Mohammed Hanif is the author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes and Our Lady of Alice Bhatti. Blending wicked wit and elements from popular Punjabi culture with his keen insights in to contemporary Pakistan and its history, Hanif’s fiction is manages to be both credible and fantastic. He’s also written plays and the script for the feature film, The Long Night.

Mushtaq Bilal is pursuing a doctorate in postcolonial studies. His work has appeared in academic journals. He’s conducted all the interviews in Writing Pakistan: Conversations on Identity, Nationhood and Fiction.

Mushtaq Bilal (MB): You work as a journalist, a job that involves a lot of writing, and you have written plays for both the stage and the screen. Why did you feel the need to shift to fiction?

Mohammed Hanif (MH): I was always interested in telling stories and so I tried various formats. All these things, including journalism, the stage, and the film, are collaborative in nature. You have to work with other people. And that is great if it works well. There is no better feeling than having your own little theatre play being performed. And that is great if it works well. There is no better feeling than having your own little theatre play being performed. But when it doesn’t work, it is quite heartbreaking and everybody starts to accuse each other. The director says the actors did not perform well; the actors say their lines were not well written. What drew me into fiction writing was that you were on your own completely and you would do it all by yourself. Whether it is good or bad, it is solely yours and it doesn’t require any budget or investment either. All you need is some paper and a ball pen and you are good anywhere. I think this was the reason.

MB: How do these two roles – as a journalist and a fiction writer – interact and intersect? Do they complement each other?

MH: I think yes. They complement each other. As a journalist you have to go out and meet people, so you start observing how people talk, how they tell a joke or a story, what they are passionate about and what their prejudices are. And also writing journalistic pieces is a good exercise because you know you have to stop after 900 or 1,200 words. You cannot describe everything you have seen or heard, but you still have to tell a story. So you need to discard things. The same is true for fiction as well. You have to leave lots of stuff out.

The other thing is that journalism is a grim business. It is always bad news. As journalists, we are always writing about one atrocity or the other. There has always been some war going on since I got into journalism. When it becomes too grim you can turn and say, ‘I am going to sit on my desk and create my own little world.’ Then, this thing has problems of its own. You are stuck somewhere and the character is not working and you have no idea what will happen on the next page. That can also become too much. But, then again, you can take a break from that and go do some journalism. I am one of those people who, when writing fiction, is always thinking, ‘I wish I was reporting that story’ and in the field, ‘I wish I was writing the next chapter’. It is a perennial dissatisfaction, but they do complement each other.

MB: What was the reason for choosing the genre of the novel? Is it something dictated by the publishing market?

MH: No, I read a lot of novels as a young man so the format got stuck in my head. I didn’t read too many short stories. I have started reading them now. I always thought that I was going to write a novel. I never thought about writing short stories. I had done theatre plays and radio plays which were more like short stories. But I think you want to stick with something for a longer duration.

MB: Could you talk about the writers who have influenced you?

MH: They keep changing. I am quite impressionable, so anything good I read I am easily impressed by. I am influenced by Urdu fiction, Russian classics and spy thrillers. I used to love John Le Carré. Latin American literature was very popular when we were growing up, so I read a lot of that. Lately, I have been reading more contemporary stuff in Urdu as well as in English.

MB: English literary fiction which is produced in countries such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is broadly termed ‘postcolonial writing’ in Western academia. How do you see this label?

MH: I don’t get and I don’t mind labels. People have to make a living teaching this stuff so they have to come up with titles within which to bracket you. Good luck to them. They can keep calling us whatever they want to. Writing is a very private and personal act, and I am free to write whatever I want to. Nobody tells me you should tell this or that story. Similarly, reading is also a private act. So, people are free to make whatever they want of your book.

MB: But unlike writing, publishing is not a private affair. These labels are also used for promoting and publishing writers such as yourself.

MH: I think these labels are used to teach students about the theory and history of literature. I have never heard anybody in publishing use the term ‘postcolonial’ [chuckles]. I know five, six good editors around the world and I have never heard them call what they are publishing ‘postcolonial’. They talk in terms of plot and characters and worry about whether anybody will read it or not. This is the language of academia and not of the publishing world.

MB: A Case of Exploding Mangoes was awarded the Commonwealth Best First Book prize. Do you think labels like ‘Commonwealth’ and awards like this are parts of a colonial legacy, which keeps reminding postcolonial nations that they were once a colonised people?

