'There are no laws for the novel, there never have been, nor can there ever be.'
— Doris Lessing, Nobel Laureate and author of The Grass is Singing

NIKHAT Hasan in her novel, Jogging Park, has deviated from the conventional style of storytelling, and with her usual creative ease and stylised form of narration which often becomes lyrical, she has chosen to deal with ordinary people with their normal activities and issues. Unlike a conventional novel and with no plotline, Nikhat Hasan does not take her reader by the hand, leading him to each and every step of the novel. Instead, she gives the reader leeway to react and respond to the happenings and draw his/her own conclusions.

Joyce's Dubliners started off as short stories and later integrated into a complete whole. Similarly, in Jogging Park, the people visiting the park remain the substance of Nikhat's creation throughout in a Joycean manner.

As a symbolist, Nikhat Hasan not only enriches the narrative, but also attempts to find meanings of events through the symbols. Zubaida in Jogging Park, although confined to a wheelchair because of arthritis, finds inspiration from moth-eaten fig trees which sprout fresh leaves and branches. Sunlight in its various shades and hues remains Nikhat's favorite symbol, dominating her narrative till the very last lines of the novel. Jogging Park is also rich in poetic imagery. Sunlight, breeze and the rain, tall poplars and old banyan trees, lush vegetation, flora and fauna, all greet the visitor of the jogging park.

Fluttering blades of grass with raindrops running down on them, caged love birds, ivies creeping up the trees and walls, all enrich the narrative which is ironically inhabited at times by jihadis, journalists and politicians of very low intellect, minor poets and even picnickers with gluttonous habits.

As usual Nikhat Hasan has been successful in dealing with complex human emotions in a light, simple and occasionally comic manner.

Jogging Park
(NOVEL)
By Nikhat Hasan
Scheherzade, Karachi
ISBN 978-969-568-044-5
181pp. Rs240