Conspiracy Theory
A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
(Random House)
‘All this happened more or less,’ begins Kurt Vonnegut’s SlaughterHouse-Five, a close approximation of Mohammed Hanif’s debut novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes. Centering on the experiences of his protagonist Junior Officer Ali Shigri in the Pakistani Air Force and General Zia-ul-Haq’s in the days leading up to his death, Hanif has crafted a clever book that interweaves various conspiracy theories that surrounded the former Pakistani president’s alleged assassination.

The book’s prologue comes in the form of a confession by Shigri who microscopically details the minutes, in the manner of a documentary voiceover, before General Zia’s ill-fated flight on August 17, 1988. Smugly claiming to be ‘the one who got away’, the novel even has a typographically legitimate-looking declaration recorded by Shigri; a serious initiation into a book that is largely mired in fiction and sometimes untruth. The host of suspects range from a crow to Shigri, from a crate of mangoes to the secretary general of Pakistan’s Sweepers Union, among others.

Hanif’s book recalls the dark humour of American satirists like Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut but it also recalls the slapstick of M*A*S*H. Sombre notions of air force officers are deflated along with any highbrow illusions that surrounded General Zia who is depicted as paranoid, understandably so, about attempts on his life and who references the Quran to make military decisions much as laymen do the horoscopes to predict a course of action.

As a writer accustomed to journalistic prose Hanif’s writing often falls short on accounts of characterisation but he compensates it with a bitingly original narrative. ‘History is taking a long siesta,’ he says referencing the plane crash, and in the wake of former Prime Minister Bhutto’s assassination the book gains an immediacy that is not merely the reserve of the politically inclined.

Cultural Angst
A Journey Interrupted by Farzana Versey
(Harper Collins)
Farzana Versey, known for her combative columns in newspapers brings her experiences of Pakistan to bookshelves. Part memoir, part travelogue, A Journey Interrupted: Being an Indian in Pakistan reveals specific experiences cutting across class, religious and generational boundaries. With a penchant for asking the inconvenient question, Versey puts most of Pakistan through a journalistic wringer, but includes enough plurality to avoid reducing the country to a few specious axioms.

In the first section of this three-part book, grandiose alliterative titles frame Versey’s experiences – in Karachi, she sees ‘Vestiges of Valhalla’ and Peshawar becomes ‘The First Frontier’. The cities, reconstructed, reveal interesting morsels of their layered milieus. If Karachi speaks of a political identity subverted and suspended, Lahore throws up the quandary of how exploited turn exploiters in its infamous Heera Mandi. Peshawar’s reputation of being an unwelcoming urban jungle with primitive attitudes towards women is exploded.

The second part is people-specific, opening with an insight into Versey’s own identity, and how being an Indian, Muslim woman in Pakistan, especially a woman who married a Hindu and is now travelling alone, has shaped her experiences. The last segment brings us up to pace with the Pakistan of 2007 – the emergency, the assassination, and the General’s new clothes.

Through this painfully conscious negotiation between cultures and identities, are detailed descriptive passages on food, homes, studios and touristy places. We can rely on her as far as we don’t read her as gospel – as long as we take the ‘dramatic moments’ she has garnered and say, ‘Yes this, too, happens in Pakistan’, we are in good hands. To her credit, the book doesn’t claim any more – or less.