Haasil Ghaat

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Haasil Ghaat
Author Bano Qudsia
Original title حاصل گھاٹ
Country Pakistan
Language Urdu
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Sang-e-Meel Publishers, Lahore
Publication date 2005
Media type Book
ISBN 9693514963

Hasil Ghaat (Urdu:حاصل گھاٹ) is a novel by Bano Qudsia. Though there is some controversy as to whether this book be classified as a novel or not, there is no doubt in the richness of the book. Sometimes the book appears to be a collection of scattered mystic thoughts. Unlike her earlier novel Raja Gidh the book does not have a coherent plot or storyline.

If we accept it to be a novel, it is mainly a collection of incoherent thoughts of an old Pakistani man Humayun Farid who is visiting his emigrant daughter Arjmand in USA. Most of the thoughts occur to him as he is sitting in the balcony of her daughter’s home. The narrative may well be thought to be employing the stream of consciousness technique. Humayun Farid hails from a family who migrated from the Indian part of Punjab to Lahore at the time of the Partition of India. He was a self made businessman before his retirement.

The technique of the novel consists of narrating the thoughts of this character. An advantage of this technique is that, the writer absolves herself of the responsibility. Humayun keeps on comparing the Pakistani and American cultural differences. The novelist concretizes these comparisons by arranging accidental meetings of the main character with Pakistani and American characters in super markets and in other public places.

It seems that the thoughts themselves are not important here. Ranging from commonplace clichés and generalizations to some really thought provoking ideas and finally to intentionally provocative suggestions and exaggerations, the composition of thoughts reminds of the allegory running parallel to the story in her previous novel Raja Gidh. The confused thoughts suggesting somehow the superiority of the eastern values over the western ones are punctuated with nostalgic anecdotes from the past life of the main character.

Readers familiar with Bano Qudsia’s style may find a feeble plot.

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