Snuffing Out the Moon is the debut novel of legal scholar and lawyer Osama Siddique, based in New York and Lahore. The book covers a wide arc in terms of history — from Mohenjodaro and the fabled university city of Takshasilla through the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangir to the British Raj and present-day Lahore, and onward to an imagined future, set in 2084 CE, beset by cataclysmic events that led to world-domination by ruthless water conglomerates. In an email interaction, the writer, who describes his attempt as one “to investigate the legitimacy of religion and authority, and chronicle the ascent of dissent”, speaks about new literature emerging from Pakistan.
It appears to be the season of powerful debuts by writers from Pakistan. Is there a renewed emergence of Pakistani writing that you'd like to identify? What unifying aspects would you speak of in these new works of writing?
Well I am very glad to hear that. Indeed it’s incredibly heartening to see the burgeoning of so much new talent. Literary fiction, genre fiction, commercial fiction –all kinds of exciting new writing. It is a relief as well. Given the nature and diversity of what is on offer we seem to be progressing from, barring exceptions, rather inert and apologetic explanations and overtly stylized descriptions of the orient for an occidental audience and fairly self-indulgent narratives to what are more real stories about us and for us. Therefore, if there is a unifying aspect it is perhaps that a much more organic, down to earth and socially and politically contextualized literature seems to be emerging. The themes are also more diverse and the plots inventive.
There is Faiqa Mansab of course and then also Omer Shahid Hamid, Sidra Fatima Sheikh, Shazaf Haider, Sheheryar Sheikh, Saba Imtiaz, Sabyn Javeri, Sami Shah, Sophia Khan and many more. Something is definitely afoot. This bodes very well for literature from this part of the world. I believe it also has something to do with what is happening in the publishing world in India, the continued interest in Pakistani writing and greater openings for publishing contracts for new writers. So in important ways all this is positively contributing to the cause of English writing in Pakistan. And given the unfortunate politics that embroils us this is a significant way to build bridges. Exchanges and collaborations around and involving literature, art, knowledge production, education etc., can be such vital tonics for peace and harmony in these troubled times.
In order to have social significance and to even survive writing has to diversify and to contribute to, be part of and eventually influence the more mainstream discourses – it simply can’t remain the preserve of a small privileged elite, a sensual escape for a few. I think the growth of literary festivals has also helped in boosting readership and interest though again they remain rather aloof to many sections of society and diverse reading classes.
Literature is integral to any society and given the change and challenges faced by Pakistan and indeed the entire region we need many new and vibrant voices, more debate, more dialogue, more reflection. We can surely do with new perspectives, fresh insights, and more nuanced dissent. We seem to be moving in the right direction but naturally still have a long way to go.
We're getting a strong and deep sense of irony in the book, even as it never really gets down to satire. How did you work out the moralistic incongruities that are integral to this story, while being wary of coming across as moralising?
There is definitely a prevailing irony because that comes naturally to me and I have crafted situations and characters that create room for that. I find that it can lead to a more compelling read and is also a great device for creating humor. Serious minded though the novel may be in any way I did not want it to be brooding and neither do I have a brooding perspective and approach to life. Having said that, there are other tones and undercurrents permeating the book as well – for instance I hope that what can also be detected is a strong sense of empathy at various levels.
Given that I am also trying to make the larger point that the human civilizational experiment appears to be going around in circles, we appear to repeat certain mistakes, and also that we seem to all be driven by very similar motivations to fairly similar actions are in themselves situations that lend themselves to an ironic depiction and even satire. As also the fact that the narrator has to often take on an omniscient position in order to explain the enormity or lack thereof of various events in a book that has chosen to provide a broad sweep of history and thereby can’t afford to tarry too long in any given timespan.
As to not sounding pedantic and moralizing that is assuredly a tendency one has to staunchly guard against. To infer and to suggest rather than to pontificate and be didactic – I have tried to adhere to that principle.
The chronological span of the novel is quite vast. Yet, this isn't quite a historical chronicle. How did you decide on factoring in historical episodes, and possibly leaving out other important related events? Would you like this to be read as a verifiable historical document, as much as a novel?
The novel is not historical in the sense that there is an uninterrupted continuum here from the Indus Valley Civilization to the present with all that is in the middle covered in one way or another. However, it is surely historical in the sense that for the epochs that I have chosen to write about I have taken great pains to provide authenticity and to ensure that whatever we know about their actual history is reflected as much as possible.
