Everybody has stories but a few among us have stories worth narrating. Everybody can narrate stories but a few have the nous to narrate them in a way that they stay with you.

A story forgotten is a dead story. Short story is a popular genre. Creating something fresh, socially meaningful and intellectually relevant, in a popular genre can prove a hard task that demands from an author something more than what we consider ordinary. At times even extraordinary can render itself ordinary by being devoid of relevance or contemporaneity. Interestingly, both relevance and contemporaneity can be ephemeral. So what touches us in a story may be what is at a level deeply connected with some lasting aspects of human predicament.

Shahzad Aslam is one of our short story writers who is seriously involved in exploring complex human situation from multiple angles. However neither his subjects are recondite nor is his narration obfuscated in any way.

His third book of short stories Jungle Raakhay Jugg Day (Jungles, the world’s protectors) published by Sanjh Publications, Lahore, has hit the stalls. It contains an introduction, six stories and a long interview of the author. “…This time I have tried to compose a bit longer short stories which are purely a product of my thinking and imagination… You may see in them more of mourning, anguish and suffering…Sharing of suffering is what keeps people connected…These stories aren’t a mere display of suffering. My attention has rather been on what causes suffering,” says the author.

All stories provoke and stimulate the readers but two of them need special mention; ‘Jungle Rakhay Jugg day’ and ‘Ki Kaanan Mein Kaun’. The first one, the eponymous story, has a broad sweep; on the one hand it shows us how deeply natural and human phenomena are interconnected despite being seemingly self-existent and on the other it explores how power structures ruthlessly regulate life even in a place such as jungle which appear to be peripheral to the centre. Two proclaimed offenders, Shera and Jani, make a jungle in Sargodha district their hiding place to be at a safe distance from the police which are as corrupt and brutal as they were in colonial era. Close to the jungle is an old Mona depot that is dedicated to raising remounts for the military. The POs began sharing the hut of a ‘Sain’, a half-crazed elderly, who has given up worldly desires. Their terror in the area forces the nearby village headman to provide them with food and other necessities. A Christian menial becomes their bootlegger. While hiding and whiling away their time, they discover the organic links between trees, birds and humans to their utter delight. It stokes their primordial impulses creating a cosmic sense of unity which is suddenly disturbed because they see trees being felled by headman’s men in collusion with forest employees. Shera senses his chance to make some extra bucks by forcing the headman to pay him his share for not obstructing the illegal felling of timber that causes birds and insects to lose their natural habitat. The act causes eco-anxiety. In the meantime two rustlers join them. Their specialty is horse steeling. They have a herd of stolen mares. When in their foolhardiness they steal studs from the military stud farm for breeding purposes, all hell breaks loose. There is loud rumbling as the local power structure is shaken that is thought to be beyond the reach of criminals and thus impregnable.

A police operation clean-up backed by military men is launched with ferocity. “When the members of operation team came out of jungle, they had with them two rustlers…The tractor trolley had in it the dead bodies of Shera and his friend…The silence made the jungle tranquil. All the birds hid themselves in their nests… The wounds inflicted on the jungle began healing. Within months it covered its trampled paths with its fresh thorns.” The stunning story is how power structures functions in myriad ways and eliminates whoever crosses sword with them but the nature keeps nurturing the hope of life.

‘Ki Jaanan Mein Kaun’ is sensitively woven story of a young man who suffers from the fear of becoming insane. And he is actually forced by socio-cultural attitudes of the people around to lose his mind which is full of dreams.

R.D. Laing vividly points out in his “Politics of Experience” that the real insanity is conformity, what is considered normal in the prevailing social structures is actually abnormal. “This story is a window through which I have tried to bring an enclosure to the fore built by the society for the persons it considers mad,” says Shahzad Aslam.

It’s a wonderful book of stories that shows us what we are and we can potentially be. Don’t miss it.

Sanwal Gurmani is a young Sariaki poet. He has made his debut with his book of lyrics (Kafian) “Saadhna (adoration)” published by Dastak Publications, Multan. The title, beautiful and symbolic, by Dr. Mahmood Nasir Malik points to the essence of the verses that one finds in the book. Kafi is a lyrical genre created and introduced by the 16th century poet Shah Husain which caught the imagination of poets and people. The structure of Kafi is meant for singing.

Shah Husain suggested classical Ragas for the renditions of his Kafis to have an enhanced impact. After him three great poets Bulleh Shah, Sachal Sarmast and Khawaja Ghulam Farid further developed the genre but it has generally continued to move hitherto within the parameters established by the pioneer; exploration of spiritual and cultural experience. Sanwal Gurmani is no exception. He deals with the similar experience but with a sense of wonder that imperceptibly forces him to look deeper into what he sees around. Seeing leads to awakening that shows how things are interconnected and support one another if there is no outside intervention. A harmonious relationship with nature and its myriad manifestations is what can sustain nature and man. Thus Sanwal as a poet implicitly debunks the hollowness of anthropocentrism. But he needs to be beware of all that stuff which can easily turn into traditional mumbo jumbo. Delightful is his use of language; simple yet rooted. It has a flow of murmuring stream that is shy of being noisy. He is free of abstruse local expressions some Sariaki poets are so fond of. “You are a yogini; the soil in the river bed / in your parting grows the lush green grass.” Let’s welcome him. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2023