In Conversation with Mohammed Hanif

Mohammed Hanif rose to fame as a nov­el­ist with ‘The Case of Explod­ing Man­goes’ and ‘Our Lady of Alice Bhat­ti’. He is also a jour­nal­ist cur­rent­ly work­ing with BBC Urdu. Hanif is a lead­ing voice in Pak­istani fic­tion.

Laal­tain: You write very good Urdu prose, why do you choose to write your nov­els in Eng­lish?

Mohammed Hanif: I write in Pun­jabi as well but most of the nov­els I have read hap­pen to be in Eng­lish, though I read Urdu as well. Even if they are Russ­ian, Span­ish or any oth­er lan­guage, we read them in Eng­lish trans­la­tions. So one’s mind is full of writ­ings in Eng­lish. It’s like, if you are grow­ing up lis­ten­ing to rock music, chances are if you start your own band, you will choose to pro­duce rock music.

Laal­tain: Appar­ent­ly “The Case of Explod­ing Man­goes” was received bet­ter by read­ers but, as you said in one of your inter­views, it is “Our Lady of Alice Bhat­ti” in which you real­ly spoke your mind. Why did “Alice Bhat­ti” not receive as good a response?

Mohammed Hanif: I don’t know… actu­al­ly lots of peo­ple have said lots of nice things about “Alice Bhat­ti”, peo­ple have dif­fer­ent tastes. I think we are a very politi­cized soci­ety, we meet friends who love con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and pow­er pol­i­tics; maybe that’s the rea­son peo­ple like “Explod­ing Man­goes” more.

Laal­tain: In all your writ­ings, not just nov­els, you main­tain this tone of dis­tance, indif­fer­ence, and satire when it comes to char­ac­ters and sit­u­a­tions. How did this char­ac­ter­is­tic devel­op in you?

Mohammed Hanif: I think it comes from what you have read and what you like from what you have read. I think I have read things which influ­enced me, and that’s how I end­ed up writ­ing like this. There is no one inci­dent which can explain this. It is all of your life expe­ri­ences and your read­ings which go into shap­ing what you become.

Laal­tain: You once said that a fic­tion writer has no social respon­si­bil­i­ty but in your first nov­el you mocked a dic­ta­tor while in the sec­ond you empathized with a poor Chris­t­ian woman; all this seems social­ly and polit­i­cal­ly very rel­e­vant.

Mohammed Hanif: I think it’s the sub­ject you are inter­est­ed in which takes you some­where. I am inter­est­ed in pol­i­tics but when I am writ­ing a piece of fic­tion, I care about the pol­i­tics of my char­ac­ters. Where they come from, which class they belong to etc. And that auto­mat­i­cal­ly gives them a cer­tain kind of out­look of the world. I am deeply inter­est­ed in that kind of pol­i­tics. But I am not inter­est­ed in mak­ing grand state­ments. That’s why I don’t sit down to write nov­els to change any­thing or try to be some­how a respon­si­ble cit­i­zen. No, that’s not the case as a writer; but as a jour­nal­ist I have that duty.

Laal­tain: Would you like to com­ment on the abrupt and trag­ic end­ing of “Alice Bhat­ti”?

Mohammed Hanif: No, I real­ly find it dif­fi­cult after I have fin­ished writ­ing some­thing because the process is quite long and painful. After I have writ­ten it, I can’t real­ly explain it. My job is to write the book and it is oth­er people’s job to com­ment on it.

Laal­tain: How do you man­age being a writer as well as a jour­nal­ist – two jobs which demand some­what dif­fer­ent approach­es?

Mohammed Hanif: Actu­al­ly, I don’t have an inten­sive jour­nal­is­tic job any more. In a way it is good, if done prop­er­ly I think they can com­ple­ment each oth­er.

Laal­tain: What is it that you like most about the process of writ­ing fic­tion?

Mohammed Hanif: Fin­ish­ing (laughs). You start with vague ideas, voic­es, and images but dur­ing the process of writ­ing — and it hap­pens very rarely, once a year may be — sud­den­ly there is a moment when things become clear­er; sud­den­ly you see some­thing which you had not seen before and that does not hap­pen just by think­ing, it hap­pens dur­ing the process of writ­ing. Some­time, you take a turn with­out know­ing and sud­den­ly you are where you want­ed to.

Laal­tain: Through small inci­dences and sit­u­a­tions in your writ­ings, you often describe the big­ger real­i­ties of Pak­istan. How did you devel­op such deep insight into soci­ety?

Mohammed Hanif: I don’t think I have very deep under­stand­ing but what I like doing is, I keep my ears open. I don’t always hang out with jour­nal­ists and writ­ers…. The way peo­ple speak tells you a lot about them and their sto­ries. So I think some of that might reflect in what I write. I just lis­ten to peo­ple and then imag­ine what they would be like.

Laal­tain: Com­ing from a hum­ble, rur­al back­ground, you have become an inter­na­tion­al fig­ure, how does it feel?

Mohammed Hanif: Actu­al­ly it hap­pened quite slow­ly, you spend years and years writ­ing some­thing, then it takes a cou­ple of years to get it pub­lished and by the time it comes out you are already into some­thing else. It feels good some­times. Some­times I feel lucky because there are many bril­liant writ­ers out there and they have to strug­gle a lot more than I have.

Laal­tain: How do you see the future of Pak­istan in terms of lit­er­a­ture and cul­ture?

Mohammed Hanif: I don’t real­ly know. There are many learned pro­fes­sors who are bet­ter suit­ed to answer this. I am not total­ly pes­simistic, there are bad days and then there are good days as well when I feel slight­ly opti­mistic.

Laal­tain: Any­thing that made you opti­mistic recent­ly?

Mohammed Hanif: That is a good question…um some­times the weath­er is quite good. One day, last Decem­ber, I went to the Karachi beach. It is usu­al­ly very filthy, but that day it was absolute­ly clean and there were thou­sands of white birds every­where. I don’t know where they came from, prob­a­bly from Siberia. That was a per­fect day.

Laal­tain: Any mes­sage for a young Pak­istani or any poten­tial read­er of this inter­view?

Mohammed Hanif: Read…. what­ev­er they want to read.

Laal­tain: Any­thing that you would like to rec­om­mend?

Mohammed Hanif: I am read­ing Ismat Chugh­tai these days. She is absolute­ly bril­liant. She should be read in schools.