You are on page 1of 12

Assignment

Subject: South Asian Literature

Submitted to; Ma’am Neelam


Submitted by: Uzma Fakhar
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin, is a collection of inter-connected
short stories set in contemporary, or near-contemporary, Pakistan. Spanning a time period from
the mid of 1970 to the end of 1990. Complexity of feudal order and its influences on
contemporary life can be seen throughout. Characters of the stories are giving vivid picture of
class distinction, poverty and gender oppression by their actions and lifestyle. As well as how
their actions and decisions are being affected by their circumstances,

Mueenuddin provides us with an emotional landscape for the lives of his characters. Four out of
eight stories in this collection have female protagonists. Mueenuddin’s tragic female figures are
predestined and ruined in pursuing their existence in this patriarchal world. All these stories
focus on people connected in one way or another to businessman K.K Harouni. The very person
is an aging landlord whose family occupies high and influential status in Pakistan. The stories
show elements of the lives of Harouni himself as well as his employees, family members,
servants, and acquaintances.

The characters relate to one another based on the conventions of the social classes they occupy,
and the characters are careful to act within the confines of social order. Power has never been
eliminated but been presented with different titles and appealing names. Feudalism was replaced
by capitalists in England “By the fifteenth century, peasant communities in England had
effectively put an end to the lords' capacity to extract an economic surplus in the form of feudal
rents” (Katz, 1993). While acknowledging the transformation of Feudalism into Capitalism and
the continuing class struggles, In ‘The Communist Manifesto’ Marx and Engels stated that “The
modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away
with class antagonisms” (Marx et al., 1967).

The very element of class distinction leads towards the other problems such as poverty, crime,
oppression and exploitation. Power and money are the defining factors. Since money and social
position are interdependent. Pakistani masculinity is very much complicated because it is built on
widely divergent grounds of religious beliefs, tribal values, physical factors and deep-rooted
class divisions. The first story ‘Nawabdin Electrician’ is the depiction of gap of two classes.
Harouni is the rich landlord, who owns thousands of acres of land near the Indus River. The
landowner is considered to be a master of his servant’s life and actions.
Nawabdin is an ordinary servant who belongs to the lower middle class, having twelve children,
which are girls and the only son. He is shown as powerless and oppressed person. ”Harouni of
course became familiar with this ubiquitous man, who not only accompanied him on his tours of
inspection, but morning and night could be found standing on the master bed rewiring the light
fixture or in the bathroom poking at the water heater. Finally, one evening at teatime, gauging
the psychological moment, Nawab asked if he might say a word. The landowner, who was
cheerfully filing his nails in front of a crackling rosewood fire, told him to go ahead.

"Sir, as you know, your lands stretch from here to the Indus, and on these lands are fully
seventeen tube wells, and to tend these seventeen tube wells there is but one man, me, your
servant. In your service I have earned these gray hairs"—here he bowed his head to show the
gray—"and

Now I cannot fulfill my duties as I should. Enough, sir, enough. I beg you, forgive me my
weakness. Better a darkened house and proud hunger within than disgrace in the light of day.
Release me, I ask you, I beg you."

The old man, well accustomed to these sorts of speeches, though not usually this florid, filed
away at his nails and waited for the breeze to stop.

"What's the matter, Nawabdin?"

"Matter, sir? O what could be the matter in your service. I've eaten your salt for all my years.
But sir, on the bicycle now, with my old legs, and with the many injuries I've received when
heavy machinery fell on me—I cannot any longer bicycle about like a bridegroom from farm to
farm, as I could when I first had the good fortune to enter your employment. I beg you, sir, let me
go."

"And what's the solution?" asked Harouni, seeing that they had come to the crux. He didn't
particularly care one way or the other, except that it touched on his comfort—a matter of great
interest to him.

"Well, sir, if I had a motorcycle, then I could somehow limp along, at least until I train up some
younger man." (Mueenuddin 4,5)
Nawabdin is shown as one of the hardworking and loyal workers of Harouni. He has been giving
his technical service since decades. The systems of cooling, heating or repairing of electric
household are responsibility of Nawabdin electrician. Now he begs his master to get himself new
Honda motorcycle as he is unable to ride cycle due to his age. The day Nawabdin gets the
motorcycle his status among his people has been raised. They started saying him ‘uncle’. As well
as he is being considered as wise man. The very incident shows materialistic approach of lower
class people.

