A moral orphan in London

By 

Randeep Wadehra

The Blue Direction by Aamer Hussein. Penguin, New Delhi. Pages 201. Rs 200.
POST-independence literature has spawned a whole range of emotions: anger, pathos, self-pity, revulsion, compassion and nostalgia for the good old pre-partition days. But what happens when a "sensitive" writer throws in adultery, violence and kinky sex to spice up the product?
"The Blue Direction" is a collection of 10 short stories wherein Aamer Hussein portrays feelings of alienation from his place of birth — Karachi, as he is labelled a mohajir there. He vainly seeks his roots in India. In his current "home" London he is dubbed an Asian who is more likely to turn a criminal than a law-abiding citizen — at least in the perception of the police.
Near isolation goads him to become a compulsive writer and a globe-trotter. He seeks solace in the company of women. From one-night stands to enduring platonic relationships, he explores different facets of man-woman equations. Almost all his "love stories" end in tragedies. In "This other salt" he deals with the fall of love from its high pedestal of sacrifice and suffering to the depths of lust.
The story deals with a man’s search for fulfilment through carnal gratification. Unable to understand the rudiments of love, he searches for it in persons who are unable to give it to him. Sameer, a writer (what else could Hussein’s "mirror image" be?), is the main protagonist. A Bangladeshi migrant to England, he falls in love with a much travelled Palestinian woman, Lamia, who paints escapist paintings, is older to him by a decade, married to Michel — a journalist — and is dying of cancer.
Sameer has affaires d’amour with other women like Tara — part European, part Indian — the lust for whom makes him love Lamiya more (!). Tara has a lesbian relationship with Kim. Sameer’s on again, off again relationship with Suhayla, another woman, breaks-up, leaving him scarred.
While in London, Sameer divides his time among such varied activities as making love to Lamiya, writing stories, attending to Tara and watching her quarrel with the ugly, wild-haired, bisexual, charismatic poet Kim. He lives a life of a restless bachelor in any metropolis. Troubled by the Muse, his inquietude puts on intellectual overtones. He pretends he doesn’t want to leave the cold, grey, lifeless London in winter as he wants to share other people’s pain while he himself is living in a state of longing the year round.
Yet, he goes to Indonesia in summer with Lamiya and her husband Michel on a funeral journey. Both men know that she is dying and almost imperceptibly they make preparations for her death while touring the picturesque archipelago.
The stay there, however, is not uneventful. They meet Wisnu — a pious Koran-reading, pork-hating Muslim with a Hindu deity’s name who reveres Sri Dewi — the local goddess of rice. Wisnu services the homosexual yearnings of Hobbs, the Australian pimp. These are the relationships — empty, meaningless, time killing. Giving is painful, so taking becomes the easy way out. But what can one take from a person who really has nothing to give?
This comes out tellingly when Sameer returns to London after burying Lamiya in Jakarta and goes out with Tara and Kim to a dance party. When he has no more money to spend on them the two women ditch him. While walking back to his room he is mugged. The blood seeps through his bandaged wounds onto the pavement. A pedestrian (literally) end to a bland narrative.
In this collection, there are too many abstract passages that would put off the reader. Perhaps, " The lost cantos" is the best of the lot. On the other hand, "The keeper of the shrine", might interest those who are not acquainted with Romeo and Juliet or with Punjabi folklore like Heer-Ranjha or Sasi-Punnu. It deals with the cliched love triangle involving a married woman, her grandfatherly husband and a younger lover. Inevitably the story ends in tragedy.
Hussein’s claim that just before the riots began in Delhi the local Hindus had marked Muslim houses with swastika marks appears to be a figment of imagination. Hindus consider this mark as sacred and not as a sign of communal aggression. They use swastika on auspicious occasions and in sanctified places like temples.
It would be a sacrilege to use it for evil acts like killing. Perhaps the author has tried to lift this piece of fiction from the Jewish experience in Nazi Germany. The book’s flap describes his writings as a "oblique, subversive portrayal of the preoccupations of our time..." Well, subversive is the word.
Interestingly, the male protagonist in these stories invariably falls in love with older women. Shades of the Oedipus complex?
Most of the stories have a lot of atmospherics —sounds and sights described in almost pastoral prose. But to what effect? With the exception of a couple of stories, most lack viable plots. Lack of imagination and poor control over the narrative have ruined a potentially excellent book of fiction.
This literary "blue baby" may not be able to endure the reader’s scrutiny. Reading should be a pleasure, not a struggle.
THE TRIBUNE