The Frontier People

The setting is todays headlines: Waziristan and the Swat Valley where American drones target the Taliban and Al-Qaida and where the worlds most wanted terrorists are kept secure by tribes who populate this remote region of cold mountains and unforgiving deserts. This is where Pakistan and Afghanistan converge. Few outsiders can claim to know much about the region or understand the psyche of its warrior-like tribes. One man who does is Jamil Ahmad,the 80-year old debutant novelist from Pakistan. As a bureaucrat,he spent almost his entire career in the North West Frontier Province and Balochistan. He also served in Kabul and his knowledge of the area and the local population seems exhaustive. Its unusual to discover a first-time novelist of his age but the book has been in the making for 30 years and finally sees the light of day.

That backstory has created quite a buzz around The Wandering Falcon. The protagonist,Tor Baz black falcon in Pashtu wanders in and out of the novel,which is in fact a collection of stories. Amid people who hold on to their fierce tribal identities,his origins are as amorphous as his role as the main character. In some chapters,he does not feature at all. Tor Baz is really a literary ploy to tell the story of the various tribes in the guise of a novel. And it works in terms of adding a storyline and an element of mystery and romance and character to what could have been a dull,anthropological treatise. There is,however,no fiction in the description of the various tribes who drift from Afghanistan to Pakistan at will,and exercise their own code of justice and honour. This is a land that does not concern itself with nationalities or passports,or borders. The law of the land is the ancient law of the tribes,medieval and barbaric in the context of modern civilisation. Yet,that is why the novel form works,each chapter bringing out the fierce clan loyalties and customs,which include honour killings,bride price,instant divorce,stoning to death of those who break their tribal codes,and the jigras or tribal councils that act as judge,jury and quite often executioner.

The authors insider knowledge of customs and codes gives us a rare insight into the dynamics of a society which incites such extreme emotions in governments and strategic analysts across the world. Ahmad,however,shows a great deal of empathy in his treatment and description of the tribal chiefs,often ageing men trying to keep their clans together,or dealing with issues like promiscuity and debt and revenge. What does jar is that it falls between two stools,not quite a novel but a collection of stories loosely strung together by the insertion of Tor Baz. There is no continuous narrative or a central plot. There is instead a form of storytelling that attempts to fictionalise facts and spotlight a region,a people and a way of life that is much misunderstood.

The authors style is as bare and spartan as the terrain,which adds to the literary atmosphere. The niggling aspect is Tor Baz,who is lost by the end of the story as a literary prop. For all that,this is a book that straddles the area between fiction and anthropology,and yet strangely enough,works. It is slim enough to avoid the trap of excessive detail and insightful enough to bring alive the fierce-looking tribes we see featured in news photographs,sporting missile launchers and AK-47s. Ahmad brings a new and more sympathetic perspective to their everyday lives and tribal identities.