The motorcycle increased his status, gave him weight, so that people began calling him "Uncle,"
and asking his opinion on world affairs, about which he knew absolutely nothing (Mueenuddin :
5)

His face often at this moment had the same expression, an expression of childish innocent joy,
which contrasted strangely and even sadly with the heaviness of his face and its lines and
stubble. (Mueenuddin: 6)

The other evidence of class difference and oppression can be seen in the story ‘Provide Provide’.
Juglani is the main character of the story. He has been depicted as typical feudal landowner.
Across the village the only house which has facility of electricity, that is Juglani’s house. Being
typical feudal he is responsible for ignorance of poor people. They do not even know the price of
their time and efforts. They are being paid with Anaaj as their daily wage.

“Landowners have run the country since it was born. They monopolise its agriculture, sit in its
parliament and feed on its resources. They are hereditary princes without pedigree, barons
without class, capitalists without enterprise and as their long romance with politics has now
proven statesmen without vision”(Khan et al., 2013).

Nowhere, the show of dominance is more effective than in the control of the female body. The
concept of women oppression is closely associated to social class. Almost every story has female
characters which are being oppressed by their masters or family members. No matter it is in
economic, social or sexual form. The most common pattern of oppression of the feudal
proletariat women is through sexual exploitation.
A critic remarked on Mueenuddin’s stories that “His writings help the reader to understand that
women are considered as property and are not considered worthy of the respect that their male
counterparts receive” (Pervez, 2012). Another critic Dalia Sofer in her review of the book in The
New York Times notes that “women in these stories often use sex to prey on the men, and they do
so with abandon at best and rage at worst in this patriarchal, hierarchical society, it is their
sharpest weapon”

In the first story, ‘Saleema’ we are told that the central character named Saleema, has been
facing exploitation since her childhood. “Her father became a heroin addict, and died of it, her
mother slept around for money and favours, and herself at fourteen became the plaything of a
small landowner’s son. ”( Mueenuddin: 17). It shows that how hard childhood she had and
the same obstacles are being repeated till her young age. She works as a maid servant in the
“Lahore mansion of the landlord K.K. Harouni,” (Saleema: 18) .Even after getting job and
independence she is not really free in her actions and decisions.

Physical favors which are portrayed by Mueenuddin, are a norm in the feudal world. Maid-
servants are expected to give physical pleasures to their masters or other male figures as part of
their job. The reason is their poverty so that the feudal proletariat women have no other choice.
Saleema knows that in order to survive in the Harouni estate she has to become someone’s
mistress for protection. After the cook tires of her she befriends the valet, Rafik. Although she
makes the first move but Rafik after exploiting her and having a son from her leaves her in the
end in favor of his first wife and family. ”All the afternoon they walked around together, even in
the house, looking at the paintings, the furniture. Rafik wanted to sit with the drivers, but she
said no, she wanted to be with him alone (Mueenuddin: 39)

[Saleema's] love affairs had been so plainly mercantile transactions that she hadn’t learned to
be coquettish. But the little hopeful girl in her awoke now.”
Lying and staring at the ceiling...

Rafik was the only hope she was having. After leaving her alone she feels herself useless and
helpless. Again she finds herself standing at the same position as in childhood after death of her
father. She lies down and looks at the ceiling with empty eyes. It shows her inner fear and
ssituation, not only her situation but that of several other female characters.
Mueenuddin wraps up Saleema's fate as she is left with a baby and without recourse. Rafik
honors his first family and renounce her. She is completely disowned by her family and Rafik,
having no other way than begging in streets. Due to her drug addiction she has been died and her
son has to suffer. “The man who controlled the lucrative corner where she ended up begging
took most of her earnings. This way she escaped prostitution. She cradled the little boy in her
arms, holding him up to the windows of cars. Rafik sent money, a substantial amount, so long as
she had an address. And then, soon enough, she died, and the boy begged in the streets, one of
the sparrows of Lahore. (Mueenuddin: 51)

In “Provide, Provide” Jaglani forcefully takes Zainab from her husband, Being obsessed with
Zainab, Jaglani forces Aslam to divorce Zainab so that he could marry her. Zainab, the sister of
the driver, Mustafa is introduced in Jaglini’s house as a maid. From cooking food for Jaglani to
massaging his feet and then finally sleeping with him, Zainab is shown slowly giving in to
Jaglini’s advances but she doesn’t love him till the end of the story and mechanically follows his
orders and desires, even during physical intimacy at night.

