Review of “Reflections” A collection of Sain Sucha’s short stories By Shahid Akhtar July 17, 2002

Never judge a book by its cover, so they say.  And particularly by the title on the cover.  I learned it the hard way by losing a bet.  You see I was trying to make the title of the book a conversation piece when I misread it as “Reflection”.  The singularity of the title intrigued me and I mentioned it in our meeting with Sain Sucha last week.  Dr. Khalid Sohail, who was playing host to the visiting Sain of Sweden immediately, corrected me.  “ReflectionS” he said.  “ReflectioN” I retorted.  “You want a bet”, he challenged.  I am not a gambling man but I accepted the challenge because I had read the book carefully, or so I thought.  Then with the help of a magnifying glass he showed me that there was a tiny S at the end of “Reflection”. 

I lost the bet.  But gained some insight into the working of Sain Sucha’s multifaceted mind. He can be most direct and straightforward when he wants to.  On the other hand though, he can tease you with suggestive smoke and mirrors and evocative puzzling allusions.   Ghalib must have prophesied about Sain Sucha when he declared, “Hain Kwakib kutch nazar Aate Hain Kutch.  Dete Hain Dhoka Yeh Bazi Gar Khula” 

While he calls a spade a spade, and does so by the bucketful, he also has a subtlety, which leaves you with a sense of wonder about the richness of his experience, knowledge and comprehension. In reviewing Reflections, I must admit to some bias and partiality on my part.  I already have a favourable opinion and admiration for Sain Ji’s No Nonsense and bold criticism of all that is most sacred to so many people.  Religion, Nationality and Language, the three foundation stones of prejudice, blind faith and self righteousness for a lot of people are not only analysed but dissected and slashed and post-mortomed in his short stories with merciless straightforwardness and candour.  He plunges into harsh criticism without any attempt to hide behind the veil of intellectual niceties.  In this regard one can never accuse him of “Khoob Parda Hay Keh Chilman Se Lage Baithe Hain.  Saaf Chuptey Bhee Naheen Saamney Aatey Bhee Naheen”.

The book contains 16 short stories.  While they are very different from each other, some follow common threads.   Sain Sucha’s command of four languages, his skill in sifting gems from every day life and his grasp of causes leading to setting rot, coupled with his life experience, seem to have enabled him to combine techniques, which are only possible if you are from the author’s linguistic and national background.  The titles are mostly one worded, and in many cases mono-syllabled and seem to contain a significance, even occasionally naughty suggestiveness of their own.  Most stories start with sidesplitting hilariousness till you reach the crescendo and then unexpectedly, “bang”, explode the punch line.  In many stories I found the punch line almost Saadat Hasan Mintoish.  For example in a story, very cleverly titled “(im) moral”, one goes about the build up to a part-time student and prostitute hunting for her prey, and then comes the shock similar to the famous  “Khol Do” short story by Minto.  In “(im) moral’s” case, unknown to either party it is the moral brother who finds himself face to face with his, supposedly immoral sister, about to sell sexual favours to him to support herself for higher education, through a tonga wala pimp in Lahore.

I was fascinated by the title of the story.  Letters “IM” are in parenthesis that leaves the reader to be the judge of moral and immoral implications for the brother and the sister.  Who is moral?  Who is immoral?  From whose perspective?  Whose truth? The interesting part is that one could also read the title as a self-righteous proclamation stating, “IM i.e. I Am, Moral”.

Other stories reflect the unique vantage point from which Sain Sucha writes.  He shatters Rudyad Kipling’s   (who, by the way, also worked in Lahore as Editor of the Civil and Military Gazette only a couple of miles away from where Sain Sucha spent his youthful years), presumption about East and West.  In Sain Sucha’s case the twain not only meets, but separates and meets again and again in most unusual ways such as in Zafran/Safron.  The story’s original view point on September 11^th incident, interprets the events of that day, in a way that leaves the reader with the hopeless conclusion, that there are no heroes.  Only villains and their victims.

The author establishes himself as a versatile writer who can play your emotions like a Yo-Yo He makes you laugh with apparent ease and light heartedness when,  for example, talking about a barber who also substitutes as a Public Opinion Analysis expert and a Jarrah performing circumcisions.  The author’s flash back (or should I say, slash back), upon seeing his tormentor after thirty years, holding the knife in one hand, and the thought that whatever he was holding in the other, thirty years ago, he would not like to hold now, should come with a caution you see on bottles of deadly chemicals with bones and a skull.  “Dangerous while reading in the subway”.   Because I read the story in a Toronto subway train and found his imagery so funny and comical that it was impossible to control laughter thus inviting strange looks and rolling eyes from the fellow passengers who must have wondered if I had taken leave of my senses.

