This Translation Tuesday, we deliver a provincial story by Homvati Devi, a writer celebrated in her time, but since sadly overlooked. Following the daily routine of a junk shop keeper as he bears witness to his neighbors dreams of a better life in Pakistan, Devi beautifully captures a nation’s psyche – restless and uncertain– on the precipice of change. Hear translator Tanvi Srivastava’s first impression of Broken Dreams: “I found this story particularly interesting because it is a ‘partition story’—but set miles away from the borders of newly established Pakistan. It is one of the few stories I have read of the time which grapples with the critical question of citizenship and choice.”
Gafoor runs a junk shop; he travels across the city, from home to home, gathering unwanted items. He buys and sells broken boxes, punctured canisters, torn old blankets, discarded glass vials, cracked soap dishes, used brushes, dirty bottles, and so on. He even sells old mosquito nets and raincoats. Fine-quality objects—like flower vases, vacuum flasks, and toy vehicles—often fall into his hands, either discarded by rich Hindu households, or cajoled off memsahibs.
Over the last few days, work at his shop has increased substantially and so has his income. Those migrating to Pakistan are anxious to sell off their belongings. Gafoor promises to sell their items for more than they are worth, and so they end up giving all their junk to him. Soon his shop is crowded with broken vessels, old beds, musical instruments like tablas, footballs, wooden toys, used shoes and sandals; an unimaginable array of objects—from old burqas to a set of balance scales and weights; from damaged bird cages to nickel and brass jewellery. On the day of the weekly market, Gafoor’s shop is the busiest amongst all the shops on the mile-long road; he makes the most sales.
A traveller to Pakistan asks him, ‘Tell me, miya, how are you?’
‘I am well, by the grace of god,’ Gafoor immediately responds. The reason—the Hindu families he knows trust him implicitly; they agree to whatever price he quotes. To argue with Gafoor, people soon say, is to shoot oneself in the foot.
He knows how to keep his customers happy. He thrusts two cardamom pods into a child’s hand; he unwraps the shawl from his shoulders and lays it on the ground for his customers to sit on; he takes the trouble to arrange a paan for someone else. And in this manner, he reassures those who come to sell to him: ‘Ajji, I will recover at least two rupees from the torn pieces of this mat; this broken spittoon will sell for a full two and a half rupees; and spending twenty paise worth of polish on these sandals will make them as good as new.’
Gafoor rambles on, convincing people he will sell their items for a considerable sum before they leave for Pakistan.
And over there? Over there—it is heaven on earth; they will be given the best— beautifully decorated houses with electric fans and quality furniture, a retinue of servants, shining cars, the finest jobs. Those who stand on the margins of society today will be in a position of power tomorrow, enjoying the luxuries of life, marching ahead.
Hearing such tempting tales convinces many to sell off even the items they can easily carry, like handheld mirrors, cups and plates, knives and forks, coats and quilts.
Thoughts swirl in Gafoor’s mind. Pakistan…? I wonder how it will be. And the cities where so many people are rushing off to? Leaving their homes and jobs—they aren’t stupid, are they? They are all well-educated and intelligent. They say they’ll get large houses and bungalows to live in, jobs in prominent positions. An ordinary telegraph clerk or postman today will become a collector or commissioner tomorrow in Pakistan. Those staying in slums today will get palaces to live in, those who walk barefoot today will fly in motor vehicles, and then there’s me—despite twisting the truth, I still take home a pittance. Oh, the expenses have become unbearable. And Hamida doesn’t stop nagging me—get a necklace made for me, and so on. As if we’ll need such things over there—a land where gold is available at the price of silver. Here, even after slaving for a full year, one can only afford a nose ring worth a gram of gold. We’ve heard that the Congress party will make houses for the poor here; but a house is a house. Maybe they’ll build something better than a thatched hut, perhaps covering it with tin sheets or even levelling the roof flat. But in front of the palatial bungalows over there, what is a mere house?
Radical Reading: Sara Salem Interviewed by MK Harb
I’ve increasingly thought more about what generous, kind, and vulnerable reading might look like instead.
At the height of the pandemic, I—like so many of us—looked for new sources of intrigue and intellectual pleasure. This manifested in finding Sara Salem’s research and reading practice, Radical Reading, which was a discovery of sheer joy; Salem views books and authors as companions, each with their own offerings of certain wisdom or radical thought. When she shares these authors, she carries a genuine enthusiasm that they might come with some revelation.
I interviewed Salem as she sat in her cozy apartment in London wrapping up a semester of teaching at the London School of Economics. We discussed our lockdown anxieties and our experiences with gloomy weather until we arrived at the perennial topic: the art of reading. The interview continued through a series of emails and transformed into a beautiful constellation of authors, novelists, and activists. In what follows, Salem walks us through the many acts of reading—from discussing Angela Davis in Egypt to radicalizing publications in her own work, in addition to recommending her own selections of radical literature from the Arab world.
MK Harb (MKH): Reading is political, pleasurable, and daring. Inevitably, reading is engaged in meaning-making. How did you arrive at Radical Reading as a practice?
Sara Salem (SS): Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of spending long afternoons at home reading novels, and when I think back to those novels, I find it striking that so many of them were English literature classics. I especially remember spending so much time reading about the English countryside—to the extent that today, when I am there, or passing it on a train, I get the uncanny feeling that it’s a place I know intimately. Later, when I read Edward Said’s writing on Jane Austen and English literature more broadly—its elision, erasure, and at times open support of empire—it struck me that we can often read in ways that are completely disconnected from the lives we live. This tension was what first opened up entire new areas of reading that completely changed my life, among which was the history of empire across Africa; at the time I was living in Zambia, where I grew up, and often visited Egypt. Critical history books were probably my first introduction to what you call the practice of radical reading, of unsettling everything you know and have been taught in ways that begin to build an entirely different world.
I like that you say reading is engaged in meaning-making, because it has always been the primary way in which I try to make sense of something. Even more recently, as I’ve struggled with anxiety, reading above all became my way of grappling with what I was experiencing: what was the history of anxiety, how have different people understood it, and how have people lived with it? I realise, of course, that not everything can be learned from a book, but so far, I’ve found that what reading does provide is a window into the lives of people who might be experiencing something you are, making you feel less alone.
MKH: How do you reconcile reading for pleasure versus reading for academic and political insights? Do they intersect? Being idle has its own spatial practice of radicality at times, and I’m curious on how you navigate those constellations.
SS: This question really made me think! In my own life, I have always made the distinction of fiction as pleasure and non-fiction as academic/work-related. So, if I need to relax, or want to take some time off, I will instinctively reach for fiction, and if I want to start a new project, I think of which academic texts would be helpful. However, this began to change about five or six years ago, when I began to think more carefully about how fiction speaks to academic writing and research, as well as how non-fiction—unrelated to my own work—can be a great source of pleasure and relaxation. This has meant that they have begun to intersect much more, and it has enriched both my academic work and my leisure time. READ MORE…
Contributor:- MK Harb
; Language: - Arabic
; Places: - Egypt
, - Zambia
; Writers: - Ahdaf Soueif
, - Arwa Salih
, - Huda Tayob
, - Mahmoud Darwish
, - Sonallah Ibrahim
, - Thandi Loewenson
, - Waguih Ghali
; Tags: - intersectional feminism
, - migration
, - Race
, - radicalism
, - Reading
, - sexuality
, - social commentary