63 – Pakistan – Nadeem Aslam – Maps for Lost Lovers – September 2018 (Score 8.7)

This story is of the people, from Pakistan, who are living in a large area in London away from the centre of the city. All the street names are in Urdu. The author doesn’t say whether the name plates are in Urdu script or in the Latin alphabet.

The name, Dasht-e-Tanhai, which the immigrants apply to London, translates as “The Waste Land of Loneliness” or, as in the transliteration given below from the song as sung by Meesha Shah (among others). A book of the same title was written by Fakhira Batool. I can’t trace whether the poem comes from the book or vice versa. I found a version on the internet. The sound is beautiful, even if I don’ speak the language.

“The Desert of my solitude

In the desert of my solitude, my love, quiver the shadows of your voice, the mirage of your lips.
In the desert of my solitude, from beneath the dust and ashes of the distance between us, bloom the jasmines and the roses of your presence.
From somewhere close by rises the warmth of your breath it smolders in its own perfume – gently, languorously.
Far away, on the horizon, glistens drop by drop, the dew of your beguiling glance.
With such tenderness, my love, your meMeesha Shahmory has placed its hand on the cheek of my heart
That although this is the dawn of our farewell, it feels as if the sun has set on our day of separation and the night of our union is already at hand.”

Towards the beginning of the book there is some history of the antagonism between Pakistanis and Hindus in the sub-continent with the wars between East and West Pakistan and India. This antagonism seems to have been carried over to London by immigrants from those countries.

The primary protagonists are the extended family of Shamas who is a well- educated, and self-taught man, trying to keep his family together. Although a Moslem, Shamas learns that he was born a Hindu. His wife is Kaurab, uneducated and speaks very little English even after many years in London. Their family are all well-educated and speak both languages

The book is packed full of tension, of things which have happened, have not happened or may yet happen, people seeing what they should not have seen and have, anyway, misconstrued. All this reflects on other people and their lives, usually badly.

Bearing in mind the events in the story I had a frisson of shock when Shamas found a heart on the footpath, cut in two. It was two orchid flowers which had fallen from a funeral wreath.

The book is beautifully written, with many references to nature, impossible to list. Read the book to find them. I enjoyed it very much, even allowing for the bad things which happen at intervals. One thing in particular brought the period back to me – Jack Frost patterns on the windows in the winter. We had never heard of central heating and double glazing, let alone insulation. I would guess that they probably didn’t even exist at the time. I scored this book at ten.