MH: Yes, they want to feel good about themselves by doing it. But as a writer if somebody gives you money, you take it. The Commonwealth is one of those organisations that nobody knows what it does. I think it is meant to plan holidays for the Queen. I have never heard it do anything else, and, yes, there is an element that is patronising. What is common about the Commonwealth countries except for the fact that they were once colonised? Many countries have got over it a long time ago.

MB: Postcolonial theorists, such as Ashcroft et al, argue that postcolonial writing is always addressed to the Empire. Do you think your writing is addressed to the Empire?

MH: [laughs] I don’t think I am addressing the Empire or I am writing back to it. When I am writing or when I am thinking about writing, I don’t approach it like that. You cannot second-guess who will read or like your book. You obviously want to be read and liked, but there is no way that you can sit at your desk and say that I am going to write a story which will please the Empire or criticise it. Basically, your loyalty is to what is on the page more than anything else.

MB: Writers like Nayantara Sahgal say that it is our responsibility to present ourselves to the West in a way that we really are. Do you share the burden of such a responsibility?

MH: I don’t. I think we have a foreign office for that. We have media, journalists and diplomats for that. I think it is their responsibility and not a fiction writer’s. A fiction writer’s first and foremost responsibility is the story that he or she is trying to tell. I don’t think it is the responsibility of a writer to portray a society in realistic or honest terms. I don’t think writing from Pakistan is somehow meant to represent Pakistan. I never take this kind of responsibility and have never thought about that.

MB: What kind of responsibility do you feel as a fiction writer?

MH: My first responsibility is the story. The other responsibility is that I should try and not bore my reader. Also, I shouldn’t give up because writing a novel can be a tortuous, frustrating experience. Twenty pages into it and you want to give up and do something else. That is my responsibility: to get over that hurdle and carry on telling the story.

MB: In recent times, the interest of Western popular media in Pakistani English fiction has increased significantly, which has placed Pakistani English writers in a privileged position. What effect has this phenomenon had on contemporary Pakistani English literary production?

MH: There might be some writers who feel a responsibility. Since they are in the spotlight, they might feel they have to produce something true and representative of the country. I don’t feel that responsibility. The only thing that people never mention is that maybe they are getting attention because some of them are writing good stories regardless of the fact that they are from Pakistan. That possibility should also be considered [chuckles].

I used to work in the BBC, and every day I used to wish that Pakistan should not be in the top three stories, and it happened very rarely. It is obvious that if you are reading about a place and watching about it TV day after day, you get curious about the place. You do get that advantage as a writer that people are curious [about Pakistan]. Now, I don’t know if anybody can sit on their desk and decide that since there is a possibility of getting all this attention, I should write accordingly. Basically, you write because you want to write. In publishing, these trends keep coming and going. Some decades ago, South American literature was very popular, then African literature and, after that, Indian literature. I was telling my friends to wait another couple of years and Central Asia would be the new [‘in thing’] in the literary world. But one hopes that when this attention goes away people will still be writing stories and reading them.

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MB: Your fiction is concerned with how a Pakistani self interacts with different social structures, religious institutions and cultural constructs. A Case of Exploding Mangoes is concerned with the institution of the state while Our Lady of Alice Bhatti deals with the institution of religion. How deliberate were these creative decisions?

MH: Everything is deliberate. You give character a certain name, choose how they dress. These are the decisions you have to make. Sometimes you know why you made those decisions; at other times, you don’t. Sometimes those decisions have to be made because you have made a commitment to a character. There is an organic way of looking at it. If a person is in the army, for example, this is how they will talk and this is the kind of background they might come from. And this is how they will fall in love. You make certain decisions in the beginning, and what comes after that is sometimes the consequence of the decisions that you made earlier.

MB: Were the decisions to explore the institutions of the state and the religion made knowingly?

MH: No, as I said, you follow the character. Basically, what you are doing is channelling your own obsessions, madness and phobias into these novels. In a way, you are all of those horrible characters that you have created.

MB: Towards the end of Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, there is a twist in the plot when Alice comes to know that supervisor, Sister Hina Alvi, is a closet Christian. Why would she remain a closet Christian when she is aware that it would hardly be of any help? What kind of security does she feel with a Muslim name?

MH: Obviously, if you have a Muslim name, you are secure in Pakistan. If you have a Sunni-Muslim name, you are even securer. If you are a Baloch young man, your average age is reduced by half automatically. Many Christians over the past forty, fifty years have given their children Muslim names so that they won’t have to give their identity so easily. But there are others who haven’t. They insist on having proper Anglophile or Biblical or Christian names. I like the idea of exploring why people believe in God, why they worship, and what it gives them. Those who call themselves liberal and secular are bemused that some people have turned fundamentalist, they have started to pray, and they are doing hijab. I don’t think I have any answers, but I am interested in exploring that side of human beings.

