Of Mangoes and Tasteful Sex

An interview with Mohammed Hanif.

In an interview, you had described ‘A case of exploding Mangoes’ as a love story, a dictator novel, with some jokes and a tasteful sex scene. If you were to ‘sell’ ‘Our Lady of Alice Bhatti’, how would you?

A love story, a nurse novel, with some jokes and one and half tasteful sex scenes.

A love story has been at the centre of both your novels but both are off kilter, quaint and in a worldly sense unrequited. Take us through your thought process while mounting these stories. Also was the love between two men a subversive contrast to Zia-ul-Haq’s fanaticism or was it incidental in Mangoes?

I wish there was a process or at least I wish there was a process that I could take myself through. It usually starts with a random image, some late night word play, riffing on some personal obsessions and slowly something starts to emerge. Sometimes It’s just a perverse curiosity to peak into someone’s most intimate moments. I am never sure if it all adds up to a story but then I trust the reader’s imagination and hope they can make their own stories from whatever I offer them. I am not sure if two boys fondling each other subvert much, it happened in my last book because I really believed that in their situation this is what would happen. And trust me these things used to happen long before Zia or fanaticism came along. You don’t need nasty dictators to act out your fantasies.

Boredom is a recurring word in your articles, interviews… something that motivates you to write. For someone who has returned home, which is in the thick of ‘action’ in every sense, is boredom still there? Or will the 3rd novel find a new inspiration?

I do get bored easily and trust me constant death and destruction is very boring. There is no inspiration in it. I am watching lots of day time soaps and hoping for inspiration.

From pop cultural motifs to Marquez to Manto to pulp fiction… we see resonances of all of them in your fiction. Who are your literary and cinematic inspirations?

I read and watch a lot of Urdu and Punjabi pulp. In fact I don’t think it’s pulp at all. Just because it’s more entertaining, has better dialogues, shouldn’t mean that it’s inferior to any other genre. I am reading jihadi novels from the seventies and watching music channels.

Given the mindless, dysfunctional times that we live in, is satire a way to make sense of it all or is it the mark of a Mohammad Hanif novel?

I think there are people writing profound things about these mindless times, I just have my own obsessions and I guess, limitations as well.

You have said that TV is like a race to the bottom. Some media critics feel that Pakistani media is much more vibrant than the India. Your take on the media in the 2 countries. Have these media critics actually seen Pakistani news channels? Are they saying that these are actually better than Indian TV channels? 

We don’t get Indian news channels here so I have no way to compare. But I think because Pakistani news channels started a few years after their Indian counter parts they are probably trying to catch up. TV is much more cut throat because their is more money in it, just like every other business. It’s easier to scare a TV network than it ever was to scare a newspaper or a magazine. In both countries.

You have written about the myths the Indian Press creates on Pakistan. From a larger perspective, why do you think these myths are created? And considering that you have been to India a number of times, what myths about India have you debunked?

I didn’t have many to start with. But a Friend in Karachi always says that two nation theory was wrong because it’s the same hopeless nation on both sides of the border. I did use to think that Indians drink in moderation but not anymore.

In an interview you said that journalistic research is sometimes a way to put off writing. Isn’t that a paradox considering the deep insights that you give on the sociopolitical scene of the country, its history in your works?

Yes that is a paradox. I don’t set out to give any insights but since I live here and my characters move around here, may be they tend to give those insights just by being there.

How has life been post return?

A series of paradoxes I guess. I feel at home but home stumbles from one crisis to another. Outsider tend to think that is a boon for a writer I often feel miserable.

Religious extremism, the sorry state of the economy, the Afghanistan crisis… how do you see the next few years panning out for Pakistan?

I am hoping for some improvement but expecting a lot worse.

India has seen a sudden surge in “civil society movement” in the form of Anna Hazare. As an observer from Pakistan, who has lived through dictatorships, how do you view this phenomenon?

I believe in political movements, civil society is a bunch of people who want things to look better, not necessarily to become better. They also tend to think that anyone who is not with them is somehow not civil. But surely chattering classes should be allowed to have their day out.

What’s next?

A song. A stage play. A couple of rants. Two novels.