KOGON PLAN; An Appraisal

Name of the book: KOGON PLAN
Genre: FICTION/ NOVEL
Author: NAEEM BAIG
Pub­lish­er: UMT PRESS (Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­age­ment & Tech­nol­o­gy Lahore)
Year of Pub­li­ca­tion: 2014
Pages: 342
Price: Rs. 1200/-

The intrigue goes on build­ing up at whirl-wind speed; the inten­si­ty of the plot is rapid­ly esca­lat­ed; the back­ground to the events is artis­ti­cal­ly paint­ed in minia­ture detail and the sto­ry is nar­rat­ed in lucid yet artis­tic lan­guage – it all hap­pens in Naeem Baig’s sec­ond nov­el, KOGON PLAN. The author acknowl­edges the influ­ence of Ibn-e-Safi as the source of his inspi­ra­tion, but Kogon Plan tran­scends the scope of Ibn-e-Safi’s nov­els in almost all aspects of artistry. The can­vas of Naeem Baig’s nov­el is more broad­ly spread beyond the region­al bound­aries and his nar­ra­tion far sur­pass­es the skill of the acknowl­edged men­tor as a racon­teur. While Ibne Safi most­ly depend­ed on the humor­ous com­po­nent in the build-up his sto­ries, Baig main­tains an air of pro­found seren­i­ty through­out. Coun­ter­ing of the sub­ver­sive plots against the nation­al integri­ty is no jok­ing affair. It needs intense con­cen­tra­tion, deep men­tal prob­ing and phys­i­cal and men­tal agili­ty to break the crypt intri­ca­cy of the schemes of the ene­mies. Moham­mad Hanif is anoth­er Pak­istani writer expos­ing intrigue and betray­al in his ‘The case of the Explod­ing Man­goes’, but he restricts the action in his nov­els to with­in the ter­ri­to­r­i­al bound­aries of the coun­try. Naeem Baig’s Kogon Plan is nei­ther con­strict­ed in space nor char­ac­ters to any such lim­its.

Even a casu­al explorato­ry voy­age through the very first chap­ter con­vinces the read­ers that they are in for a hefty and mul­ti­fac­eted enter­tain­ment full of action and thrill. It imme­di­ate­ly ignites the reader’s curios­i­ty to explore fur­ther. The events nar­rat­ed in the nov­el can eas­i­ly be con­tex­tu­al­ized, result­ing in the sus­pen­sion of dis­be­lief, in the light of the exist­ing sit­u­a­tion on the West­ern bor­ders of the coun­try. That is one of the major attrac­tions in a work of fic­tion. Action may be tak­ing place on the streets of Kab­ul in Afghanistan or at the fish­ing har­bor in Sri Lan­ka or in the remote recess­es of the African con­ti­nent, the read­ers feel that it could be hap­pen­ing so in real­i­ty. Such events take place every day in the region, hence there is ready accep­tance of what is pre­sent­ed by the nov­el­ist.

Scene descrip­tion is one of the main fea­tures of Naeem Baig art as a nov­el­ist. He has had the advan­tage of being per­son­al­ly to most of the for­eign places where the action in the nov­el occurs. His inti­mate descrip­tion of places in Kab­ul, Dubai, Colom­bo and Zanz­ibar is the out­come of his vis­its to those places. The rest of the places were exten­sive­ly researched by him on the net before they were described and dis­cussed in the nov­el. The out­come is that there is not the slight­est ves­tige of being unre­al­is­tic in respect of the geo­graph­ic details paint­ed by him so inti­mate­ly with the pre­ci­sion of a minia­ture artist. Besides that he has the artis­tic facil­i­ty of cre­at­ing images at will. The cumu­la­tive effect of per­son­al expe­ri­ences and research out­comes is that what­ev­er places and scenes are described by the writer bear the stamp of authen­tic­i­ty. He looks at the envi­ron­ment with the eyes of a poet and elo­quent­ly tran­scribes the land­scapes on his can­vas. His descrip­tion of Islam­abad at the start of the sec­ond chap­ter is a pho­to­graph­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the cap­i­tal.

“A city mas­ter- planned by a Greek archi­tect and design­er in the late fifties with its face towards the Mar­gal­la Hills on the north-east­ern fringe of the Poto­har plateau, with plen­ty of rains and lush green land­scapes cov­ered by rows of flame trees, jacaran­das and hibis­cus. Ros­es, jas­mines and beau­gainvil­las fill the parks and scenic view-points which sym­bol­ize the aspi­ra­tions of this young and dynam­ic nation. It is an ide­al city to cul­mi­nate careers in the gov­ern­ment.”

