06:29 - 
Book Review
2 comments
Book Review
2 comments
Zindagi Gulzar Hai--A closer look
I am sitting here writing this
review with a very heavy heart. Umera Ahmed is one of my favourite authors of
all time and yet she has written something that falls just short of a complete
waste of time. Yes this is a flame review, so beware Zaroon lovers, I am about
to seriously bash him!
The only way I can begin to
describe “Zindagi Gulzar Hai” is by saying that it is a sad excuse of a book
that presents apologetic excuses for women to believe that their abuse by men
is normal. It seems to suggest that it is okay for women to compromise in
situations where they are being exploited by their spouses and they should thank
God in such situations that at least, they are not left alone. Personally, I
would prefer to live alone than be abused, but I guess that is just me: an
idiot among so many wise women.
“Zindagi Gulzar Hai”, or as I
believe it should be named “Zindagi Bohat Kharab Hai”, is a story of a girl
named Kashaf Murtaza, who comes to Lahore from Gujrat to do her Masters. When
she first comes to Lahore, she is innocent with an average exterior and yet an
extraordinary inner self. She is confident in herself, but not in the world.
She possesses a very negative perception of the world that she lives in,
believing that morality is nothing in a world which is ruled by power, money
and beauty. In college, she meets Zaroon Junaid: a guy who represents
everything she despises in humanity. He appears to have everything and yet he
seems to deserve none of it.
And so begins a clichéd love story
where the guy pays no attention to the simple girl from a backward background
until she challenges him. She has a way with words that Zaroon cannot ignore
and he, like all guys, without realising falls for her spontaneity, passion and
volcanic temperament. (What shocks me is that he later describes these things
as her character. He says she has a flawless character that no woman of his
class could ever have, but that is all based on his encounter with her in the
library. And in the library she showed all these three characteristics in
describing her high character and his lowly one.) As he tries to get her to
become entangled in the web of love he is laying out for her, she discovers his
true intentions of trying to defame her in front of the whole university. This
leads to a moment of absolute low for Zaroon and a moment of absolute high for
Kashaf, when she gives him a piece of her mind and he rewards her with a slap
on the face!
When university ends, both Kashaf
and Zaroon begin to climb their career ladders separately. They do not cross
paths for 7 years, yet Kashaf still harbours hatred and resentment for Zaroon
and Zaroon’s crazed love for her takes a toll on his senses. He does not wish
to marry any girl that his mother suggests for him and all the while keeps on
asking his friends about her whereabouts, consistently denying that he has any
feelings for her. When he finally does encounter Kashaf after so many years,
she does nothing but humiliate him, finally avenging the slap he had endowed
her with in the library so many years prior to their reunion.
However, the more she plays
impossible to get for Zaroon, the higher Zaroon gets in his state of crazed
maddening love for her. All of this culminates into him finally asking her to
marry him and convincing her with his utterly baseless premises. So they get
married and then an age of tortured existence begins for Kashaf, disguised almost
perfectly in a beautiful costume of romance. It is here that I lay down my
argument as to why this book is exactly what I described it to be in my
introduction.
1. Zaroon is a complete
nutcase and Kashaf turns a blind eye: If Zaroon was merely possessive
and a bit of a control freak, I would say he was just being a regular guy. But
no, he took it a step too far! So get this, Kashaf is a mature woman when Zaroon
marries her. She has lived a career oriented life for 7 years and has made a
respectable place for herself in society as a professional. She, like any other
human being, has some likes and dislikes. What she wears is naturally one of
them. However, Zaroon wants to change that. He wants her to live the way
<i>he</i> wants her to live! And so what does he do? He tells her
once, he tells her twice, he tells her thrice and then he loses it. Just
because he does not like the colour of her sarri and she wants to wear it to a
dinner, he actually psychologically assaults her! He expects her to listen, but
when she doesn’t, instead of understanding that she wants to dress the way
<i>she</i> wants to dress, he imposes his will on her by physically
dragging her to the sink, grabbing her sarri and, literally burning it in front
of her eyes! He tells her to wear something else and get ready in 15 mins,
otherwise the consequences will be dire. She tries to say something, but she
gets told that he will ‘cut her tongue out’ if she says a word!
Now the thing is, if it was me, I would have packed my stuff and
walked out, but Kashaf, being the amazing woman she is, did exactly as she was
told and this made the crackpot Zaroon sadistically happy. He believed he had
broken her as if she was a horse that required breaking or a cat that needed
fixing! It made me physically ill to read this passage. After that day, Kashaf
stopped talking to Zaroon about her problems. Evidently, she stopped
communicating with him. She listened to his problems, helped him with his issues
but never shared hers with him. What sort of marriage would you call that? I
would say it was an empty meaningless relationship. Not romantic, but
torturous!