For Jaglani, this affair is an effort by him to have one meaningful relationship in his life, while
for Zainab , it is the only means to have a child. It is a cruel fact of. amounts to nothing for both
of them. By the time Jaglani realizes that his affair has been a mistake, and Zainab is left without
her adopted child. ‘she doesn’t love him till the end of the story and mechanically follows his
orders and desires, even during physical intimacy at night, “he found no response in her eyes,
except a willingness to serve him.” (Mueenuddin: 59)

“he found that after two months she still had not come any closer. She
needed him, he knew that…” (Mueenuddin: 59)

Although Zainab is shown as strong woman but she is also unaware of her rights. She just lives
with him for shelter. Zainab’s fortune also takes a turn for the worst with the death of her
husband. He was her only protection, financially and physically. Jaglani is about to die and his
sons from the first wife,

“decided to divide the property equally. They also agreed to prevent their father from making
any other disposition.” (Mueenuddin: 80)
Her existence has also been ignored by her separation to Jaglini.
His family doesn’t even let her meet the dying man. She is pushed out of the house and she
leaves, crying and kept saying to herself, ‘And they didn’t even offer me a cup of tea.’”(
Mueenuddin: 86) This sentence shows her helplessness and grief for her husband. The story
doesn’t end here and continues with the political career of Jaglini’s son but there no mention of
Zainab anymore. Her story ends with the death of Jaglini and there is no struggle on her part to
change her fortune. Being an eastern woman she is nothing with or without her guardian.

In a story ‘About a Burning Girl’ the session judge is in a weaker financial position. Having a
dominant wife, a deteriorating house and a small car can do nothing to restore his crumbling
manhood. One evening while coming home, the judge finds enormous Land Cruiser parked in
the verandah. He guesses about the guests that they must be from his wife’s side. She also
belongs to a rich family, owing a big house and car. The vehicle he is having is Suzuki car that
reflects a civil-servant’s fall from grace. He admits that

“The car I drive is another of my trials. I fit inside of it like an orangutan in a shipping cage; but
for the moment, on a gazetted salary of fourteen thousand rupees, I do not presume to get a
bigger one. The British built the large but run down house in which I am quartered. My wife got
this residence allotted to us by spending a month camped in the living room of her second
cousin, a deputy additional secretary, and our greatest fear is that someone senior to me will see
it and covet it and take it”( Mueenuddin: 91,

‘About a Burning girl’ is an ironic description of lower class woman. She is voiceless and victim
of patriarchal society. Masculinity is big barrier of this society so victim cannot get justice.
Judiciary is also corrupted as politics. Law has been used for own benefits. Another aspect of the
story is, woman is only powerful due to her social status as judge’s wife is being depicted in the
story

‘In Other Rooms Other Wonder’ Harouni, is shown here a compassionate and understanding
person who intends to help a young woman, a distant relative of him. He intends to fit herself in
to office work after training. Later on he feels attraction towards her and takes young Husna as
his lover to relieve the loneliness of old age. When Husna and Harouni develop a relationship,
everyone around them looks down on the coupling because they are of different social classes.
This thing does not affect Harouni. He seems to be reason of good fortune for Husna as he is
wealthy landlord needs a good company in his old age, He would look down at her sleeping face,
in repose and therefore cleansed of all ambition and anxiety and spite, qualities that he forgave
her because he felt that the conditions into which he had thrust her brought them out. Seeing her
there, he sometimes thought that he loved her, loved her brightness in these last years of his life,
when he had become so lonely.

Serwat the daughter of Harouni, criticizes Husna but Harouni tries to discourage Sarwat and
defends Husna as a good girl and belongs to reasonable background. “She comes from a good
family” “her great grandfather owned more land than yours. But, for a few twists of fate she
might be in your place, and we might be still living in the Old City.”(Mueenuddin. 125)

The fact is Husna could not be considered fortunate as she is left exiled and dispossessed, after
his death and could not get a few of money or asset from Harouni’s wealth. She was forced to
leave this house right after Harouni’s death. “My father allowed you to live in this house.
However, he would not have wanted you to stay here. Tomorrow afternoon the car will be
available to take you wherever you wish to be taken. I suppose you’ll go to your father’s house.
There will be no discussion on the subject.”( Mueenuddin :135)

Ultimately, Husna is not facilitated by the family and is instead sent back to the village from
which she came. Before leaving, Husna tries to make Hrouni’s daughter to realize her sacrifices
for their father. She was the only person to take care of him but in return she is being rewarded
with bad words. She knows that she has no possibility to live in this house anymore.

