Interview: Nadeem Aslam
I talked to Nadeem Aslam a decade ago, at the inaugural Lahore Literary Festival
This interview was first published at The Friday Times.
(Some background: I was introduced to Nadeem Aslam by Mr. Shuja Nawaz, who was our host and the head of South Asia section at the Atlantic Council in 2012. I tried finding NA’s book ‘Maps for Lost Lovers’ everywhere in stores (couldn’t order Amazon because we were moving city to city) and finally found a single copy at the Stanford University Bookstore. I later read and loved his book ‘The Wasted Vigil’. In 2013, I got a chance to interview him.)
Lahore hosted a number of literary figures for the inaugural Lahore Literary Festival. Among the English-language writers at the festival, one star shone brighter than the others. Originally hailing from the city of Gujranwala, Nadeem Aslam left Pakistan with his family when he was 14 and has lived in England ever since. Aslam was one of the first Pakistani writers to be published to critical and commercial success in the West. His first novel, Season of the Rainbirds, was published in 1995 and won the Betty Trask the Author's Club First Novel Award. His second novel, Maps for Lost Lovers, won the Kiriyama Prize for Fiction.
Abdul Abid (AA): As a first-generation Pakistani living in England, what are your views on the development of latent radicalism in the second generation Pakistani youth in Britain, something that is sometimes not as apparent in Pakistan itself?
Nadeem Aslam (NA): I think it is a slightly different relationship that people living there have with Pakistan. The first generation's memories are from the 1960s and 70s. They left Pakistan in the 60s and 70s and for them, Pakistan stopped being that place. For them, Pakistan stopped developing, it stopped being a real place. This is not the case with people who have been living here since then. When some of the expats come to Pakistan, they feel the impact of the changes here in Pakistan quite forcefully, and they don't like it. Moving to England, a place which can be hostile to your presence, the tendency is to fall inwards, to hold on to what you have. Thus they became more religious, more Pakistani than the Pakistanis themselves. In Pakistan, people are trying to let go of certain things which they consider a hindrance to progress, but in Britain [the expats] are holding on to the same things because they have nothing else. For the second generation, there is a broad spectrum of ideologies. Some of them are assimilating into the society, and some are not, such as the 7/7 bombers. [This] does not mean that everybody from the second generation is hostile to the idea of assimilation.
AA: Tariq Ali said at one of the LLF sessions that globalization has made us more provincial. It is popularly believed that globalization has made the distances in the world shorter. Do you think the multiculturalism experiment has failed?
NA: I think there are two sides of this narrative that we should examine. In my opinion, England today is less racist than the England of 30-40 years ago. In those days, some of the guest houses had signboards saying "No Colored People Allowed". That kind of thing is now a crime. As late as the 1980s, the world "Paki" could be heard on British Television. It is prohibited now. All of that is a result of multiculturalism. It is not just a phrase, it means there were people out there who stood up and worked to end that kind of nonsense using their democratic rights. Multiculturalism enabled girls to choose to wear a headscarf, or a nose-pin. The other side is that it also enables bullies in a community to misuse this freedom. If a girl choses to wear a veil, the state of England allows her to wear a veil, but it also means her father can force her to wear a veil, which is not exactly freedom to choose. Multiculturalism gives you confidence to stand up and say that I can wear Shalwar Kameez, but it gives me the confidence to think that I can force my daughter to wear Shalwar Kameez instead of a skirt. That is a different narrative.
AA: What kind of movies do you like?
NA: I like westerns. I used to watch them with my baba. My father likes the idea of a semi-nomadic wanderer coming to save the oppressed. The idea of a hero wandering into the desert and coming to save the people is a very apolitical idea.
AA: Your father was an Urdu poet. Have you ever thought of writing in Urdu?
NA: No I haven't. I believe that language is a very private thing. I sometimes think in Urdu and write in Urdu but my main focus is writing in English. I believe that my palette is not restricted to the 26 alphabets of the English language but also includes the 38 alphabets of Urdu. An Irish novelist once said that Nabokov did not write in English, he wrote in a private, secret language that is comprehensible to the English-speaking people. For me, language is like the skin on my thoughts.
AA: Do you have a particular audience in mind while writing a book?
NA: No. I have said it multiple times that I always write for myself. My critics are my own characters. My writing is an exploration of my own life, my consciousness, my delights.
AA: Do you have any special feelings for Lahore, as you were not born and raised here?
NA: Gujranwala was my family's home but I chose Lahore for myself. I love this place and I consider it my hometown.
AA: What was your favorite session at Lahore Literary Festival?
NA: It has been wonderful as a whole. It feels so great to have such a festival in Lahore. One of my favorites was the session on Manto with Dr Ayesha Jalal and Ali Sethi. It was amazing.