MB: Both A Case of Exploding Mangoes and Our Lady of Alice Bhatti deal extensively with disciplinary institutions such as the military academy and a psychiatric ward. Would you like to say something about your interest in these institutions?

MH: I must have a uniform fetish. It only occurred to me when I was halfway through Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, and I realised that she wore a uniform. Yes, I am interested in institutions, in power structures, and how they work and what they do to people who have to work within them. I am interested in people who control them, people who try to subvert them and people who try to change them.

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MB: Ali Shigri’s and Alice Bhatti’s outlooks on life are very pragmatic. They do not seem to harbour any romantic notions about the human self and struggle. Instead of openly confronting social structures, cultural institutions and religious obligations, they cunningly negotiate their way through them, thereby undermining these structures and institutions. Do you think this is how Pakistanis negotiate their day-to-day lives?

MH: Yes, especially people who are powerless and people who have got into situations where they have become powerless. I think that is what they do. They subvert and sabotage [these institutions]. They, very honourably, lie and cheat because they are made to do that. The institutions are designed in a way to keep these people powerless. So for them it is a daily process of negotiation. I think lots of Pakistanis who are not born privileged do that.

MB: Is this a characteristic of Pakistani lower-class people then?

MH: Pakistanis that I know [laughs]. I don’t claim to know all Pakistanis.

MB: Alice Bhatti’s is an embodiment of female agency and challenges the stereotypical view of women. Women like Alice Bhatti are able to exercise their agency but at a very high cost. Do you think Pakistani society has the potential to become a more democratic and tolerant place for women and minorities?

MH: I think women are an engine of change in Pakistani society. You might have noticed that despite all the horrible prejudices, all the bad laws, all the messed-up traditions, you see many more women in public life today than ever before. I think this is one way of looking at this phenomenon. I hope it becomes a better world for them but I am certain that it will become a better world because of them, because of what they are capable of doing and achieving.

MB: Men would not have any share in it?

MH: I don’t think so. The increasing number of crimes against women in urban areas especially is a sign of a vicious backlash from patriarchy, because women are getting more empowered.

MB: Our Lady of Alice Bhatti is a very irreverent and, at times, explicit satire on religion. How do you think you were able to get away with this given the ubiquitous religious fundamentalism in Pakistan?

MH: I think fundamentalists don’t read novels.

MB: Novels in general or novels written in English?

MH: Novels in Urdu as well. There are very few people who read novels, and they are mostly liberal, literary types. Nobody has told me that they are offended. This book has been read by many women and young school-going girls and nobody has come up to me and said what the hell is this. Whatever our faults might be as Pakistanis, most of us have a sense of humour. I think when you talk in a certain tone, they don’t take offence. They haven’t so far, so let us not ask them to [chuckles].

MB: According to Robin Yassin-Kassab, you are a better chronicler of Karachi than Rushdie is of Bombay, in that, unlike Rushdie, you do not exoticise Karachi. Lorraine Adams compares you to Manto. How do you feel about these comparisons?

MH: You will get me thrashed by Uncle Rushdie. It feels really nice. I know it is not true [laughs] but for a few moments you feel really good about yourself. But in your heart, you know that you won’t be as good or as great as Manto is or Rushdie is. You know that but there is no harm if someone lies to you like this.

MB: You have written a report for the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan entitled ‘The Baloch Who Is Not Missing and Others Who Are’. What are your concerns about human rights and how these organisations deal with human rights? In Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, you hint at the vested interests of these organisations.

MH: Of course, these organisations have vested interests. There is nothing to hint about. Many of them get funding from other countries. They have a clear agenda. You may agree with it, you may not. But this one was particular because I had worked as a journalist for a very long time and I was surprised that nobody from our mainstream media was willing to cover the story of missing Baloch people. It is, by all journalistic standards, a huge story: full of drama and torture. It is a story that a journalist should be doing day after day, but they refused to do it. So this was an attempt to record some of these stories in the hope that some other writers and journalists would get interested and talk about it at different forums. I am not a professional human rights activist. I am more interested in the story. For me, your basic human right is that the state shouldn’t kidnap and torture you. I think that we can all agree on this, and then we can have our arguments over other things.

Excerpted with permission from Writing Pakistan: Conversations on Identity, Nationhood and Fiction (Harper Collins, Rs 350).