‘I came with nothing, I leave with nothing. I leave with the clothes on my back. I served your
father, when you were far away. The shame be on your heads.’ ” But she could not afford even
this gesture. The next day two men loaded the trunks onto a horse-drawn cart and carried them
away to the Old City (Mueenuddin: 137)

“Our Lady of Paris," is the story of the relationship between Sohail, son of one of K.K.
Harouni’s cousins, a law student, he met Helen who belongs to middle class, a young American
woman while attending university in the United States. Sohail Harouni, tries to plan a future with
his liberal, intelligent, American girlfriend, but their journey to Paris, to spend time with each
other and his parents, is too disappointing.
Sohail’s father acknowledges that he was born in a well-off family in Pakistan and has lived a
blessed life. He then tells his son’s girlfriend that the only thing he’s missed in life is “the
sensation of being absolutely free. I suspect that only an American ever feels that,” “You aren’t
weighted down by your families, and you aren’t weighted down by your history” While
Harouni’s wife Rafia, in response to her husband’s comments says that “Americans aren’t more
free than anyone else. Just because an American runs away, to Kansas or Wyoming, doesn’t
mean that he succeeds in escaping whatever it is he left behind. Like all of us, he carries it with
him.” She turned to Hellen”let me ask you. Do you think you ae free”.( Mueenuddin :148)

Raffia is typically self-centered lady. For Raffia, her artificial solidity is shaken when she meets
her son’s girlfriend. She believes that the power lies into controlling and guiding her husband
and to protect her son’s future. Raffia reinforces a stereotypical image of how a Pakistani woman
must acknowledge the public and power structures in her society to utilize and perform their role
in supporting and assisting her male. Raffia accesses power through the male figures in her life,
such as her husband or son. Thus, this role does not provide her with inner security; even she is
not content with this role, which relies on the presence of male figures in her life.

At the end of the story, there is uncertainty about the continuation of the relationship. Soheil is
madly in love with Helen, but due to difference of opinion he marries to another girl named
Sonya. In the story woman’s materialistic approach has also been highlighted. Mueenuddin
depicts that young, wealthy, American, and educated Pakistani male characters also are
struggling to establish their identities and find a place in this peripatetic society. Sohail is
puzzled about his future, whether to stay in America with his love and work there, or to return
back home and commit himself to “his father’s sprawling business”.

In “Lily” the girl named Laila is in her late twenties, belongs to feudal family and lives separated
from her parents. She is shown as party lover, drugs addictive, flirt and socially spoiled with
carefree attitude. On the other side, male character named Murad is dispirited, trying to escape
this fake, modern, boring life:“I was goddamned bored…I really don’t like my friends from
Aitchison anymore, they all work in banks or do something in textiles, becoming politicians, or
doing nothing if they can afford it. I hated myself, and I hated my life. So I went to my father’s
farm and swore to myself that I’d stay there…” (Mueenuddin: 186).
Lily, for a little change marries to Murad who is already tired of artificiality of gathering and
parties. He basically belongs to feudal background not very much party loving person on the
contrary lily can never miss such activities. Despite of belonging to Lahore she is not that much
of eastern views along with, she is habitually alcoholic and smoker, having no interest in
household and no guts of good wife.

