The Wandering Falcon

Fati­ma Mul­lick

‘The Wan­der­ing Fal­con’ — Jamil Ahmad’s first offer­ing to the world of fic­tion — explores the tra­di­tion­al, hon­our-bound cul­ture of the remote regions that strad­dle the bor­ders of Afghanistan, Pak­istan and Iran. Often appear­ing in the news for extrem­ism, law­less­ness and drone attacks, these shad­owy ‘bad­lands’ are still lit­tle under­stood by peo­ple in oth­er parts of Pak­istan or around the world.

How­ev­er, Ahmad’s years as a Pak­istani civ­il ser­vant in these areas and lat­er as a min­is­ter in the Pak­istani embassy in Kab­ul have pro­vid­ed him a rare insight and under­stand­ing of a land that has for cen­turies been resis­tant to the forces of moder­ni­ty and change. Nar­rat­ed with bit­ter hon­esty and naked com­pas­sion, the sto­ry is a sum of the many things that Ahmad saw and learned about the region and its peo­ple. Now, almost 30 years after writ­ing this sto­ry, Ahmad (him­self in his late 70s) has final­ly seen the book in print.

‘The Wan­der­ing Fal­con’ can be read or under­stood either as a sin­gle sto­ry or a col­lec­tion of sto­ries set through nine chap­ters in the book. Each sto­ry can be read alone, but their chrono­log­i­cal pro­gres­sion helps the read­er appre­ci­ate how times change and how some things nev­er vary, regard­less of their point in his­to­ry.

Appear­ing in each sto­ry is the char­ac­ter of Tor Baz, a boy who grows up dur­ing the course of the book, whose uproot­ed, nomadic life serves as a con­duit to shine light on var­i­ous clans and tribes that inhab­it his region. His char­ac­ter is one that the read­er nev­er ful­ly under­stands or gets to know, per­haps because the nar­ra­tive focus­es on the region as a whole rather than any indi­vid­ual that forms part of it. Tor Baz mere­ly rep­re­sents a win­dow for the read­er, with his migrant lifestyle and wan­der­ings demon­strat­ing that he is both every­man and no man – a sym­bol­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tion of trib­al iden­ti­ty.

Quite inter­est­ing­ly, Ahmad’s com­plete lack of descrip­tion or even men­tion of major con­flicts through the years is imper­a­tive to his nar­ra­tion, as he sets out to give his char­ac­ters their own true iden­ti­ty as seen from with­in, as opposed to the cir­cum­stances that are exter­nal to their every­day lives.

The beau­ty of the ‘The Wan­der­ing Fal­con’ is Ahmad’s abil­i­ty to make the read­er, who may nev­er have vis­it­ed the region, feel immersed in his vivid, intri­cate and del­i­cate descrip­tions of the issues that occu­py the fore­front of the lives of the tribes. There is vio­lence, kid­nap­ping, the buy­ing and sell­ing of women — in one case a father sells his favourite daugh­ter for a pound of opi­um and in anoth­er a wife com­petes for her hus­band’s atten­tions over his danc­ing bear – and a fierce, unre­lent­ing com­mit­ment to tra­di­tion. The harsh­ness and dan­ger of the nomadic life is clear to see, with no lack of uncer­tain­ty and con­flict and no guar­an­tees that the roads ahead with be pass­able, either lit­er­al­ly or metaphor­i­cal­ly.

Hav­ing read the book one can under­stand the high lev­el of praise it has gar­nered from crit­ics and read­ers alike; its unique and refresh­ing look into trib­al life and cus­toms, and its abil­i­ty to nar­rate with sin­cer­i­ty but with­out judge­ment make it a tru­ly remark­able read that will most like­ly stay with the read­er long after the last page is turned.