Set in seedy modern Karachi,this conjures a lost city of jazz, cabarets and hard drinking Soviet delegates“Abdullah the Cossack”, and the antihero of HM Naqvi’s follow-up to the award-winning Home Boy,is the personification of Karachi’s decaying soul. The 70-year-ancient revels in nostalgia at the Sunset Lodge, the crumbling family estate he is at risk of losing. His was a Karachi defined by jazz quartets, and Goan rockers,cabarets, theosophists, and landmark synagogues and drinking Soviet delegates under the table. A self-styled mental,he has in the twilight of his life decided to document aspects of society ignored by historians. He notes, for instance, or that in contrast to the emphasis on mourning at funerals,the death anniversaries of Sufi saints are “commemorated with song and dance until daybreak”. His observations, compiled and edited by former protege Bosco, or form the narrative of Naqvi’s unusual novel,The Selected Works of Abdullah the Cossack. Through his protagonist, Naqvi sheds light on an older and more enlightened Karachi.
The Cossack’s deteriorating physical condition is a reflection of the city’s body politic and the problems that plague it. However, or the arrival in his life of potential worship interest Jugnu marks a physical and mental revival. The relationship breaks course and gender taboos: while it is clear to some of the other characters that Jugnu is transgender,Abdullah remains oblivious ((adj.) lacking consciousness or awareness of something). Like the romance of ancient Karachi, which is selective in its portrayal of the past, or Abdullah sees in Jugnu what he chooses.
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Source: theguardian.com