There?s a great interest in the literary world about Musharraf Ali Farooqi. Two years ago, this Toronto-based Pakistani writer, only 41, became the toast of critics with his translation of The Adventures of Amir Hamza by Ghalib Lakhnavi and Abdullah Bilgrami, an epic, which can take its place beside the Iliad and the Odyssey or King Arthur?s knights or the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
He is now translating the magical fantasy epic Tilism-Hoshruba, in 24 volumes ? the first part is just out. He has written children?s books, is working on a graphic novel and the second part of the fantasy epic?s translation. So, when Farooqi?s debut fiction, The Story of a Widow, was announced, the literary world took notice. That it had another interesting Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif (The Case of Explosive Mangoes) putting his stamp of approval on The Story of a Widow with a comparison with Jane Austen only increased the buzz around the book.
There?s nothing wrong with that ? and Farooqi?s eye on social mores is evident ? except that The Story of a Widow doesn?t quite live up to the hype. It?s, well, a story of a widow, who explores life ? and relationships ? after the death of her first husband.
Farooqi tells readers that the story was inspired by a portrait that hangs in a house in Toronto. While visiting an octogenarian gentleman and his third wife, whose first husband had been dead for years, he found his portrait hanging directly above her current husband?s rocking chair.
He builds the story around this ? lonely, beautiful Mona Akbar Ahmad, mother of two grown-up and married daughters, can?t help falling in love with a newly-moved-into-the-neighbourhood Salamat Ali, who twirls her into his world with song and dance and little else. And of course, the whole world ? and a family who does a fair bit of politics to keep her and Ali apart ? knows it?s a mistake before Mona.
The lady, with first husband?s portrait firmly on the wall, then decides to shun all male attention, but for an old architect friend whose company she enjoyed ?more because they always came to an end?. Those who have read his Hamza translation will find this romantic liaison ? dare we say it ? dull. After all, no family intrigue can keep pace with Hamza?s adventures after all.
