Basti

Make up blog

The novel Basti does not give much in terms of the description of geographical spaces, sketching them out only in minimal strokes. Zakir’s house in Lahore, the streets he roams, are not clearly defined and thus the associations they raise are as a space for the elderly to discuss issues and a place for Zakir to delve into his memories and compare them to his idyllic past.

An exception to this is the Café Shiraz, which Zakir and his friends frequently visit and is the novel gives a very clear description of it. Here we see the crowd, Zakir and his friends at their most energetic and the most vocal and active then at any other place. It is a place full of opinion and jazbaat, and the instances in Shiraz are the only ones which break the rather passive tone of the novel.

The Café is also important because unlike other spaces, such as the domestic household dominated by their fathers, it becomes a place dominated by the youth and is a place that they can own. Zakir and his friends experience a sense of comfort, of political agency as they discuss the happenings in their lives. The café is also a place where even Zakir feels more active, and his passive “pata nahin” turns into more vocal admissions of “Iss shikast ka zimaidaar mein hoon.” This is not only important because it signifies Zakir taking a more proactive role in the conversation but also because the conversation deals not with the past (as Zakir is prone to doing) but of present happenings in the country.