Some stories, however, do not have the hilarious opening, or ending or anything in between.  For example in stories such as Cruel, Honour and Thirsty Lips you can sense the pain the author feels in each word.  Thirsty Lips is the story about the gulf war and the massacre of the innocents in Baghdad.  The main character in the story, appropriately names Mr. Adam, a scientist who works for an armament establishment, realizes what his professional accomplishments have resulted in, and finds no resolution, except taking the life of his alter ego in the mirror, by fatally firing a gun in his own mouth.  The sensitivity, the pain, the tenderness and the agony all apparent in this and other tense stories reflect the contradictions and conflicts within our souls and compromises with our convictions which we have to live with sometimes and which, in extreme cases, can get to be so acute that ending life itself seems to be the only salvation.

In many stories, such as Dust, Chair, and But, Sain Sucha disrobes the holy, the worthy, the mighty and the patriot.  He paints a picture of their smallness, their meanness, their complete characterlessness when he shows how hypocritical most of these people are in a culture where religion is supreme, where nationalism is worth dying and killing for and the “honour” of woman is used as justification to give men the licence to abuse her.

In “Mirage”, another title reflecting moral and optical connotations of religion and hypocrisy, you hear the venom in the remarks of some visitors from Pakistan on a Scandanavian beach, crowded and spilling over with naked female flesh.  A certain Haji Saheb, a defender of the Islamic values and Pakistani culture is also the most lecherous in thought and most moral in articulation.  The Sain Sucha version of Minto’s punch line hits you in the stomach when after the Haji’s “Lahol Wala Quwwat” running commentary, a young naked women approaches him and calls him grand dad.  Because, for all that this critic of Western civilization stands for, the young woman is the daughter of his son raised by this defender of the faith.

Looking for optimism in Reflections stories is like looking for a needle in a haystack, in a dark room, on a moonless cloudy night.  Sain Sucha parades out insincerity, double standards and duplicity of an entire community with almost a sadistic satisfaction.  It hurts.  It give you goose bumps.  It runs a chill of embarrassment and shame through your spine.  What we, particularly Pakistani muslims, who pride ourselves in proclaiming virtues without practising what we preach, see in this literary mirror is painful, agonizing, and excruciating, but also true.

One example of how he sees the Pakistani society through the eyes of one of his characters, Kahlifa Shafiq, the friendly Barber, is:  

“Babuji, whole of our nation has contacted Aids” He said to me in a short while.  “The whole nation”?  “Yes Baboo, the whole nation---Mental Aids.  You said that it was a deadly disease.  We are all dying.  A collective death!  No one has a friend any longer, there are no mates left.  There was a time when we all wove beautiful dreams…there were expectations.  But now only salty water wants to run from my eyes!  How long one could go on only dreaming?  The elders were lucky- they died.  But the children, who are grown up today, they have never received anything else but lies. Here, instead of loving one another they were told to hate; in place of true worship they were taught to perform fake rituals; humane feelings were discarded for inhumane behaviour; and unethical knaves trampled upon moral uprightness.  Our leaders start their days by praising God, then they go on begging for alms from Arabs and western nations in the name of their country and people; and if they get something, the major part of it goes straight in their own pockets!  Our army, whose real function is to provide security to our nation, has for years been involved in narcotics and is poisoning the youth in the whole world.  What else could afflict our nation except collective death?”

Reading some stories takes you back to streets of Lahore with references to Mozang and Choburji and the smell of tikka kebobs.  The talk about halva-puri, is mouth watering, but in the context of painful consciousness feels like ash in your mouth after the first delightful morsels.

There is no attempt in the book to balance the dark corners of life with some brightness of hope.  Even if there were, it would almost be the balance you achieve, when you have chips on both shoulders.  It seems Sain Sucha has decided to let others do the praising and admiring for now, or maybe he will do it later with perhaps the message that despite all that goes on, it still is a beautiful life.  In my brief conversations with Sain Sucha I have felt indications that he himself is not only quite optimistic, but when all is said and done, regards the present better than the so called good old days.  But he does not accept this as an excuse to justify what is so blatantly wrong with the world in general and with our community in particular.  Upon reading Reflections one feels that it is with consciousness raising and self-criticism by people like Sain Sucha that little first steps are taken to improve the lot of ordinary every day people from all backgrounds and especially from those of Islam and Pakistan.  I want to thank Sain Sucha for his writing which acts as eye opener for those who are not exactly asleep.