2. Kashaf loses her
identity: What is more, Kashaf begins to lose her own identity and
starts living a robotic, ‘machine like’ life according to Zaroon’s own words.
She starts to adopt his likes and forget her own. She ceases to be a feminist
like before and ends up being a weakling with an identity that Zaroon assumes
to be ideal for her. Her existence is defined by him, when
it should be defined by her.
3. Double standards
anyone? Okay, so one of the things that really drove a knife through
my poor little heart was the exculpatory attitude the author has towards the
double standards in society. Zaroon says, ‘Yes it is right that I had many
affairs in the past and I am a down right flirt, but that is fine, because I am
a guy. My wife should not be like me. Even if there are one lakh girls in my
life, there should be no guy in hers apart from me.’ The thing is Zaroon does
not say this once, nor twice, but countless times! I agree that this is the way
of our society, but that does not mean it is a correct notion to possess. A guy
will be held just as accountable for his actions in front of God as any girl
would. This is not portrayed anywhere in this story, and that is what kills me.
I mean, the author wrote such a powerful novel in the form of “Peer-e-Kamil” in
which she dealt with this idea in detail. Salaar was lost and he found his way
back just as Amama was lost and she found hers, after losing almost everything.
But in “Zindagi Gulzar Hai”, Kashaf is the only one learning these hard life
lessons, Zaroon is not! He loses nothing for his flaws, whereas Kashaf ends up
losing her very own identity for hers. She is punished severely for her
negativity and Zaroon not at all for his god-like attitude towards life! What
philosophy is this? What madness is Ms. Ahmed trying to depict?
4. Apologetic attitude
towards men’s flaws: As you can already guess I am going to possibly
term this novel as a downright sexist approach to life, where women are not
allowed any mistakes and men can do what ever the hell they want. But the funny
thing is, one line made me feel for the guys too. The novel is even more sexist
towards men than it is towards women. So, women are doomed to an existence of
non-existence, so what? We have lived with that and we will continue to live
with that. However, Ms. Ahmed dooms men to an existence of inhumanity! YUP! I
am not kidding. I was seriously offended on behalf of the male population out
there. She quite literally insinuates that a guy is not a guy if he is good,
and a guy is not good if he is truly a guy. I mean WTF?
Kashaf
writes in her diary that “He [Zaroon] was very good but he was a MAN, who had
his own feelings and who could not bear them to be hurt.” I read this and
wished to pull my hair out. I mean what is she trying to say? That a man may be
VERY GOOD but because he is a MAN, he can only be as good as his feelings will
allow him to be. The moment that they don’t, he will turn into a monster and
that is okay, because that is out of his control? Is he that unintelligent and
out of control? I mean WHAT? I would love to have ignored this as a character
development line that was attributed to Kashaf’s negative attitude to life,
universe and everything. However, this is a premise that is warranted by Zaroon’s
actual character! He is as good as he is allowed to be by his “manly
restrictions on character”. *Rolls Eyes* Zaroon is good to Kashaf but the
moment some unknown idiot writes to him about her “ill character”, he accepts
it immediately and ends up almost destroying their relationship! He does not
think, he does not communicate, he just does. Why? Because, he is a guy and
according to Kashaf, guys are inherently retards as far as emotional
intelligence is concerned. Double *Rolls Eyes*. Again I am sorry to all the
wise women out there, but I will remain an imbecile and keep on having more
hope than them in the humanity of the human race.
5. Zaroon has zero
redeeming characteristics as a hero: The last and most important
aspect of this novel’s deplorable state is the very fact that its hero has
absolutely NO redeeming qualities! Zaroon marries Kashaf, because according to
him she is superwoman. She is a career woman who manages her house, husband and
children perfectly. She is a woman, whose character is flawless, even if her
outward beauty is flawed. She is a woman, who deserves respect and awe! But
what about Zaroon himself? What does he have apart from money, status,
popularity and power? The answer is simple a marginal sense of humanity. Yes, a
MARGINAL sense of humanity. Why, you might ask, am I saying this? Well, to tell
you the truth, I did not claim any of this; this is merely an interpretation of
Kashaf’s own words! When she is describing Zaroon’s “good” attributes, she
enumerates a number of things. For instance,
a.
He does not taunt her about her
family background.
I mean wow that is something really good, coz he tends towards an
emotional idiot who would do the one thing that will send his wife spiralling back
into the world of insecurities. This is something that is expected of him. I am
not saying that it is not a good quality. IT IS, and I AM GLAD he does not
taunt her, but it is NOT a redeeming quality. It is something that is expected
of him. If he is unable to provide emotional security to his wife, he would be
deemed as a terrible person. This quality merely makes him a NORMAL human
being.
