Assignment

Pakistani Literature
Attar of Roses by Tahira Naqvi
Topic: Depiction of Human Psyche in the
collection of Short Stories Attar of Roses by
Tahira Naqvi
Submitted to: Ma’am Hina Rafique
Assistant Professor of English
Submitted by: Saira Abdul Karim
R.no: 74 B.S. English Sem. 8th
 The author of Attar of Roses, Tahira is an acclaimed fiction writer, translator and professor
who consider to a 'feminist'. In her own writing she has skillfully examined the lives of Pakistani
women on both sides of the world, weaving personal stories from Pakistan intricately with the
immigrant experience. Reflecting her concerns, most of her characters are socially and politically
conscious people who are confronted with important but mundane everyday issues. Tahira
Naqvi's work is generically labeled as South Asian fiction; she maintains that she always writes
purely from a Pakistani point of view.

Tahira Naqvi’s short story collection “Attar of Roses”, is a psychological tour to the gentler
times, when people were assigned to a distinct position in the world and they carried out the
duties of that position with dignity without much grumbling. The writer has very briefly in every
story adapted the ways of real life to project the psyche of human beings. The stories are the
projections of every stage of human life. Sometimes by reading the stories the reader feels that
the writer has drawn the picture of every character. She provides the details of real life, real
scenarios, and life like happenings. The stories are based on the family life with every age
characters and their psychologically analysis.

The stories touch many aspects of the educated urban middle class life of Pakistan. Many of the
characters are teachers and doctors. The stories are filled with very sensitive and carefully drawn
details of the family life. It makes one very nostalgic for those long, fun-filled summer vacations;
family visits with cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents, picnics and weddings and such things.
Stories like "Love in an Election Year," "A Peep Hole Romance," and "A Woman of No
Consequence," deal with the arranged marriages and the reactions of young girls to three very
different faces of the arranged marriages. The last one is a serious tale of the unrelenting desire
for sons in the society, with disastrous consequences.

Attar of Roses as a collection of short stories is basically depiction of different shades of human
psyche. The writer has projected every stage of humanity with psycho analysis. In short every
story presents a different shade of human psyche, emotions, fear, love and relationship. The
stories are combination of different psychological levels of humanity.

As in Largesse, the writer has focused on the emotions, feelings and perspectives of old age. We
can easily understand the psychology of old aged people through these stories because when they
need their true relations no one is there to love them. As the old man sees his grandchildren
playing in the house, he left the door open as:

“He deliberately left his bedroom door ajar, unmindful of the cold night air…but the
children were gone before he could clear his throat and call out them. The door remained
half open after that.”

The other important story regarding the aspect of old age is New Beginnings in which Naqvi has
portrayed the human psychology in the form of a mother hood. The main protagonist of the story
is a middle-aged woman who is an active member of drama society at a school. The old age
phenomenon with motherly feelings of Arifa projects the psychology of a mother and a woman.
She is away from her own son but she wants to adapt a son who would protect her and care her
in her old age. Through the character of Arifa writer has contextualized the fears of old people
being discarded by their off springs and craving of love and care in that period of life. As the
writer dissects the inner thoughts of Arifa:

“I am quite serious, and you had better stop laughing. I do not mean a legal adaption of
course, I’m not stupid. I mean a symbolic adaption, a sort of transaction of…of love.”

The other depiction of human psychology is found in the other stories such as Attar of Roses, A
Man of Integrity, Master and notebook. These all stories are written on the perspective of
highlighting different psychological patterns of male nature. In the story Attar of roses, Saeed
shows a nature of male which only attracts by the appearance of a female. This represents a
typical psychology of males those attract by other females just by a charm or under a spell. The
writer describes the curiosity of males:

“Saeed looked for her every day, buying magazines he didn’t need and fruit he couldn’t
afford as he waited for a glimpse of her.”

The writer has herself drawn comparison between situations of stories and characters. Such as in
the story A Man of Integrity, Sami Ahmed is the main character which receives letter from an
unknown woman. He first does not pay heed towards them but later he is waiting for the calls of
that very woman. The writer has made the self realization part in this story as:

“Sami Ahmed deemed himself a man of integrity. He was also a faithful husband. He had
not so much as even looked at another woman with lust in his heart except some of those
American Actresses…”

We also find the psychology of males through the story Notebook, in which husband instead of
understanding the abilities of his wife just beats her brutally. She has extremely interest in the
poetry but her husband thinks it’s a crime for a woman to be interested in poetry. This story
highlights the relationship between husband and wife as well as patriarchal norms of society. The
writer has focused on psychological as well as physical violence upon females by their men
folks. As when he reads her poetics lines in the notebook he says:

“‘You slut! Her husband ripped the pages into shreds, calling her names, swearing until his
face was bathed in sweat.”

