J
Farooqi, whose translation of the Hamza Nama won praise, now tries his hand at a Jane Austen-like tale with great finesse. With few young people in the cast, Farooqi is able to explore the mannered life of Karachi’s genteel classes at a pace that is leisurely but tightly leashed, and graceful but perceptive, and in a language so exquisitely nuanced that nowhere can one forget that this is Karachi, not Delhi or Dubai. This facet gives the novel a quality of comfort with the story, something often lacking in the writing of those clever young novelists who like to show off rather than just show. Perhaps Urdu has an innate elegance that makes Farooqi’s ‘two inches of ivory’ comparable to that ultimate miniaturist: Jane Austen.