I understand why this would really appeal to Kashaf though,
considering she believes men are unable to be NORMAL human beings, because of
their horrible reaction to feelings... :@
b.
He allows her to do what ever
she wants with her money.
As if that is even something one should be thinking of as redeeming…
:S It is her money and she can do whatever she wants with
it. She earns it and she has the right to spend it as she wishes. Again I am
not saying it is not a good quality. It is, but it does not redeem him, because
it is not something that takes him beyond himself. It is a given that he needs
to do to be considered a NORMAL human being.
c.
He marries her despite the
status quo.
I disagree with her that this can even be considered a good quality.
He marries her, because of his own selfish desire to find the perfect woman as
a life partner. He found it in her and he chose to marry her. Status was something
hindering his goal in life and he bypassed it in order to get WHAT HE WANTED.
It was not something he especially fought against to make
her happy. Rather, she was the one who was going to have to
fight against to make her life worth living. She would have to bear his family’s
snide remarks and resentful attitude. He did nothing.
And the long passages describing Zaroon’s choice of a girl of
character are all wrongly placed. I am not a guy and so I will not presume and
state here what type of girls guys usually like. I suppose everyone is
different, but generally women who are outspoken and assertive seem to attract
a lot of attention. Kashaf was no different; she attracted Zaroon’s attention
the same way. She just happened to be a girl of good character to top it off.
Truth be told, I believe the library incident was where Zaroon fell for her (my
warrant: he keeps on repeating the words she spoke during that incident) and
what she did was very similar to what every unassuming girl does and gets
attention. She was spontaneous and volcanic! Of course, this is a presumption,
and if I am wrong, well then I am wrong… LOL
d.
He is not ashamed of her family
background.
Well he better not be…
The very fact that these qualities need to be laid down are the
reason that one starts to wonder about Zaroon. These NORMAL things are
something no one would expect of him to do, but he does. That makes it evident
that he needs to strive to BE a marginally humane person towards his wife. How
is that redeeming? Rather, it serves to prove quite the opposite!
There is nothing redeemable about him. He claims to have realised
that money, status and power are nothing in front of love, family and
happiness, but that is all talk. He does not practically implement it. He does
not try to know her the way she strived to know him. He does not take care of
her emotions as she has fought to care for his. He just remains busy in his
work and his achievements. The only thing that comes an inch closer towards
redemption for him is his attitude towards his kids. He aspires to show them
his love in a way that was never shown to him. That is the only thing that he
does, which is beyond his self and I am happy I was able to spot SOMETHING.
The funny thing about this story
and its author is that, somewhere between the book and the drama serial, Ms.
Ahmed realised that such a story CANNOT be sold on TV. A non-redeemable hero is
a dramatic nightmare. So she changed the story, elaborating it to make Zaroon
into a more redeemable character on screen. I just hope I have a changed view
about him towards the end of the serial; otherwise, he is doomed as far as I am
concerned.
I can see a pattern that Ms. Ahmed
tries to lay in her work. She seems to be laughing at her audience and at her
readers by portraying a character as flawed as Zaroon as a handsome, rich and
accomplished man. She is playing her readers by the strings, making them love
him for all the wrong reasons, only to bring him close to a girl, who appears
to love him for the right ones. Pity is that for readers like me, she herself
gets laughed at for she gets played by the strings she created to play on others.
While women around Pakistan swoon over Zaroon like he is the perfect guy, I
look at him and feel sad at his fate. He is doomed to NOT learn to respect
women even after being blessed with a wife like Kashaf. He is doomed to have an
emotional equivalence of a rock that gets erroded by the gushing river,
ignoring the life it supports. He only sees himself and what he needs and
wants. He ignores the desires of others and their right to them. For that he
becomes the most selfish, insolent no body, lying on a spectrum too far from
the perceived perfection that so many women bestow on his character.
I would like to end my long tirade
by crediting Ms. Umera Ahmed where she truly deserves credit. The only thing
that made the novel slightly worth reading was Kashaf’s spiritual journey. She
goes from being angry at God to realising that He is the only constant in this
world. Everything may be taken away from her. All sorts of love and support may
be lost to her, but the one, which will remain forever by her side and in her heart
is God’s love for her and God’s support towards her. She realises that the only
being to truly love her forever and ever is her Creator and only He will give
her what she needs. He is the only entity that can support her and it is on His
sustenance that she survives her ordeals. Everything else is temporary and
everything else is meaningless. Her realisation towards the end of the book is
the only thing that brought some semblance of satisfaction to me. Nothing else.