope for
Imran’s whereabouts. She was stunned at hearing the news, but not relieved. She
grieved at the fact that he had been the only one who could tell her what
happened to Imran, and now, with the news of her death, she was half-certain
about Imran too.
This
is not what she has been searching for. This is not the justice she was wishing
for. This is no justice at all for Haleema.
In
this novel of 182 pages Shahnaz Bashir has sketched complex characters in a nuanced
way to tell us the heartbreaking story of a mother’s search for her disappeared
son. This novel brings us face to face with a dark period in our history, which
refuses to be ignored, which we mustn't ignore.
Earlier
in the novel, Imran one day requests Ab Jaan to come to his school.
‘Yes, Ab Jaan, You must come some day
and talk to the principal about that. The other day our History teacher Mrs
Teja Thussu tweaked my ear when I asked her a simple question . . .’
. . . ‘I asked her why we were never
taught the history of Kashmir. How can one study about Mesopotamia and Indus
Valley and Harappa and this and that civilization but not a bit about the place
one hails from?’
. . . ‘Then I thought Kashmir had no
real history, otherwise I would not have been punished.’
. . . Ab Jaan sniggered. ‘Until we stop
oppressing ourselves others will never stop oppressing us. Remember this. Mark
my words . . . Everything has a history. And we have a firm history. Our own
history. Except the fact that it has never seen the light of day.’
Shahnaz
Bashir’s The Half Mother brings the history of Kashmir of the 1990s
under focus, wrapped in a poignant tale of a mother’s search for her
disappeared son.
Reviewed
by Himanshu Shekhar Choudhary
Editor-in-Chief
- Reviews.
He
teaches at the Dept. of English, P. K. Roy Memorial College, Dhanbad.