Having said that, it is a work of fiction and in many ways whether I chose to include an actual historical event like the Ajnala episode, or whether I completely invented something stemmed from a creative process which I am still to fully fathom and unable to describe. Ultimately, it had to resonate with whatever filters I was employing to thematically fit these eras under certain overarching parameters while trying to ensure that the stories are compelling – something which is all too often lost sight of in narratives too fixated on craft, tone and diction. The story itself, to my mind, has to be a paramount consideration.
Of course, for certain eras I had no choice but to imagine and invent as we know so little about everyday existence in those eras and for others I found the juxtaposition of actual historical characters with fictional ones to be an interesting way of further exploring and speculating about the historical ones given what we know about them – a case in point being emperor Jahangir. I had multiple agendas here. There were historical eras I wanted to fantasize about. There were historical characters I wanted to deconstruct and examine. There were episodes like Ajnala that I wanted to underline, showcase and highlight. I specially made a visit to that site, paid my respects, spent a very pleasant half a winter’s day with the custodians. What I write about it is my modest tribute to a tremendous sacrifice. It is also my feeble condemnation of a great tyranny.
So this is not a standard historical novel, if there is such a thing. It is definitely not a verifiable historical document, except in specific parts. It is historical fiction of a certain kind, it is also history, and it is also fantasy. The eras chosen are arbitrary in that I chose them as I knew more about them or wanted to know more about them and was already fascinated by them. But my overarching idea here is that if I were to pick any another six, then too the fundamental human motivations and reactions to those motivations would not be dissimilar to the ones described in this book. We appear, I argue, to be doing the same things again and again – moving in a circle, unsure of where we are headed.
Tell us about the research that went into the book. How much of the history of the Punjab and Sindh provinces of Pakistan did you find to be accurately documented? How much of the history of these regions, according to you, can be ratified as being historically accurate?
First of all, the epochs that I have chosen are eras that I was already interested in for quite a few years and hence regularly read up on. While writing the novel I of course ensured that I read even more deeply on particular themes and aspects in order to bring about greater texture, detail and authenticity. There were places that I revisited in order to experience the atmosphere and the mood again and also to be inspired. Because writing such a book is as much about the sensory inputs and not just analytical ones. For imagining what an aesthete like Jahangir may have thought of rain, for instance, I wanted to get a sense of his interests through his own writings and also writings on him but at the same time I could not have described the places that I describe through his eyes unless I too had visited and experienced them. Which is what I did.
As to available literature, Mohenjodaro we still know little about. There are various theories on almost all the major questions pertaining to it and its language waits to be deciphered. So there is a fair amount of speculation when you write a story set in 2084 BCE but you endeavor to make it educated guessing. Naturally, the material becomes more available and credible as you move towards the present. In the case of the colonial era the period is quite proximate to the present but the events that I describe are not extensively documented or written about. Hence, mystery does envelop certain important aspects of the same. The near future is once again in the realm of imagination but imagination informed by an assessment of what is more likely and what is not.
As to the history of Punjab and Sindh the secondary literature is quite rich on the colonial and Mughal eras though much more still remains to be excavated. There is the classic problem also of course of history being the perspective of the victor and hence big gaps when it comes to peoples’ histories and histories of the vanquished people and oppressed classes. As we go further back, things quickly get very murky and there is so much about our past that we don’t know and perhaps never will.
There are still coins buried in mounds of earth and an old parchment lying below reams of wastepaper somewhere that will perhaps be discovered one day. And then we will know a little more. It is a tedious and uncertain process. And we are not really prioritizing the study of history and archaeology are we? On a positive note, perhaps there are new technologies around the corner that will revolutionize our process of excavating the past. At one time who could tell for instance that radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis will be developed and what miracles it will work?
There's a distinct lyrical quality to the prose, which in fact, makes us think of this as more than just a novel. This is writing of an altogether different calibre. How did you work on the tone? Tell us a little about your own writing style.
I take that as a singular compliment and so, thank you. I have spent a vast portion of my life writing legal, policy or academic documents. The imprint is deep and there is no escaping it for me. But then I have also spent a lot of years reading fiction and poetry in English, Urdu and Punjabi and Urdu verse in particular has deeply impacted me. I have always admired distinctive linguistic styles in prose and poetry. However, whether I have developed or am developing one that is distinct I am not sure of – all I can say is that one way or another all the aforementioned factors have influenced it.
