Daily Times

Outside my self-imposed solitude, the fear of coronavirus has gripped the globe as the demon has started wreaking havoc across continents. Messages on social media and talk shows add to the dread of the virus. I, beside seeking mercy from God, have taken refuge in my books in my study. Today, I have A Lone Long Walk in my hands; it is a new arrival.

This book is simply amazing. It is unique and non-traditional. Although the author, Tahir Mahmood, is apparently a latest entry in the English writers’ club, his short stories often appear in newspapers and on web portals. His first book is a happy surprise for many keen readers. A Lone Long Walk has recently hit the bookstalls. The language, style and technique of the book is so attractive I read it twice during my ongoing coronavirus “solitude” at home.

One wonders how and why a man with tactical background would write a non-military, non-traditional and a purely literary book, and that too in prose, which is a difficult form of expression, even for native English writers. In Pakistan, English prose and short story writing is very rare. There are hardly any mentionable names in this field, and there was a need to fill the gap. Tahir Mahmood seems to have done it well.

While going through his various short stories-keep in mind the order-“Traveller”, “At Crossroads”, “Choice”, “Line”, “Riddle”, “Red Roses in the Courtyard”, “She Lives in the Garden”, “Where Cherries Grow”, “Rise and Fall”, “Mortals Immortals”, “Dust”, and “Solitude”, it seems that the titles of stories are so carefully chosen they complete the circle of the life of the traveller that he is. During the course of his Lone Long Walk, there are hardships of life, love, sacrifice, call of duty, parting of ways, and loneliness. The same thought process moves to lessons on philosophy of life, from dawn to dusk and birth to dust. It is like the Diary of a Vagabond, wanderer of Wasteland or the vagrant of Great Expectations.

One realises that a soldier feels, thinks and observes like us. He too is human. He too has a heart. He too dreams of a life of his choice, though, obviously, he is trained in a manner, as a soldier, that ‘duty’ is always the top priority, sidelining choice. The love of motherland is supreme, and that is the message of the 110-page book of 28 short stories. This makes the reader think whether a gun-carrying soldier can really have such a fine-tuned pen in his other hand.

Symbolically meaningful and metaphorically evocative, A Lone Long Walk is a must read in one three-four-hour long sitting. It is a precious addition with a lasting impact. Like Bano Qudsia’s Raja Gidh, the reader will need to reread it because it gives an added taste of philosophical soliloquies once you re-intrude in the author’s kingdom of solitude. In the first attempt, one gets the taste of the sweetness of the language he uses, and in the second read, one understands the depth of his message.

The generation of today’s soldiers grew up amidst the dreaded war on terror. There had been no respite since early 2004, either on the frontiers or on inside fronts. They confronted the enemy and its shadows head on. That, on one hand, battle hardened our jawans and officers, and on the other, changed their lives from training drills to real-time operations, mostly at the cost of their lives. The tragic part is that the WOT cost over 70,000 lives and affected the social fabric and economy. One glorious thing to be proud of-which many of us forget to mention-is that not a single soldier or officer of Pakistan’s armed forces has ever turned his back to the call of duty.

Symbolically meaningful and metaphorically evocative, A Lone Long Walk is a must read in one three-four-hour long sitting. It is a precious addition with a lasting impact

Pakistan’s Tahir Mahmood’s narration from “Choice” to “Nomads” revolves around this fact that he proudly mentions in every story. At times, his call of duty and call of love debate baffles the reader but given the hard facts of battlefield where seeing death eye to eye is not just fiction but real, the author chooses to be a soldier and not a lover. His Lone Long Walk proves that ours is not a candy land, but the most sacred of all: a motherland. We have to protect it from all evils and odds, and that we will.

Outside my solitude, the fear of death is dancing in the streets as infected people are picked from my area and shifted to hospitals. Once again, the Pakistan army has been handed the task to come to the aid of civil administration and fight the monster. Equally exposed and vulnerable, jawans, officers, doctors and paramedics are doing their duty to save the lives of people. Personnel of Rangers and police have cordoned off the entire area where I live; all the exit points towards Murree Road have been sealed, fearing the further spread of the deadly disease.

The soldier’s ‘long walk’ continues; this time he is out to probably brave the biggest of all the challenges of his life. The task is gigantic. I am sure our jawans and officers will win no matter how grave the challenge is. See how Tahir Mahmood sums up his book. It seems as if he is thinking ahead of time; the relevance of his lines with the latest enormous challenge is amazing: “The struggle for ‘good’ passes through the garden of life where a rose blooms next to a thorn. Incongruity, thus, also needs to be understood as it sows the seeds of evolution and progression. Who knows the value of peace more than a proud soldier who actually has to undergo the rigours of war? Yet the desire for peace never deters him from war. The struggle for survival and quest for beauty go side by side and reach the zenith of wisdom that embraces all through divine compassion and forgiveness.”

The writer is an Islamabad-based columnist and can be reached at fzkhann @yahoo.com