And if they (elite) should think about the rest of the people, the great uncooled, and become uneasy as they lie under their blankets in the middle of summer, there is always prayer, five times a day, which they hope will gain them admittance to an air-conditioned heaven or the very least, a long, cool drink during a fiery day in hell.” This metaphor of air conditioners used by Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid in his novel Moth Smoke to satirise the behaviour of the upper class perfectly summarises Daniyal Mueenuddin’s debut novel This is Where the Serpent Lives.
Four interlinked stories of power and the powerless, with a unifying theme of betrayal, give the reader a conflicted taste and texture of the Pakistani feudal society. A semi-autobiographical work of fiction, the writing does justice to the story, which largely explores the master-servant relationship. A US-educated lawyer who comes from a feudal family in Pakistan, Mueenuddin himself spent years managing an estate in south Punjab. The gentleness and detail with which he enters the lives of the lower class reflect his familiarity with the subjects.
The narrative begins in the busy streets of Rawalpindi in the 1950s. A young orphan boy, Bayazid, is abandoned and later taken in by Karim Khan, a tea stall owner who is a Pathan tribesman from Mardan. He tells Bayazid, “Come on, little man. I’m not rich enough to feed you on charity. From now on, you clean up and carry out the plates, and then we’ll see.”
Bayazid grows up to be exceptionally large for a Pakistani. “Six feet tall by the first time he begins shaving.” If it were only for Bayazid, the novel could easily fall under the bildungsroman literary genre. However, it is the other stories that branch out from his story that push the reader into dissecting the complexity of ‘mobility’ in the Pakistani feudal structure. Betrayal becomes inevitable in this setting because of the fixed social status of the characters. The narrative creates a pyramid where natural progression seems impossible. When Bayazid is betrayed by another jealous servant, Mai Viro, class structure comes into play with full force. The betrayal within the same class feels shocking. Viro tells Bayazid, “Just because Malik Sahib thinks there’s no dirt in the gutter doesn’t mean I do. I know about the gutter, it stinks and stinks to your skin.” The incident forces Bayazid to run away from his little protected cocoon in Rawalpindi and begin a life of his own.
Bayazid becomes a chauffeur to Army Colonel and politician Atar in Lahore. Mapping the journey, Mueenuddin takes you to the south Punjab countryside, where local webs of corruption and violence come to the forefront. Colonel Atar’s nephew Rustom owns an estate there and is trying to make use of the property neglected by his careless father. Rustom’s relationship with his farm brings to focus the misaligned interests between the owner and the tenants. The narrative here focuses on the constant need to make the workers believe in a common enterprise. The reason for this entanglement is a shared bond between the master and the servant for generations. Mueenuddin writes, “The Sheikhs from Khirka had been Rustom’s family muscle for a claimed six generations, called out when some land mafia threatened a property, force used against a crude force.”
The many stories that branch out from the central character Bayazid’s life push the reader into dissecting the complexity of ‘mobility’ in the Pakistani society.
Rustom takes the story back to Lahore, where he visits his cousin Hisham and his wife Shahnaz to seek a favour. This is where the third story is woven into the narrative. Bayazid continues to serve Colonel Atar’s son Hisham and his wife. The polished couple with their Western taste for expensive scotch and wine have their own dirty secrets to deal with, which the backstory of their marriage reveals. Bayazid, the bridge between all the characters, is a witness to every move and detail in Hisham and Shahnaz’s lives. Hence, the last character of the novel also makes his entry through Bayazid. Saqib, whose wit and presence of mind make him an instant favourite of his employers, faces the most brutal end. His desire to subvert the structured pyramid of class brings Saqib serious trouble. From facing betrayal, physical and mental torture in the police station, to losing everything, his character closes the circle by rerouting the reader to the starting point—the immobility of the feudal structure.
Mueenuddin has created a world that is cinematic to its core. The lyrical style of writing adds a poetic texture to the commentary on society. But if you are into a punch-in-the-gut kind of writing, the extensive descriptions may sometimes make you yawn. It is nonetheless a dynamo that occasionally loses current.