In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Fati­ma Mul­lick

“In Oth­er Rooms, Oth­er Won­ders” is Daniyal Mueenuddin’s debut col­lec­tion of short sto­ries. The tales cir­cle around the con­nect­ed lives of a large land-own­ing fam­i­ly in mod­ern-day Pak­istan, head­ed by K.K. Harouni, an old feu­dal land-own­er. As the sto­ries over­lap, we fol­low the lives and strug­gles of his extend­ed fam­i­ly as well as the ser­vants, man­agers and peas­ants. Mueenuddin’s sto­ry-telling gives the read­er an insight into a feu­dal world that is giv­ing way to moder­ni­ty, a process that is cur­rent­ly tak­ing place in Pak­istan. And we learn about how peo­ple strug­gle for accep­tance and exis­tence as they face the mis­un­der­stand­ings and tragedies of every­day life.

The eight linked short sto­ries cov­er the themes of love, hope, dis­ap­point­ment, loss and change as they depict the lives of the rich and the very poor. The author describes how every­one has their own way of sur­viv­ing. In the first sto­ry, for exam­ple, we fol­low the hard­work­ing elec­tri­cian, Nawab­din, who has 11 daugh­ters and sur­vives by steal­ing elec­tric­i­ty from the farm in order to run his busi­ness. In con­trast, we have the fan­cy and indul­gent Mino who imports sand to the farm for a “Night of the Tsuna­mi” par­ty.

Mueenud­din also touch­es upon the pre­car­i­ous posi­tion of women in Pak­istan. Since a woman’s stand­ing is defined by the man by her side, the female char­ac­ters strug­gle with feel­ings of pow­er­less­ness and so use the lim­it­ed resources at their dis­pos­al to improve their posi­tion in soci­ety. In all of this, Mueenud­din man­ages to avoid any tone of moral supe­ri­or­i­ty. Instead he bril­liant­ly cap­tures the way of think­ing and way of expres­sion of the char­ac­ters irre­spec­tive of class, which is a real plea­sure to read.

As the title implies, “In Oth­er Rooms, Oth­er Won­ders,” pro­vides many angles, or win­dows, that the read­er looks out from. By link­ing humour and tragedy Mueenud­din reveals the com­plex­i­ties of Pak­istani class and cul­ture and man­ages to paint a very vivid pic­ture of a world in trans­for­ma­tion and.

Daniyal Mueenud­din him­self was brought up in Pak­istan and the US and attend­ed Darth­mouth and Yale. He prac­ticed law in New York for sev­er­al years but decid­ed to return to his father’s home­land and he now lives on a farm in rur­al Pun­jab. His col­lec­tion of short sto­ries has already won sev­er­al awards, is a New York Times best­seller and was a final­ist for the Pulitzer Prize.