All the pro­tag­o­nists of action in the nov­el are every­day human beings, com­mon­ly found mov­ing around us. They are not super human beings in any way, though all of them are rec­og­nized by their pecu­liar traits but they don’t behave or per­form like aliens. Their only dis­tinc­tive fea­ture is their deter­mi­na­tion to pro­duce results and their indomitable per­se­ver­ance in their indi­vid­ual pur­suits. No one seems to be will­ing to relent. Their idio­syn­crasies keep on goad­ing them to pur­sue their goals to the final end. Sahel Farhaj aka Sher Ali’s char­ac­ter is delin­eat­ed through the analy­sis of his traits of stub­born strug­gle in spite of the oppo­si­tion on the part of his imme­di­ate boss, who, in turn fol­lows the advice of his impuls­es. Raz­mak Bilal, Sahil’s antag­o­nist, dis­plays sim­i­lar char­ac­ter­is­tics of unflinch­ing rigid­i­ty of pur­pose in his sub­ver­sive designs. He goes on killing inno­cent peo­ple with­out remorse because he thinks he is jus­ti­fied in doing so on account of the abus­es hurled on him because of his father’s betray­al of the nation­al hon­or at the hands of the Russ­ian com­mu­nist forces. At the same time he pledges his ser­vices to the same par­ty which is alleged to have pur­chased the loy­al­ty of his father.

A detec­tive thriller would be drab if it does not con­tain enor­mous amount of the ele­ment of sus­pense it. The nov­el opens with var­i­ous mem­bers of NSB’s Spe­cial Oper­a­tions group vig­i­lant­ly poised to per­form what­ev­er func­tions were assigned to them on the streets of Kab­ul. Every­one is on toes in order to ensure that the mis­sion is suc­cess­ful­ly accom­plished and Raz­mak Bilal, the tar­get, is cap­tured. The tar­get is equal­ly good in watch­ing his sur­round­ings and takes extreme pre-cau­tion­ary steps to foil any pos­si­ble attempt at shad­ow­ing him. When the final moment of nab­bing him arrives and the read­ers start feel­ing relaxed, the twist in the sto­ry occurs.

“A shot sound­ed shakel dropped in front of him after hit­ting the wall. Anoth­er rubbed his left shoul­der. Ali squeezed in for a moment, turned his face left and then three rounds from the Colt came. Tak­ing shel­ter behind the corol­la over to the win­dow on his left, he glanced at the win­dow on the left side build­ing where he could see the mild smoke of gun­fire. He quick­ly got up and emp­tied his pis­tol at the invis­i­ble shoot­ers and jumped into the car. No sign of shoot­ers in the win­dow. They might, by now, have left the win­dow.”

Sahel’s mis­sion in Kab­ul end­ed in a fias­co. The Rus­sians had used a par­ty of Uzbeks to deny him the moment of tri­umph. He was also griev­ous­ly wound­ed in the leg. Sym­bol­i­cal­ly speak­ing they had not only man­aged to take the feet from under him, they had achieved anoth­er sin­is­ter pur­pose. Lat­er on it is revealed that the slain per­son was not Raz­mak, but his look-alike broth­er, Gulo, used as a bait to draw out the spe­cial oper­a­tions group of the NSB. Gulo’s death served the pur­pose of turn­ing Raz­mak into a sworn ene­my of the group. As a result of high­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed plas­tic surgery, his vis­age was com­plete­ly altered into the face of a young, high­ly civ­i­lized Pak­istani bureau­crat post­ed in the president’s sec­re­tari­at. The Rus­sians had suc­ceed­ed in turn­ing a young man squirm­ing under the eyes of the patri­ot­ic Afghans into a blood-thirsty mon­ster.”

The way Sahel is whisked away out of Kab­ul in the garb of a can­cer patient on the point of death is a treat to read. Naeem Baig deserves a pat on the back for invent­ing the mar­velous strat­a­gem for Sahel’s evac­u­a­tion to safe­ty. A lengthy process of surgery, recoup­ment and recov­ery fol­lows. Ordi­nar­i­ly such a phase of reha­bil­i­ta­tion should have been a sedate affair, but it goes to the writer’s cred­it that he con­tin­u­ous­ly main­tains the thrill through Col. A.K. Zawri’s hos­tile han­dling of the post-oper­a­tional process. In spite of hav­ing a hand­i­capped knee, Sahel is put through a gru­el­ing course in mar­tial arts. His resilience and deter­mi­na­tion keep on moti­vat­ing him to not to yield.

The mem­bers of the Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Group of NSB start­ed being fatal­ly tar­get­ed at inter­vals. The tac­tics applied by the mur­der­ers smacked of Razmak’s modus operan­di, but Sahel’s supe­ri­or boss was not will­ing to accept that the mon­ster could be re-incar­nat­ed after his death. One of Razmak’s oper­a­tives final­ly spills out the beans. Sahel fol­lows Raz­mak to Zanz­ibar but finds anoth­er mem­ber of the group elim­i­nat­ed. In Sri Lan­ka, Sahel is nabbed by the secu­ri­ty per­son­nel, while Raz­mak mis­chie­vous­ly gloats over the spec­ta­cle as an amused by-stander. The nov­el­ist real­izes the com­par­a­tive­ly weak­er posi­tion of his hero as com­pared to that of the vil­lain. Raz­mak is phys­i­cal­ly much stronger and men­tal­ly far sharp­er and more cun­ning than Sahel. As the two of them come face to face in the end, Raz­mak savors his advan­tages and puts him in the awk­ward posi­tion of one who has to obey the might­i­er. Only Sahel’s deter­mi­na­tion keeps him from total sub­mis­sion. Charged with the spir­it of des­per­a­tion he takes the self-effac­ing step.

