The Word of mAn[S]o0r

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The weekend past was an interesting one. It gave me something i’ve craved for quite sometime now, infact craved since i’ve moved to Islamabad. An intellectual discourse on absolutely nothing! Its amazing how just talking about nothing can relieve a lot of stresses. Also, i got to take in a play by Ajoka called Hotel Mohenjodaro.

Written in 1968, set in the early twentieth century, the story revolves around Pakistan being one of the first nations to land a person on the moon. This is followed by celebrations and jubilation, till a mullah in a remote tribal village decries the whole episode as unislamic, and starts a movement to overthrow government and setup an Islamic state. This eventually leads to civil war, and all hell breaks loose, until we are invaded by another country.

In other words, what happened in Afghanistan. What was chilling about the whole story was just how real it was to what is happening today in FATA and Afghanistan, where Islamic states run by clerics who cant see eye to eye and end up mistrusting first foreigners and then each other eventually ruin the lives of their people. Quite eye opening.

The end of the play was a tourist on a camel travelling along the desert where the guide excitedly
tells them that this is the site where the hotel mohenjodaro stood in its heyday, before moving on to other things. The director then came up on stage and what he said really resonated well with me. He told us that if we didn’t like the ending, then we still have a chance to change it and make sure it doesn’t happen.

The next event i went to was a reading, organized by the Desi Writers Lounge. This is where i got to talk about nothings. The event had four items, (one by yours truly), which were read by the respective authors and then critiqued by the group. Among the questions were why did we write it, what did we mean by it and why did we choose the words we did. It was quite intense and the feedback we got (or atleast i got) made me realize there are quite a few other ways of looking at pieces and that effective writing, specially story writing, must be successful in creating the same image in the readers mind, as in the writers mind. Specific imagery was discussed, such as the use of a particular brand of cigarette and what it says about the character and the likeness of wisps of clouds to the strands of hair dangling over the forehead. I must say, i learned a lot more about writing from this one session than any class or book i’ve ever read.

Islamabad is slowly waking up, and slowly i am finding the world being represented within it.

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