LAHORE: The Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) on Thursday hosted a virtual event where Urdu critic and academic Nasir Abbas Nayyar was in conversation with novelist Osama Siddique about the Urdu translation of the latter’s debut novel, Snuffing Out the Moon translated as Chand Ko Gul Karain Toh Hum Jaanain by Asim Bakhshi.
When moderator asked the author how he transitioned from practising law to writing fiction, Mr Siddique said he was always fond of fiction and believed he was always writing fiction cloaked in law.
“If you look at the verdicts post-1947, they mostly sound like fiction. Also, what’s common between law and literature is that their language impacts people’s lives.” Referring to his father’s demise in 2013, he said the sense of loss had made him want to pen his thoughts.
The moderator then asked Osama Siddique why he had chosen history when most writers would talk about personal experiences in their debut novels.
The book spans six eras over 4,000 years from 2084BC to 2084AD with multiple characters and parallel stories.
The novelist said he loved historical novels as history was an important discipline, adding that Quratulain Hyder’s writing also impacted him.
“People of the distant past intrigued me. Why must one stick to the present in a novel? But of course some incidents are linked to my life and inspired by characters I came across. Like the Ajnala well and Emperor Jahangir are a reality. As a lawyer and teacher I feel we’ve forgotten history, so this was also my reaction to that. To understand the present, we need to understand the past.”
When asked about the link between history and fiction, he replied, “We’re an amalgamation of several identities. I’m lucky to belong to a region that has a 7,000-year-old history. I’ve talked about six political structures: the city state of Mohenjodaro, Taxila, the Mughals, the colonial system, modern constitutional democracy and then the nation state”.
The author briefly talked about all six eras, the civilisations discussed, their characters and how the Sindh region features prominently in the novel.
The moderator and the guest also discussed why the 1857 war was mentioned in three of the six stories, how all these eras were chosen and what interested the author about each of them.
The art of oral storytellers and the sociology and politics of it, the discussion about the Pakistan of 2009 in one of the eras were also talked about. The author was also asked about the last part of the novel: a fantasy centred around water and environment wars, hate speech and populism, which, the author said, was in line with much of the hardliner leadership, divisiveness, and the lack of tolerance worldwide.
On why the author chose Emperor Jahangir while discussing the Mughals, Mr Siddique said: “Lahore is important in this novel and Jahangir is linked most to the city as he is buried here. I find him an underrated, least talked about and an interesting character”.
He said the Jahangir was very literary, romantic and witnessed the high noon of the Mughal civilisation after which its downfall began.
“From Tuzk-i-Jahangiri, I also learnt about his personality and his philosophical side,” he said.
Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2021
