A Chronicle of the Peacocks collects fifteen stories by Urdu writer Intizar Husain published over more than four decades, from 1952 to 1999. Born in India, he moved to Pakistan after the Partition (of the two countries), and much of his work is colored by that.
Intizar Hussain has 58 books on Goodreads with ratings. Intizar Hussain’s most popular book is Basti. Published November 15th by The New York Review of Books (first published ) Intizar Hussain was a prominent Urdu writer, this book is an English. Intizar Hussain BOOKS. Sort On. Publishing Date, Title, Author Name. KHAWABOON KAY MUSAFIR ^ – خوابوں کے مسافر. By:INTIZAR HUSSAIN DRAMA.
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Preview — Basti by Intizar Hussain. Basti by Intizar Hussain. Basti is the great Pakistani novel, a beautifully written, brilliantly inventive reckoning with the violent history of a country whose turbulence, ambitions, and uncertainties increasingly concern the whole world. In Urdu, basti means any space, from the boojs intimate to the most universal, in which groups of people come together to try to live together, and the universal Basti is the great Pakistani novel, a beautifully written, brilliantly inventive reckoning with the violent history of a country whose turbulence, ambitions, and uncertainties increasingly concern the whole world.
Remembering Intizar Hussain: One of the Great Urdu Writers | Literary Hub
In Urdu, basti means any space, from the most intimate to the most universal, in which groups of people come together to try to live together, and the universal question at the heart of the book is how to constitute a common world. What brings people together?
What tears them apart? But Zakir is abruptly evicted from this paradise—real or imagined—into the maelstrom of history. The itizar country of Pakistan is born, separating him once and for all from the woman he loves, and in a jagged and jarring sequence of scenes we witness a nation and a psyche torn hussaon existence only to be torn apart again jntizar again by political, religious, economic, linguistic, personal, and sexual conflicts—in effect, a world of loneliness.
The characters wait for a sign that minds and hearts may still meet. In the meantime, the dazzling artistry of Basti itself gives us reason to hope against hope. To nussain what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Bastiplease sign up. This question contains hhssain view spoiler [i want summary of this book hide spoiler ].
See 1 question about Basti…. Lists with This Book. Sep 30, Zanna rated it really liked it. My first and last journey with her. We left Vyaspur before dawn, but when the lorry reached Bulandshahr it was already afternoon As we crossed over the Ganges on the bridge, darkness fell. Somehow, at some point, her hand came into mine.
Remembering Intizar Hussain: One of the Great Urdu Writers
From then on I was unconcerned about the dust and ruts in the road, and about when the lorry would arrive in Rupnagar, and even about whether it would arrive at all Isn’t this the truth perfectly, how that half-secret love can swallow your whole self, how some My first and last journey with her. From then on I was unconcerned about the dust and ruts in the road, and about when the lorry would arrive in Rupnagar, and even about whether it would arrive at all Isn’t this the truth perfectly, how that half-secret love can swallow your whole self, how some small touch, even a word, can obliterate time bokos dissolve every thought in your head What I loved about this intizaar was, above all, bopks tenderness.
Like other borderland literature, Basti renders lines drawn on a map as an emotional geography that blurs them. Here you will not find a history that steps from event to event explaining the cause and effect of each.
Books by Intizar Hussain
We don’t hear news, only that the beloved one reads it, or that it is discussed by friends in the cafe I don’t mean that politics or history are sidestepped – rather the opposite, we are inside them in a way that makes it impossible to look down on the situation from above. Finally some coherence returns when he boks from his friend Surendar in Delhi about Sabirah the one he loves. Yar, how strange it is that the same town becomes for one of its inhabitants, who has left the country, more meaningful than before, so that he dreams about it; while for another inhabitant all its meaning disappears, so that even though [s]he’s in the same country, [s]he never feels any desire to see the town again The town where he and Sabirah lived as children is deeply important to Zakir, but Sabirah, who stayed in India while her family left, feels differently.
Basti Intizar Husain Summary Pdf
Here I feel not only the loss of the beloved place, but the loss he feels in that discontinuity with her, that something precious to him has been thrown away If Rupnagar appears idyllic in his memory, then Lahore by implication, never mentioned appears nightmarish in a time of war, but tenderness makes it home: I can do nothing else for this hhssain, but I can pray, and I do pray. In my mind is a prayer for Rupnagar and its people as well, for I can no longer imagine Rupnagar apart from this city.
Rupnagar and this city have merged together inside me, and become one town. Inside Zakir, the broken world can begin to be repaired It seems to me that Hussein is refusing to partition his own self by drawing on Hindu and Buddhist sources as well as the Quran and Iranian poets.
When the slogan “Crush India” appears on taxis it is startling, because we have not left India in spirit, the movement, the crossing, is from a child’s paradise to adult sorrow and loss But love is the bridge; friendship ignores religious differences and nation-state boundaries entirely.