Later she gets tired of marital life and gradually returns to previous social life. “It’s a little dying
world, she reflected, this household, these servants, the old man at the center. She had seen this
before among her own relatives, one of her great-aunts who lived on into her nineties,
quarreling with her maidservants, absorbed in prayer, ill-tempered, reputedly with boxes full of
cash and gold salted away, though none of it turned up after her death. (Mueenuddin :191)

At another point she convinces herself that marriage failure is not a big deal and it should not
affect that much. She is again into flirting and other addictions as she justifies her point while
thinking in isolation. ”I married him,she told herself. He didn’t know me. We are still learning.
Why would it matter so much? (Mueenuddin : 214). In “Our Lady of Paris” and in “Lily”,
Mueenuddin’s female characters negotiate the fine line between the transition from their native,
feudalistic and primitive culture to the Western capitalist, liberal culture

The last story "A Spoiled Man" is a heartbreaking tale of an indigent workman, abandoned by
his family, courageously striving for redemption late in life. “A Spoiled Man," is an elderly and
loyal servant, Rezek, after his wife’s disappearance his feudal master informs to the police that
the old man's wife is missing, presumed murdered. His master’s wife soniya’s and her other
relatives’ help and support is with him but the servant ends up being beaten and dying alone,
Instead of taking matter as kidnapping case DSP humiliates his wife by saying she has been
eloped.

Razik is forced to be quiet and to accept brutality as his fate. People from lower classs accept
injustice and insulting behavior as their fate. For Razik policemen behavior and abuses was not
strange thing.“why should I complain? T he policemen did as they always do. The fault is mine,
who married in old age, one foot in the grave. God gave me so much more than I deserved, when
I expected nothing at all (Mueenuddin: 247).
The stories overlap both east and west, rural and urban, upper and lower class. In these modern
tales masculinity is obvious. Mueenuddin beautifully sketches luxurious life of upper class, their
artificial behavior, corruption, expensive cars, pulsating generators and powerful machines and
wide agricultural lands. Typical feudal and political figures are the masters, owing their wives,
heirs and young mistresses. On the contrary voiceless lower class deprived people which are
trying to gain gratitude.

Another important aspect can be seen is Marxist feminism that how Women are being oppressed
by feudal lords Oppression of the lower class by the capitalistic economy is crucial fact of
Pakistani society. The relation between upper and lower classes is need based. Women willingly
present themselves for economic stability. Women like Saleema and Zainab are sort of fighter
who try to prove their identity but do not really resist for humiliation. "Saleema, Zainab and
Husna“tell of women who attempt to use their bodies to better themselves and suffer for it but
they cannot accept themselves as immoral individuals of society

“I know what you all think,” she began. “You think I’m a slut, you think I poison my husband.
Because of him I’m alone, and you all do with me as you like. I’m trying to live here too, you
know. I’m not a fool. I also come from somewhere.” (Saleema) Saleema is bound to obey his
master so as Husna. She misunderstands her success while believing that after being Hrouni’s
mistress she will achieve social status but at the end she is left with nothing. Luxuries and
fascilietis she was living with were nowhere. “You are important people, and I’m nothing and
my family is nothing. I have to obey.” ( In other Rooms, other wonders ).

The sexual exploitation of the proletariat females by the bourgeois and petty
bourgeois men is not resisted by the females. They silently comply with their masters wishes
showing the extent of their psychological conditioning. “Mr. Mueenuddin unveils a nuanced
world where social status and expectations are understood without being stated, and where
poverty and the desire to advance frame each critical choice” (WSJ, 2009)

Most of his male characters are old, wealthy and powerful. Some of these men are presented as
lonely and yearning for company. In order to fill this loneliness, they exploit the nearest
available young women around them such as their maids, sweepers, cooks, etc. Four out of the
eight stories in this collection have female protagonists.
They are involved in sexual activities no matter by force or by consent. Majority of women in
these stories are young, poor, vulnerable and powerless. They manipulate and have been
manipulated by their males. In order to achieve their purposes, they often use sex as a way to
empower themselves to get their social and economic identity. Other than economic and social
stability a few are shown as fighting for their intellectual oppression, women like Raffia and
Zainab. They are opinionated women try to spend lives on their own. They are all misguided by
power. The women of Pakistan access power through men, and as soon as the affection of these
men withdraws, or dies, they lose whatever they have gained; it is not just poverty that deprives
women of innocence. Wealthy women also bear their own chains; they may be rich but they are
still not free.

REFERENCES

 Katz, C. J. 1993. Karl Marx on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Theory and
Society 22(3): 363–389
 Shuja, S. 2000. Pakistan feudalism: Root cause of Pakistan malaise. News Weekly
Australia.
 Sofer , Dalia. “Sex and other Social Devices”. www.nytimes.com. 6 February,2009. Web.
25 October 2009
 Mueenuddin, Daniyal. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. New York: W. W. Norton,2009.

You might also like