I definitely wanted to avoid the tone and language of a scholar or a lawyer except of course where my characters are scholars and lawyers. The irony in my tone is something that has always been there – I am averse to drab dialogues even in real life conversations; I prefer to be playful with language. I also have a greater appetite for reading descriptive passages than some others. Lyricism in prose has always appealed to me. My writing style – to the extent that I have ever really thought much about it deliberatively – is obviously a function of my many past lives and vocations. I have never really consciously endeavored to develop a certain tone or to speak in a certain way. In fiction. Or in life.
Also, the story isn't quite linear in structure. Was there a clear intention behind this, to go back and forth, with the separate storylines? At the risk of leaving some of us a little confused and disoriented, what was your thought that led to this structure?
The novel extends an invitation to the reader to envision time in a circular or cyclical fashion. Hence, we start from the earliest era and go all the way to the near future and then start there and go all the way back to the remote past and then we repeat this a few times. However, within this unique circular structure – deliberately meant to accentuate the idea that the human endeavor may not necessarily be progressing despite certain social and technological advancements and hence the notion that we may be moving in circles – the stories set in all the eras are all linear for all practical purposes (except for one which flows backwards and that is just for the fun of it – after all where would we be without experimentation).
Additionally, the stories are also linear in the sense that every single character in every story, in one way or another, harbours or confronts an illusion, sees an omen, experiences both ardour as well as loathing in all their multifarious manifestations, and then eventually finds herself or himself in a contestation, facing a certain tyranny or persecution, exploring the options of conformance or dissent or escape, encountering some kind of exile etc. Hence, under the overarching themes of illusion, omen, ardour, loathing and dissent every story travels through all these moods and phases to its eventual moment of crisis - linearly.
I find this structure a lot more fascinating than the standard plain vanilla linear story line. I also find the idea of multiple inter-linked storylines more compelling for life too is like that. Also, inventing this structure was almost a necessity considering that I am making certain much larger points that require my incorporating multiple eras as well as diverse characters in the novel, which are not necessarily contiguous. Naturally, this creates a greater risk of complicating things and I have tried hard to avoid that. But the potential rewards are also great. For if it works, and I hope it does and that is your conclusion as well when you finish the book, you get so much more for your reading time and effort.
The dialogues are fascinating to read. How did you go about working these lines? How was it to be reliving those passages of history, and giving it your own voice? Was it challenging to make them sound human, and natural, rather than being overly scholarly and dramatised?
Well I have strived to do two things. One is to try and make the overall tone of the narrative for every era distinctive from the others – so the Mohenjodaro era is meant to sound pastoral, mythological and closer to nature. I introduced a lot of terminology from Buddhist religious doctrine and dogma in the Gandharan era which ought to make sense considering that most of the action is in and around a monastery and involves monks and religious scholars.
There is a certain ornateness of formal Persian and Urdu replicated in the language of the Mughal era and that is owing to the fact that the characters are either associated with or want to be associated with the Mughal court. I employ a distinctly colonial brand of English in the colonial era unless I am dealing with characters like the epic storyteller. Then there is a more everyday feel in the contemporary era with a deliberately colloquial verbiage ascribed to the lawyers, many of whom actually do speak like that, and finally some techie, jargon laced, hybrid future-speak for the near future.
The other thing I had to keep in mind – like any writer of dialogue – was of course the class, education, station and intended personality of the characters. So my petty criminal hopefully sounds quite different from my learned scholar. Having said that any writer’s own tone and tenor often does speak through, and it does loosely encompass the entire narrative.
For instance, I have been told that I write in a high register and so naturally my narrative voice and my description of events will have that particular flavor. But then that is what makes different writers different. If they were all to make an aristocrat speak exactly the same way there would be no diversity, and it is not even humanly possible to achieve that. I hope that the distinctiveness that I have tried to introduce in the voices of the different characters does reflect through despite the presence also of my own unique author’s voice.
How do you see literature as a valid form of dissent? In view of global political goings-on, would you agree that it is a good time to support, hail and promote dissentient writing? What are the benefits, and pitfalls, of such an exercise - to encourage dissent, while also containing and preventing conflicts?
