Book Review

Aatish Taseer. Noon. 2011. .: Fourth Estate. Priced Rs. 499. ISBN: 978-93-5029- 163-4

Atul Acharya*

Placidity of Noon

Part of the trilogy, as Aatish himself claims, Noon (palindrome) carries forward the pangs of partition as felt by the protagonist belonging to the new generation (21st century). His earlier works (The Temple Goers Stranger to History) were more or less autobiographical in nature, sketching his life journey, and Noon just picks up the strands from where he had previously left. Noon seems to be a continuation of his earlier works. Being a half-Indian and a half Pakistani, the angst, sense of estrangement, loss of belongingness and severing of family ties- -all make up the fragmented plot of this much praised work of Aatish, by even V.S.Naipaul. Child of a very renowned personality in Pakistan (Late Sh.,Former Governor of the Punjab province in Pakistan), Aatish was brought up by his mother in India, after his parents decided to move in different directions. He had his higher education in US. He never shared that intimate relationship with his father and the void which was made due to this severely affected his personality. This void surfaces in his latest work Noon. He openly gives vent to his feelings. Words join with words, thereby foregrounding the internal conflict of the writer via Rehan (protagonist). With strong family connections on both sides, and being a visitor often to both India and Pakistan, we are brought face to face with the social life lived on either sides…marred with conflicts. As such, the work is a journey of the hero to the land of his father. The main character bemoans the present day society, the gap between classes, family politics, violence, politics and Rehan’s own unstable life.

Divided into four sections, the story starts with a Prologue and has an interesting Postscript as it culminates towards the end. A circular narrative, as it is, it moves back and forth over a period of over two decades. Initially, the sections may appear to be loosely joined, bearing little association with each other, but on an in-depth study and analysis one understands the vital connection of each section with the other. We move along with the sections, confronting a medley of characters and moving across various places in India and in Pakistan. The whole of seemingly disjointed structure is held together with the story of Rehan. He is the child of Sahil Tabassum, who, after his estranged relationship with his wife Udaya, settles in Pakistan. Rehan’s mother takes him to New Delhi, where they live initially at Rehan’s grandma’s house and later move to their own. Holding Rehan’s finger, we move across all the sections and come to know about his journey, his life and his frustrations. The plot is full of action, full of suspense, full of mystery all making up his life-story told in first person.

*Assistant Professor in English, Govt. College, Shahpur (H.P)

The prologue is more of a travelogue, where Rehan is seen sitting in a train, on a journey to La Mirage. In the train, he meets Mirwaiz who tells how he lost his father in an earthquake that rocked Kashmir valley in October, 2006. The prologue reflects on the loss of people as well as loss of places. The first section Last Rite’ takes us to the childhood memories of Rehan at his grandma’s house in New Delhi. Here, we are also introduced to his mother’s boyfriend Amit Sethia, who is already a married man but helps both the mother and the son. Section Two Dinner for Ten is a rendezvous with Amit Sethia’s opulent life and a mirror to the waning aristocratic princely life and the upper class society that was emerging post independence with new industries being set up. Section Three, titled Notes from a Burglary is marked with suspense, mystery, rifts of class and caste and shows the grey shades of different facets of Indian society. Rehan has come from America (his last year in college there) to New Delhi but his period of leisure where he indulged himself in reading, is spoiled when police comes to investigate the case of burglary in his house. Here we are introduced with typical policemen and their casual stereotyped approach towards the case, with the life and attitude of servants working in the house as well as security personnel. The case is dissected intensively with rigorous interrogations being made by the policemen but nothing comes out of it. The section ends with Rehan commenting, “I had sought isolation, but found myself more isolated than I knew. And this was not the innocence of my childhood. Though no less binding, these isolations were of an India whose worst nature was hidden from herself” (Noon 152). His visit leaves him more restless while confronting a world full of violence, corruption and complexities. Fazed, he decides to go back.

The last section, Port bin Qasim: An Idyll is the journey of the protagonist but this time to his father’s land. Mirwaiz, whom we met in the first section, appears again. He has succeeded in securing a job at the Narses’s (Rehan’s father’s brother-in-law) house on Sahil’s recommendations. Rehan meets his half-brother Isffy here, who is trying to find favour with his father, Sahil Tabassum, the telecommunication stalwart in Pakistan. In this section we come across a procession which is held by some Muslims against the use of English. Aatish, through the mouthpiece of Rehan, takes a dig at the Pakistani politics, black marketing, hard core fundamentalism and the hollow life lived by his family people. Looking at such a society from a distance and the mesh in which his brother is entangled, Rehan is totally disappointed. His meeting with his father is not materialised and frustrated; he tries to make his brother understand the importance of maintaining moral integrity but feels that it is impossible to change things as he wants it to be. One has to resist. To Rehan, ‘it was better to be strong and corrupt than possess a morality that was not yours, that could only be adhered to through inaction and escape’ (229). The last section is full of action with the secrets of Isffy’s illicit relationship being unravelled, his failure to come closer to his father. Postscript, an interesting addition to the novel is a collection of comments posted on the blog by people with regard to the porno film of Isffy with his girlfriend (who was his father’s former girlfriend) being seen by one and all. Bundled up within all these sections, Noon echoes the turbulence raging within Aatish’ heart, showing his inability to move with the things as they come. He has, through his life and family history tried to paint a vast canvas of the life lived in these parts of the world. The book has nothing much to say and is as still and quiet as the placidity of the noon. Talking about the title of his book, he comments, “To my mind that hour- especially on the subcontinent- has a kind of menace about it. It is an hour of glare and stillness, of short shadows. And that apparent placidity that contains, in fact, an underlying violence is the mood of the Noon; it is right there in the beginning when we encounter the false tranquillity of the lake, formed over a terrible scene of devastation” (www.nervousbreakdown.com). The plot reflects this devastation right from the start till the very end of it- full of ups and downs. The feel of noon is very much expressive as we tread along the sections. Aatish has failed to sustain the interest that he creates in each of the sections. After reaching the pinnacle of our interest, the sections just end abruptly leaving us high and dry. The burglary section after creating interest ends nowhere and in the last section Rehan leaves the place without solving the problem of his half-brother or even meeting his father. The style is more or less monotonous and Taseer’s intent just seems to present the different facets of his own life in bits and pieces via his protagonist Rehan. As such, the work only turns out to be a reflection of his life history peppered with fictional elements. If he wants to be a successful writer he has to wriggle out of this bent of mind of writing about himself and his family. The novel could have been successful had he worked a little more on elaborating about the bombings, the linguistic turmoil as seen in Pakistan or even reflecting a bit more on the socio-politco environment in the sub-continent and how it relates and affects the hero of the book. Such things have only found a passive reference in the book. Though Aatish has failed with the narrative structure, he has at least tried to prove his mettle to be clubbed among the upcoming crop of subcontinent writers who are not afraid to air their views on what they feel about the society, class and caste distinctions/voids, politics, rampant corruption so visibly prominent in the country. Enough of listening to his life history, a lot is expected of him with his future endeavours.