Unbe­liev­ing­ly, he felt his body mov­ing for­ward, rebelling against a mind that tried to com­pel him to stop. Yet Raz­mak watched him qui­et­ly.

“Do not wor­ry, Capt. Sahel Farhaj,” the voice said in per­fect­ly con­trolled Urdu. “You will only have to wit­ness the assas­si­na­tion of your pres­i­dent. And I will end it for you, as you end­ed it for my broth­er. Now drop your gun on the floor.”

Sahel had no way except to com­ply with the orders. He low­ered his hand and set his pis­tol slow­ly on the floor.
The auto­mat­ic gun began to move slow­ly, its line chang­ing just slight­ly. He was going to shoot Sahel, not kill him yet, just enough to immo­bi­lize him. While then he would step to the stand and use the RPG, blow­ing them all back into a ter­ri­ble pledge of trib­al revenge. He was going to shoot Sahel in the legs.

“You killed Gulo!” Sahel was amazed that he could find his own voice, harsh and horse as it was with ter­ror. “You killed your own broth­er.” He moved his foot for­ward almost drag­ging it. “You used him like a teth­ered goat and I was mere­ly an instru­ment to bring you to the law and you knew it very well, Mr. Hay­at Gul.”

He hit the mark. Raz­mak lift­ed his head, his eyes nar­row­ing and rage crawl­ing over his face. For that cru­cial mil­lisec­ond, he raised the gun to fire at Sahel’s chest, and Sahel made the only move he could, the only tech­nique he had ever man­aged to do half-well in Krav-Maga.

For the fric­tion of a sec­ond pause, they stood emp­ty-hand­ed, eyes into eyes. But it was no match. Sahel did the unthink­able.

As Razmak’s eyes blinked in dis­be­lief, Sahel yelled out Amber’s name, launched him­self for­ward in the air and gripped his arch-ene­my in a bear-hug of hatred that took them both over the edge of the para­pet to the full length of a long hol­low scream sev­en­teen storeys down on to the Scion Hotel fore-court far below.”

Naeem Baig has a pecu­liar ease of words, both for cogent­ly describ­ing the scenes and for elo­quent­ly nar­rat­ing the actions and inci­dents. Such nat­ur­al lin­guis­tic flow is only the result of exten­sive read­ing and long scrib­bling prac­tice. Baig doesn’t have to choose his words; rather the words stream down his mind in a nat­ur­al flow and arrange them­selves prop­er­ly into mas­ter­ly pat­terns. It is a very rare qual­i­ty among the Pak­istani writ­ers in the Eng­lish lan­guage that they can refrain from employ­ing the ver­bose or over- indul­gence in florid ren­der­ing of the mat­ter in hand. Naeem Baig is one such artist.

It would make an inter­est­ing study to com­pare ‘The Kogon Plan’ with ‘The Case of the Explod­ing Man­goes’ by Moham­mad Hani. We are like­ly to real­ize that both the writ­ers dis­play equal facil­i­ty of recount­ing the sto­ries, but there is greater vari­ety in paint­ing the scenes and greater scope of pre­sent­ing the hap­pen­ings in case Naeem Baig. He has an ever vig­i­lant eye on the inter­est of the nation. He does not express sar­casm or revul­sion for those who wield polit­i­cal pow­ers. Even Col. Zawri is ulti­mate­ly shown to have regard and affec­tion for the team mem­bers and his appar­ent rude­ness is mere­ly a cam­ou­flage to hide his real feel­ings.

Both of them seem to have so close asso­ci­a­tion with the defense orga­ni­za­tions of Pak­istan that they do not find any hes­i­tance in talk­ing as inside men, but sur­pris­ing­ly the writer of The Kogon Plan hap­pens to a senior banker hav­ing noth­ing to do with the armed forces. In the selec­tion of words too, Naeem Baig is quite sophis­ti­cat­ed. He avoids laps­ing into vul­gar­i­ty and sen­su­al­i­ty for the sake adding spice to the mat­ter. He con­tin­ues to present the sub­ject mat­ter in sim­ple terms and ends up cre­at­ing a mas­ter-piece. Despite fre­quent edit­ing laps­es, the end-result is sim­ply mar­velous. Well done, Naeem Baig! Hope the sec­ond edi­tion of the book is entire­ly freed of all typo­graph­i­cal mis­takes and edit­ing omis­sions. The read­ers would be eager­ly look­ing for­ward to the arrival of the next edi­tion.