Mapping Mutiny

Patterns, in fact, are Raheen and Karim8217;s passion. Ordinary words and phrases are made sense of by being rearranged in anagrams. It keeps Raheen going through her suddenly lonely childhood, as Karim8217;s parents whisk him away from Karachi and its stray bullets to the relative safety of London. It helps her glue together the stories, minutiae of her life. Karim remains tethered to his moorings by opting for a bird8217;s eye perspective, by persisting with his childhood passion for cartography and making the mapping of Karachi a life-long pursuit.

As a long-distance friendship freezes, as Raheen resents her buddy8217;s audacity to presume to explain to her her city from afar, he tells her: 8220;Maps, Raheen, are amazing things. They define a city as a single territorial unit, they give a sense of connectedness, and you don8217;t want to admit that you are connected to anything that8217;s painful or uncomfortable.8221; Later, in her upstate New York dorm he is in turn told: 8220;The word 8216;maps8217; is an anagram of 8216;spam8217;.8221;

Of course, the real pattern they are seeking 8212; dreading 8212; is the cycle of history. There8217;s Karachi. Is their little universe headed for another split? Is it even one city at all? As they bundle into conspicuous, and often borrowed, long cars and venture out of their upper-middle-class refuges, all Karim can map for them is the danger and chaos closing in. They can hold forth on divisive politics for hours on end, but it8217;s the wavering timings of 8220;Naila, the malishwali8221; that provide a true index of Karachi8217;s daily disturbances.

Then there8217;s their personal history. Twenty-four years ago, Ali was all set to marry Yasmin, Zafar was engaged to Maheen. Raheen8217;s extended innocence is terminated when she finally learns what prompted Maheen 8212; Bengali and in that other era of ethnic divisions suddenly a pariah in West Pakistan 8212; to dump her father and instead end up with Ali.

These are age-old questions. Must Raheen compensate for her father8217;s hateful transgressions? How are the rules altered when parents seek forgiveness? It8217;s but an allegory for Shamsie8217;s young nation, rendered so frail by five decades of dashed hopes: must today8217;s generations make up for errors of previous ones? Are they entitled to explanations for the scars they8217;ve inherited? Is every generation responsible for scripting its own revolt?

Ali provides a clue in a fraying letter to Maheen: 8220;I will not cower. I will help Yasmin bring up our daughter in such a way that she will have to look at me in horror when I finally tell her the truth of what I said that day in 8217;71.8221; On the other hand, Yasmin despairs of her daughter8217;s easy acquiescence to quotidian vagaries: 8220;Please don8217;t tell me conformity is your form of rebellion.8221;

Fortunately it8217;s not.

Unfortunately, Zia and Sonia who complete the new foursome have not been brought up to react in horror. And as events put them through the grinder, will they too 8212; just like Maheen and company in 8217;71 8212; be forced to partner the wrong ones? Zia and Karim seem determined to repeat the mistakes of the past, but Raheen holds out.

In this busy novel bursting with cricketing parallels an unexpected reversal is compared to Javed Miandad8217;s last ball six, a shady character bears uncanny resemblance to Mike Gatting and humourous asides, an entire urban universe has been mapped. Readers unacquainted with Karachi8217;s idiosyncrasies will be stunned to find their concerns resonating through the narrative.