{"id":303876,"date":"2016-04-01T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2016\/04\/01\/mirages-of-the-mind-by-mushtaq-ahmed-yousufi-why-this-book-should-win\/"},"modified":"2018-05-04T15:09:54","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T15:09:54","slug":"mirages-of-the-mind-by-mushtaq-ahmed-yousufi-why-this-book-should-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2016\/04\/01\/mirages-of-the-mind-by-mushtaq-ahmed-yousufi-why-this-book-should-win\/","title":{"rendered":"“Mirages of the Mind” by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi [Why This Book Should Win]"},"content":{"rendered":"

This entry in the Why This Book Should Win<\/a> series, is by Jason Grunebaum, BTBA<\/span> judge, writer, and translator. We will be running two of these posts every business day leading up to the announcement of the finalists.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mirages of the Mind<\/em><\/a> by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi, translated from the Urdu by Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad (India, New Directions)<\/b><\/p>\n

Would you like read the book that Salman Rushdie had hoped to write<\/a> with Midnight\u2019s Children<\/em>? Looking for that book that satisfies your itch for the reliably bawdy and resoundingly literary, a tale read out loud, episodically and euphorically, by your favorite Pakistani uncle\u2014or the one you wish you had\u2014and who never sleeps a wink?<\/p>\n

Do your friends look at you wonky and miffed when you declare, \u201cGive me picaresque or give me death?\u201d Have a soft spot for wow-y stories told with countless detours and details by a manic raconteur who resides well south of the high peak of K2 but nevertheless can see the whole wide world?<\/p>\n

Do you prefer your Partition history baked so deeply into the gooey mantle of your South Asian fiction that you don\u2019t realize how much you\u2019ve just learned until three weeks later while waiting at the dentist\u2019s?<\/p>\n

If you answered \u201cyes\u201d to any of these questions, then you should immediately go out and read Mirages of the Mind<\/em> by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi, originally published in 1990, beautifully translated by Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmed, and published in English by New Directions\u2014\u201cthis book\u201d in today\u2019s installment of \u201cWhy This Book Should Win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin in the usual place with a bit of \u201cDonkeyography\u201d: the title of a short section in this episodic and delightfully meandering book.<\/p>\n

\u201cDonkeography\u201d examines the important differences in perceptions of donkeys and owls in the imaginations of East and West. The reason that we\u2019re here is that lots of bad things are about to happen to our comic hero Basharat\u2019s automobile, but he hasn\u2019t settled on a car purchase yet. Other possible ways of getting around are discussed in detail. \u201c[W]ith all this talk about modes of conveyance, why didn\u2019t I suggest donkeys and donkey-carts?\u201d After dispensing with owls, the narrator continues:<\/p>\n

The mascot of the Democratic Party has always been the donkey. It\u2019s on the party flag. The entire American people were like this donkey in their single-mindedness opposition to Iran. I mean, they were numb, dumb, and frozen in place. In the West, the donkey does not inspire any satire. In fact, the French philosopher and essayist Montaigne was so impressed with the noble qualities of this animal that he wrote, \u201cNowhere on earth can you find an animal more certain, decided, disdainful, contemplative, grave, and serious than a donkey.\u201d We Asians think ill of donkeys because they have some human qualities. That is, they carry loads heavier than their power of endurance and strength will allow; and they are obedient, obliging, and grateful to their master to the same degree that they are beaten.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s more than one way to bring down an empire, skin a cat, or take the fort. One approach is to write a book thick with psychological portraiture and voices of something like insight from the psyche\u2019s inside. This is not that book.<\/p>\n

Another approach is to look at a brick wall suffering from efflorescence, caked with salt and peeling away, and see each flaky layer not as rot but zest\u2014and then endeavor to make sure each and every brick and all the natural elements that have pushed through to the surface get their fair shake so that the whole can be viewed anew, with wisdom and awe.<\/p>\n

Balban, the horse that drew the carriage that conveyed Basharat, before he settled on the purchase of a car, and before the discussion of donkeys, was to be shot to death by the ostensibly pious Maulana, on account of the horse having run amok on the road while passing a funeral procession, which caused Basharat to be almost blinded by an errant blow to the eye by the horsewhip and both Balban and Basharat to be nearly murdered by the discommoded, grumbling mourners, while Basharat\u2019s father, old and infirm and Balban as his best and only friend, was not informed of the execution order on the horse, but rather told simply that the horse was being sent from Karachi to the Punjab to graze for a couple of months\u2014all the while Maulana, the supposed executioner, quietly ordered a stay for Balban, and instead put the still living animal to work on the sly, a secret that Basharat discovers after a harrowing trip to the slums where Maulana lives.<\/p>\n

All because a friend had given Basharat unwise counsel:<\/p>\n

A friend advised him not to let a vet put [Balban] down. He said, \u2018It\u2019s a bad way to go. It\u2019s not pretty. When I put my Alsatian down at a hospital, I saw it dying. I couldn\u2019t eat for two days afterwards. He had been by my side through a lot. He was looking at me pleadingly. I sat with my hand on his forehead. This is a very inauspicious, a very miserable, horse. Despite his disability and pain, he served you and your children well.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This friend arranged over the phone for Balban to be shot to death.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

As run-down brick is reconstituted into a lapidary mural, something happens to the ego of the reader. \u201cDefeat\u201d is a strong word, and \u201csolace\u201d not quite happy enough for the dazzling experience that is the reading of this book. Nevertheless, the narrator advises this near the end of the tale:<\/p>\n

How and where the defeated ego finds solace depends on a number of things\u2014your taste, your skills, your ability to put up with failure (your patience), and the available means of escape:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

__Mysticism
\n__Renunciation
\n__Meditation
\n__Liquor
\n__Humor
\n__Sex
\n__Heroin
\n__Valium
\n__The Fantasy Past
\n__Daydreaming<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whichever form of intoxication you prefer. At the moment of imminent colonization, Arnold wrote about the ability of the navel-gazing East to withstand defeat:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The East bow\u2019d low before the blast
\nIn patient, deep disdain
\nShe let the legions thunder past
\nAnd plunged in thought again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, in this arrogant meditation, centuries slip by. The most hypnotic and deepest form of intoxication available to humankind\u2014the one that makes you indifferent to your surroundings\u2014takes place through an admixture and imbrication of your thoughts and dreams. If you know this high, then everything else is A-okay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A thousand miseries will dissolve into one great dream<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This entry in the Why This Book Should Win series, is by Jason Grunebaum, BTBA judge, writer, and translator. We will be running two of these posts every business day leading up to the announcement of the finalists.   Mirages of the Mind by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi, translated from the Urdu by Matt Reeck and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67476],"tags":[64096,18416,35996,61536,48766,58336,63486,63496,56,37876],"class_list":["post-303876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-translated-book-awards","tag-aftab-ahmed","tag-best-translated-book-award","tag-btba","tag-btba-2016","tag-btba-fiction","tag-matt-reeck","tag-mirages-of-the-mind","tag-mushtaq-ahmed-yousufi","tag-new-directions","tag-why-this-book-should-win"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303876"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397182,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303876\/revisions\/397182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}