We tend to elevate our own experience and times as the most significant, which can be deceptive. We still know so little about the past and in many ways the novel critiques the human tendency to extend primacy to one particular epoch or people or human achievement over others. Having said that it is true that the contemporary human condition is quite alarming – after centuries of experimentation and so-called progress we are still romancing with authoritarianism, a virulently intolerant majoritarianism is on the rise, we are now capable of a scale of mass destruction never possible before, and we continue to erode our habitat and ecology with utter impunity. It is no longer even about whether it is desirable to protest, pushback and dissent. It is a necessity now – a matter of sheer survival.
A conflict stemming from jingoistic or imperialistic imperatives is very different from a contestation arising out of the taking up the causes of the exploited and the vulnerable. In terms of techniques, aims, and the internal morality of it all. There are benefits for those being championed. There are also tremendous risks and challenges. There are, however, no pitfalls. And sometimes conflict is inevitable to overthrow hegemonies. What has to be avoided at all cost is cruelty during the overthrow; as also the replacement of one hegemony with another. My book suggests at one level that perhaps we are incapable of achieving this. But it is also not utterly devoid of hope as well.
How consequential are the emotions of fear, pain and emotional ignorance and cowardice in the larger story of civilisation? The matters of social conformity, for instance, have never been as fragile and discomforting as they are in the present day. In that sense, how do you see this book being relevant to current discourses about powers of authority, religion and faith?
Ultimately, individuals are integral to and determine how groups, a people, and entire nations behave. And individuals are driven by illusions, omens, ardour, loathing as well as other overpowering emotions, often creating dilemmas and choices between conformance and dissent. The novel explores these connections between individual imperatives and civilizational directions. I leave it for you to determine though – through the small sample of certain real and imaginary events across the ages that the novel puts forward – whether the matters of social conformity have never been as fragile and discomforting as they are in the present day. It is hard for me to say. I am still dwelling over this.
What I am surer about is that the book is highly relevant to current discourses about powers of authority, religion and faith. It is subconsciously so because it is the contemporary literature on these very themes that has influenced me in many ways while writing this book and a lot else of what I write. Whereas, consciously I perceive it is because while writing the novel I meant it to be relevant to these discourses. Whether it is so in actuality I can’t say much. It is for the readers to determine.
The human element to do with historical figures always makes for fascinating reading. Why is it that, as readers, we tend to extol such characters, rather than see and understand them for the human beings that they were? What is it about history in the subcontinent that almost begs us to think and feel all dramatic about the past?
It is for precisely this reason that I have, for instance, tried to humanize Emperor Jahangir. You get a sense of the humanity and multifariousness of the man in his remarkable autobiography – the Tuzk-e-Jahangiri. One usually envisions Jahangir as a grand royal figure with the halo around his head, immortalized in exquisite miniatures or grandiose descriptions of the man’s campaigns and triumphs. Or one is reminded of his overtly dramatic, tragic image as an opium eater. But surely the man was much more than that and all through his different phases. I wanted to investigate how he must have felt about wielding power given his inclination towards spirituality. Or how he contemplated mortality in view of his great sensitivity to and enjoyment of life despite the corrosive desensitization that all power brings. Or how he thought of his fabled lost love from his formative years, married as he was later to a quite remarkable woman whom he procured through means rather dubious.
Similarly, we know next to nothing about the soldiers who rebelled at the Mianmir Cantt in Lahore other than certain sketchy details. I wanted to imagine what they went through and how they coped with their travails. Of course while doing this I have tried to harness my imagination by all available information. It is a taxing endeavor to imagine the past as something human, everyday, very similar to the present, connected and hence highly relevant. But it is a necessary endeavor nevertheless.
As to why we dramatize things too much I am not sure whether we are the only ones. But insufficient good histories and lack of good history teaching are two reasons why we may be culpable. Also, we propagate the history of kings rather than those of the people and societies and ideas. A lot of drama and exaggeration in the retelling of select episodes of history also has to do with ideological agendas – what we highlight, what we diminish, what we conflate and what we obfuscate depends in many ways on what we want to get out of it.
As to a penchant for drama for its own sake we tend to dramatize a lot of things and not just history. What can I say? I don’t want to sound flippant but we are a rather dramatic people. But then isn’t that a whole lot better than being a boring and insipid people?
Snuffing Out the Moon, Penguin Random House, ₹599
— Jaideep Sen
jaideep@newindianexpress.com
@senstays