Books dissolves the border like chalk-pictures erased by rain. Love is primary in Basti and everything flows from it, even when it is uussain a shadow of a memory of a touch View all 5 comments. Sep 02, Tony rated it liked it Shelves: Farrell, skewers the British, but except for two characters kept in a cage, he doesn’t really personalize the native Indians.
This, Bastiseemed a logical next step. Intizar Husain husssain born in British-administered India and migrated to Pakistan in He lived through the Partition and the following war. This novel, to the extent booka is historical, is about that time. Yet, there are remembrances toa bell-tolling; both a banner and a scar. And let us not forget Jallianwala Bagh, a park, inwhere a crowd of nonviolent nationalist demonstrators were trapped in a walled garden and repeatedly fired upon by soldiers under a British general, leaving hundreds dead.
Sound forge 6 serial key generator. Zakir – the ‘he’ of this novel – keeps going to the garden. He makes friends with the trees. Zakir’s father gives Zakir some keys. They are the keys to their house in India. None of them will go back there. Son, these are the keys to a house ijtizar which you no longer have any right And then he dies.
Urdu Books of Intizar Hussain | Rekhta
But I don’t want to talk about the book, not really. I want to talk about me See, there are a few things I know a great deal about, or pretend I do. I know who lied. I know who was weak. I know it so well that when I read a book about a family outing, I can tell they are really talking about the outset of war, even if, you know, they are not. And whether I’m right or not, the symbolic burp is casual and reflexive. But I don’t have that with the Partition. I don’t really know who the good guys and the bad guys are.
Husain doesn’t tell us either, at least not by teams, just individuals. Young men who enter the Shiraz, drink your tea, and act tough, then change sides. So I read this as an American. I read this as a itnizar, and an isolationist, though I suspect the latter is foolish. I read this as someone whose understanding of that moment in time is limited. I read this as someone who thinks you need look no further than religion and colonialism to see why, today, the world is set to explode.
And I read this because a character in The Siege of Krishnapur said, “you have to be very careful thrashing a Hindu, George, because they have very weak chests husaain you can kill them So much the better, because that signals a start.
Yet, so much resonated; Without any sense of boredom he read so many posters with the same message, and so many two-word slogans written in English on car bumpers, on car windows. He felt he was not reading slogans, but walking on flies. I am walking on flies. View all 15 comments. Mar 12, Nicholas During rated it really liked it. This book reads like a creation myth, and when it’s the creation of the state of Pakistan, husswin better pay some attention, and be prepared to get a bit depressed.
Though actually this is beautiful book, filled with lyrical memories of exploration in time, place, and faith. Loaded with Manicheist imagery of father vs.
Often the characters don’t know who they books, especially the protagonist Zakir, or where they are, or when they are, as they spin through inizar history of Pakistan and India and all across the subcontinent. Entering into the myriad myths that have created their current culture, though, as anyone who reads the newspapers know, not without its negative effects.
But it isn’t just a loose mythic and mystic I’m stealing from the back copy here introduction to a complex history and culture. It is also a very clear, very bookks invocation of living in a war-torn city, Lahore in to be exact, to be in a place that alternates between the shouts and shots on the streets to the quiet nights of curfew and black-out. Where each morning the city ontizar live is unrecognizable. Where you radical communist friends became Islamists seemingly overnight or after boiks visit to the US and the only escape is in memory and in the past.
And yes, it does bioks a Proustian feel to it, as Zakir continually returns to his hometown and hometown friends, an ideal India where religions and people freely mixed and one could quote the Koran and the Ramchandar-ji in the same sentence, and no one would blink an eye.
If you are interested in South Asian history, and South Asian literary, this book is a must read. It’s wonderfully written, moving but dense, and I intizaar least left it with a deeper sympathy, I hope understanding, for the travails of a large and important place and all the people over the generations who have lived there.
Oct 23, Sorayya Khan rated it it was amazing.
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A Chronicle of the Peacocks
by
Intizar Husain
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general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author
| Title: | A Chronicle of the Peacocks |
| Author: | Intizar Husain |
| Genre: | Stories |
| Written: | (Eng. 2002) |
| Length: | 262 pages |
| Original in: | Urdu |
| Availability: | A Chronicle of the Peacocks- US |
| A Chronicle of the Peacocks- UK | |
| A Chronicle of the Peacocks- Canada | |
| A Chronicle of the Peacocks- India |
- Stories of Partition, Exile and Lost Memories
- A selection of stories originally published in Urdu between 1952 and 1999
- Translated by Alok Bhalla and Vishwamitar Adil
- With an Introduction by Alok Bhalla
- Includes an Interview with the author
- Includes a Glossary
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Our Assessment:
B+ : fine selection, fine stories
See our review for fuller assessment.
