Shattered Echoes: Heard and Unheard

Although, English short story is a popular genre in Pakistan, yet, we have very few renowned female short story writers who have made their name in this field.

Such noteworthy writers as Kamila Shamsie, Bapsi Sidhwa, Bina Shah and Uzma Aslam Khan can be mentioned in this regard. Recently, Sufia Humayun has published her debut collection of short stories, Shattered Echoes.

The foreword has been written by Professor Dr Waseem Anwar, a renowned scholar and currently Director ICPWE at Kinnaird College Lahore, Pakistan. The title is symbolic as it refers to the silent, yet resonant voices of Pakistani women struggling hard to make themselves heard effectively.

Sufia Humayun is an academic, a short story writer and a poet. She has earned her degrees from the University of the Punjab and Kinnaird College Lahore and creative writing certificates from LUMS Lahore, Pakistan and Wesleyan University, USA. She is a lecturer in English and teaches literature and the art of creative writing to the graduates.

Shattered Echoes is her debut collection of stories, her stories and poems have already been published in various journals. It reveals a tapestry of complex narratives weaved artistically to reflect the journey of female characters, Malaikka, Rahema, Shaheen, Khushbakht and Zaitoon. Against diversified backgrounds of noisy urban landscape to the noiseless corners of rural areas, these women grapple with frustration, disappointment and disillusionment, navigating the path to self-discovery.

Sufia’s fictional world exposes bitter realities of human life. It’s a Strindbergian world where the sins committed by ones’ parents visit the children, a vicious circle of sin and punishment. It is a world where human efforts are shattered, yet, the spirit and struggle to survive remains intact. The book Shattered Echoes is primarily dominated by female characters. The stories included in it focus their agony of existence.

Although, the female characters are socially exploited and economically deprived, yet, the social and economic issues are not the central issues, rather the writer intends to showcase the human condition as the paramount idea running through all the fourteen stories included in the book. It presented a picture gallery of female characters, so different and diversified, so multifaceted and so multifarious that hardly any one of them is repeated, it speaks volumes for writer’s art of characterization. Simultaneously, they come from urban and rural background.

And what unite them is their determination and resolve to resist the tyranny of social, political and economic patriarchy. Their revolt is silent yet resonant, low, yet, effective. Zatitoon suffers silently, but remains committed to her roots, even in the face of tragedy. Rahema ultimately decides to break the shackles of oppression and leaves the house along with her four years old daughter, Aneeqa. They step into an unknown and unfamiliar world of dark realities, on their way to unseen destiny. Revolting against her fate, she makes an independent decision, “Bhaiya right, there is no coming back. I am not leaving just to come back. I have had enough of this place.” Her escape from one terrible world takes her to a more hostile world, “…Rahema immediately left, shaking inside, holding the wound tightly in with duppatta.” She enters into a more hostile world.

The story “When a Cat Wails, Does Dog too?” is about Malaika whose resilient struggle to lead a happy life ends in smoke. Her suppressed sexual desires cause psychological issues and emotional breakdown. She sought panacea of her agony in divorce. “She also presumed that if she had suppressed her libido for past twenty years, she could do that forever. But she was wrong in that too.” To her horror she discovers her passions icy cold, “Not knowing what to tell him, she embraces him [husband] tightly. As soon as she hugs him, she realizes she is hugging a rock-cold and stiff person with arms spread sideways.” Generally, men are blamed to torture women, nevertheless, Malaika discovers a bitter truth that women are no less responsible for torturing their own gender by maltreating them. They frequently pass bitter and humiliating comments on them, “Barren.” “Not wife material.” “Haye beachari.” “If only she had kids.” “Haye … tut tuttut.” And now, “witch … kid snatcher.”Kushbakht, a struggling journalist, fighting to make a history instead herself becomes history.

Although, the themes are traditional and conventional, yet, the handling and treatment of these themes is creatively modern as each story has its own narrative voice. The female characters are situated in a contemporary social context and are presented as struggling voices. They ultimately discover their own true self, therefore, go beyond the popular cliché of feminist coloring. The narrative of the Shattering Echoes is the most distinctive feature of the book. She has experimented with her narrative technique. It varies from story-to-story, ranges from first person narrative to epistolary narrative. In accordance with the theme and the characters, a postmodernist style of writing. The narrative of the story “Under the Current” goes beyond the confines of time and space, carrying the readers to a world of magical realism, a dream world where real looks unreal and the unreal looks real. “A Daughter Remembers” gives the impression as if we are reading a letter. Sufia has mingled realistic description with symbolic presentation of characters and objects. ‘Khusbakht’s room is mess… Piles of papers flutter under the ceiling fan while Ghalib’s Devan besides Ayesha Siddiqa, just like a paper weight, hold them from flying. Strewn are the crumbled pieces of papers, notes jotted on them, here and there…..’ Rain, water and trees are the recurring symbols in her short stories. Sofia’s adept use of English diction interwoven with the local words and phrases is an excellent example of capturing the true essence of Pakistani society. She, of course, is a good addition to Pakistani short story writers who aim at presenting the Pakistani society with all its diversity.

Dr Shahid Imtiaz

The writer is HOD, English Department Riphah International University Gulberg Campus Lahore.