What is Basti?

I would have asked Intizar Hussain this question in the session earlier today but he refused to offer explanations of his work when someone asked him a question in the same vein. Instead, he encouraged interpretations of his work that he may have not intended.

Trust me, last time saying this, that Basti I believe is what’s been lost and cannot be had again. That’s generally the kind of feeling the novel leaves me with and it hasn’t changed on the second reading. And there’s enough evidence to back this.

Zakir and other main characters in the novel direct much of their attention on the losses they have incurred; losses that leave a certain emptiness and a dissatisfaction with the present. Basti is thus, the fulfillment that is desired and can only be attained from things and objects that are unrecoverable.

Sabirah, who we’ve understood as an agent in the present, and being antithetical to Zakir’s status as a historian in the past, seems to be mindful of the idea that a Basti is not acquirable in the new life. That’s not to say that she doesn’t long for community – a means of emotional and social support – and doesn’t struggle with her feelings. She tries to appear reserved when Surinder brings up Zakir but then sobs when he mentions the letter. She also reads up on news from Dhaka.

But having said that, she has moved on and adapted to her new life, but even though it pains her, she still reconnects with her past once in a while and struggles to completely detach herself from it.

But It seems that through her agency and the passivity of others (and their attachment to the past), Intizar is trying to present Basti as that sufficiency and satisfaction which can be had by reconnecting with things from the past. Getting to meet Sabirah again or any other relatives for that matter, the keys and the traditional family items in lock etc. Those things not only come with the representation of a desire to find a certain fulfillment but also the impossibility of reaching and attaining them.