Basti - Unfathomable silence, a fearful quiet.

"The distant sound of an explosion, as though a bomb had fallen in some far-off unknown town. And then unfathomable silence, a fearful quiet. The whole city seemed to be motionless, holding its breath." 

As the novel draws to a close, Abba Jan proclaims his own failure as an individual to live a meaningful existence with a purpose and this proclamation serves to conclude one of the major themes of Basti.  He speaks of Hazrat Rabiah of Basra who spent her life lamenting the condition of Islam and the world, while he feels that he failed to do even that. “Yes, that pure lady duly honored the claim of lamentation, for she constantly wept. What claim have I honored? I only sighed a few times, and then fell silent.” This powerful image of a haunting silence that pervades through out the novel thus in essence reflects the failure on the part of the individual and the collective to respond and react to events. It portrays a certain passivity, apathy and failure of communication.

A moment that portrays this idea is the silence that is shown to engulf Pakistan during the 1971 war. Zakir describes the wartime nights "as though I'm walking in the forest, as though I've been traveling for centuries. The silence of the forest and the stillness of centuries. Dogs in the sleeping towns, jackals in the forest. Their voices don't disturb the world's sleep, they make it deep." Hence, the silence serves to illustrate the suppression of emotions. The "dark silent streets" and the fact that the houses all appeared "silent and still" like "voiceless, noiseless caves, enveloped in darkness." indicate a failure to fight; the people choose either to flee or hide (which is why analogies are drawn between them and mice) and thus serve to provide only a passive resistance. Other ways in which silence depicts passivity is in the idea of memory and religion serving as 'opium pills' because reminising as well as praying are both are silent acts. There is a failure to react even at the end of the war, and thus the defeat engulfs the Shiraz in silence. 

Apathy is also reflected by this silence, and one of the defining instances in which it is vividly portrayed is when a regular customer at the Shiraz bursts into tears. "All those sitting at the various tables stayed where they were, watching the white-haired man in silence." This depicts a lack of empathy as well as a failure to perceive a collective loss and to feel a collective grief.

This is tied in with the idea of how the silence also depicts a failure of communication. When Zakir feels like he has had enough of the 'disgusting people' in his life he decides to isolate himself and instead "sit politely in the company of trees, and chat with the flowers." It thus induces a sort of isolated exilic condition and a disconnect. Another example of this is Zakir's inability to express his feeling to Sabirah, even in a letter and their communication ultimately boils down to silence.