Master is another story from the collection of Attar of Roses, which is interwoven with many
concepts of our society. The one the prominent concept of the story is based upon negligence of
males to their own families only because of their so called hypocrites. The whole story revolves
around a hypocrite man called himself Master or Darwish. Uncle Shah, who is the prey of that
Master, doesn’t pay any heed to his family. He even doesn’t give money to his family under the
spell of that Master. This story has a little bit glimpse of psychology of males who thought
themselves a religious man to serve the fraudulent peoples of society. As Aunt Maman the wife
of Uncle Shah is worried about the attitude of his husband. As the writer says:

“Uncle Shah didn’t come with them. He put everyone in a Tonga and handed some money
to Kamil, for the fare. Aunt Maman looked the other way when he said he would be late.”

The most important thing about the stories of Tahira Naqvi is that in which she herself assumes:

“I have decided to dedicate my writings to women.” She further claims: “I’m very involved with
women’s issues and very interested in their lives, their thoughts and ideas so I’ve chosen to
translate the works of women and write about women.”

A large number of stories deal with the psychology of women, especially with regard to match
making. Naqvi through her stories portrays the norms of Pakistani society and the preoccupation
of the female gender when it comes to marriages and appropriate match making. The whole
process of making matches for a compatible marriage edges an everlasting impact not only for
the intended bride, but also the families involved. This psychology has been deeply explored in
stories including “Love in an Election Year”, “Peep hole Romance” and “Shadows”. Naqvi
spectacularly provides an insight into the complexes faced by young women when it comes to
their marriage. The stories deal with the rigid norms of society, and how deviation from such
norms causes one to witness a transformation in their personality. When Marium, a maiden in
her thirties appears in front of the guests heavily laden with make-up, their initial reaction is
described by the narrator in the following words,
“The women … the guests – gasped, their smiles frozen… Her eyes were heavily ringed
with kajal. The face was like a mask, at once grotesque and spectral.”
The story depicts the complexes a woman begins to experience once she crosses her prime in
youth, and the pressures of the society that compels her to wear a persona that does not truly
embody her true self.
These stories are the analysis of female psyche and writer brings before the reader the feelings,
emotions and thoughts of female. As the character of females in the form of Baji Sughra, Arifa,
Salma, Marium, Aunt Mamman, Samina, Apa Najma, Jamela, Zohra, Cecilia Shabir,
Zaheen and Razia. As the inner thoughts of female are projected by the character of Salma in
Notebook when her husband beats her and she compels to say:
“and if you hit me today, I will open that door and walk out into the gulley and you will
never see my face again.”
“A woman of no consequence” depicts the life of an oppressed woman, who has failed to
provide a male heir to her husband and faces humiliation from him. The story deals with
domestic issues, the duality in nature of men and the pressures a woman has to endure in her
marriage life. This story provides a complete picture of mental violence which Jamela has faced
by her mother-in-law and husband. The lines show the inner suffering of Jamela:
“I will be a woman of no consequence until I produce a son. So I kept trying.”
As a psychologist, Naqvi is also well aware of the psychological states of females and she
successfully portrays the societal pressures on females in Shadows. Maruim, the protagonist is
suppressed and mentally tortured by the family members and colleagues due to late marriage.
She sometimes feels so embarrassed and exhausted from this unfavorable situation that she
wishes run away from this atmosphere as she desperately states:
“I wish I could go away somewhere, become a gypsy, roam in places where no one knows
me and I could find, in some far-off places a man who isn’t looking for dowries and beauty,
who wants only love and passion.”
Tahira Naqvi has elaborately depicted tales that stand true in time, and are extremely relatable.
Her stories are rich in themes, symbols with intricate characters that are true to life. Bapsi
Sidhwa has rightly stated:
"I recommend Tahira Naqvi's Attar of Roses to anyone who is interested in the portrayal
of middle class family life in Pakistan. This collection of short stories, devoid of stylistic
pretension, is refreshing and honest in its depiction.... Naqvi's nuanced expression is a
pleasure to read."
To pen off, Attar of Roses aptly describes the status of women in Pakistan and gives an insight
into the culture of Pakistan. There are no major upheavals in the lives of the characters, no
situations where a crucial life-altering decision is made. The characters stay within their socially
acceptable sphere. The wife in the 'Notebook' comes close to making such a decision. Another
woman character faced with the injustice simply has no energy left to fight back. Therefore, as I
said in the beginning, the stories are a mirror to the life as it existed and may still exist in parts of
Pakistan.