Basti By Intizar Hussain Pdf
| Source | Rating | Date | Reviewer | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Hindu | . | 2/3/2003 | . | 3/3/2003 | Gillian Wright |
From the Reviews:
- 'One gets the impression that in A Chronicle of the Peacocks Intizar Husain is trying to dig into some other reality than the quotidian one we face. And that ain't a cakewalk, buddy. (..) Intizar Husain's stories often tread that twilight zone between fable and parable. And the narrative is spun on an oriental loom -- reminiscent of A Thousand and One Nights or the Jataka tales, each story becoming an offshoot of the previous one and an embryo of the next tale. And his command over the narrative lies in the fact that never once does the reader feels let down. (..) The book has been edited flawlessly by Mini Krishnan, with a fine introduction by Professor Alok Bhalla, an extensive glossary, and an informative interview with the author.' - Keki N. Daruwalla, The Hindu
- 'His characters' blank incomprehension in the face of wisdom reflects the confusion in our world. If he still writes of Partition, it is because he is trying to see if he can find meaning in the deaths of so many people, and because he believes that the struggle of the exile is the most unique and difficult one of our times.' - Gillian Wright, India Today
Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.
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The complete review's Review:
A Chronicle of the Peacocks collects fifteen stories by Urdu writer Intizar Husain published over more than four decades, from 1952 to 1999. Born in India, he moved to Pakistan after the Partition (of the two countries), and much of his work is colored by that. As he explains in an interview included in this volume:
I have, in my lifetime, undergone an experience of epic proportions. I must deal with it if I have to say something worthwhile about the history of the subcontinent. When my critics object and tell me that I am obsessed by the experience of the Partition, trapped in it, my response is that what happened in 1947 was so complex, so utterly devastating, that I have yet to understand it fully. How can I get away from it ?Fortunately, however, the collection is much more varied than his statements would suggest -- and much of the Partition-issue is already well-covered in the opening story, An Unwritten Epic. What begins as a straightforward story of a village in India and the post-1947 transition, with many of the Muslim villagers leaving for Pakistan (and the name of the village changed by those who move in), switches abruptly in its second half into the diary-entries of a writer trying to finish the story. The central figure the writer fixates on is Pichwa, a fearless local who: 'fought without reason or purpose; he fought for the sake of fighting'. But the writer can not come to grips with post-Partition life -- just as Pichwa can't.
The writer finds that:
In any case, this is not the age of great poetry. There are no heroic figures now about whom epics can be written.And, indeed, he also finds:
I seem to be slowly losing my desire to write. Sometimes I blame myself for it, sometimes society. Whenever I pick up my pen, people start shouting, 'Pakistan zindabad,' ['Long live Pakistan'] so loudly that the pen falls from my hand. There is a continuous chatter about 'constructive literature' around me. I can't hear anything else in the din. What is this animal called 'constructive literature' ? Everything is recognized by its relation to its opposite. I have yet to come across 'destructive literature'. If literature is not 'destructive', how can it be 'constructive' ? Literature is neither constructive not destructive; it is only literature.None of the other stories switch as abruptly from one form of narrative to another, but in many of them Husain does use smaller shifts to similar effect. Several nest stories within stories, often with a character facing a dilemma seeking advice or wisdom from someone, and receiving that advice or wisdom in the form of a story (instead of -- sometimes to their frustration -- getting a straight answer ..). It's a familiar strategy, but Husain does it well.
Somewhat surprisingly, many of the stories rely extensively on traditional Indian myths, fables, religion, and tradition, instead of simply Islamic tradition. In The Boat Husain artfully mixes variations of the Flood-story -- with both Gilgamesh and Noah -- in a timeless take on the story that is also a commentary on contemporary dislocation -- including that feeling of being at sea in the world ...The Story of the Parrot and the Mynah is entirely populated by birds, unable to comprehend the lack of wisdom found among humans.
Other stories are realistic depictions of contemporary life, including Barium Carboante, with its description of modernization and transition -- and a plague of rats that comes with some of the advances.And the very good title story even addresses 'the terrifying news about India's atomic bomb' -- though, typically (and artfully), indirectly.
A Chronicle of the Peacocks is a fine collection of stories and, as it also includes a longer interview with the author, an excellent introduction to a writer who clearly deserves greater recognition beyond the subcontinent. Husain is a creative and talented writer, and while his stories offer something truly foreign -- this writing has little that is recognizably 'Western' to it -- they also read well in this translation, with almost none of the stilted awkwardness often found in translations of work by Asian authors. (The translators leave a number of terms in the original (with English equivalents presented in the extensive Glossary), and that also helps the text read quite smoothly.)
A very good introduction to an important (and talented) writer and his work.
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Links:
A Chronicle of the Peacocks:- Oxford University Press publicity page
- See Index of Indian and Pakistani literature
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About the Author:
Indian-born Intizar Husain (انتظار حسین) (1925-2016), moved to Pakistan after the Partition. He was a leading Urdu author.
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