Raja Gidh

Raja Gidh
Author Bano Qudsia
Original title راجه گدھ
Country Pakistan
Language Urdu
Genre Novel
Publisher Sang-e-Meel
Publication date
 1981
Media type Print
ISBN ISBN 969-35-0514-X
OCLC 276769393

Raja Gidh (Urdu: راجه گدھ‎) by Bano Qudsia is an Urdu novel. Gidh is the Urdu word for a vulture and Raja is a Hindi synonym for king. The name anticipates the kingdom of vultures. In fact, parallel to the main plot of the novel, an allegorical story of such a kingdom is narrated. The metaphor of the vulture as an animal feeding mostly on the carcasses of dead animals is employed to portray the trespassing of ethical limits imposed by the society or by the religion.

Plot

Hailing from an upper-middle-class family, Seemi Shah falls in love with her handsome classmate Aftab in the MA Sociology class at Government College Lahore. Seemi is a modern and attractive urban girl and attracts most of her male class fellows, including the narrator Qayyum and the young liberal professor Suhail. Aftab belongs to a Kashmiri business family. Although he also loves her, he cannot rise above his family values and succumbs to his parent's pressure to marry someone against his wishes and leave for London to look after his family business. The novel then takes on touching several moral and ethical issues, beyond the love triangle plot, depicted through the rich culture and everyday life of Lahore.

See also

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