Basti’s protagonist Zakir:

"as though I'm walking in the forest, as though I've been

traveling for centuries. The silence of the forest and the

stillness of centuries. Dogs in the sleeping towns, jackals in the

forest. Their voices don't disturb the world's sleep, they make it

deep."

Zakir describes the wartime nights. The silence serves to

illustrate the suppression of emotions.

Zakir’s constant reminiscing seems to indicate to the reader a

search for meaning in the past, or a higher ideal to fish out and

connect to the abject present. His recollections gravitate around

different moments of partition (or conquest) in India, and

sometimes indicate a posited purity or creativity expected as a

consequent of partition. Zakir and other main characters in the

novel direct much of their attention on the losses they have

incurred; losses that leave a certain emptiness and a

dissatisfaction with the present. Basti is thus, the fulfilment that

is desired and can only be attained from things and objects that

are unrecoverable.

The Shiraz: Haven for the exilic figure

The Shiraz features quite strongly throughout the narrative, in

the life that is portrayed after coming to Pakistan.

The first obvious example from the text to support the notion of

the Shiraz as a haven, comes at the end of the fourth chapter,

where Zakir contemplating on the migration to Pakistan, and

reflecting on his own experience, as well as that of others that

he saw. He thus thinks, “I had started out in this city as a

wanderer, and had made the Shiraz my camp”. He also

describes itinerant, homeless migrants who discover the Shiraz

and feel a sense of belonging there.

What is Basti?

"The distant sound of an explosion, as though a bomb had

fallen in some far-off unknown town. And then unfathomable

silence, a fearful quiet. The whole city seemed to be

motionless, holding its breath."

Abba Jan proclaims his own failure as an individual to live a

meaningful existence with a purpose and this proclamation

serves to conclude one of the major themes of Basti.

Reading "Basti" is a bit like running one's fingers over the

texture of a Pakistani folk-art embroidery. The story's fabric is

similarly exquisite and simple all at once, tempting the reader at

every turn with the warmth, the suspense, the humanity, and

the laments that are sewn in, stitch by stitch.

Basti was criticised when it was first published in Urdu.

However, the novel has proved to be a formidable work of art.

In Basti it seems Zakir is an autobiographical character. Of

course, the parallels are strong. Intizar Hussain spent his early

youth in Bulandshehr, a town in Uttar Pradesh, and migrated to

Pakistan after 1947. Not unlike Zakir’s ruminations, a large

body of Intizar Hussain’s work has invoked the pangs of

separation from the more familiar basti, and has consistently

delved into existential issues through the lens of mythology.

Intizar Hussain is trying to present Basti as that sufficiency and

satisfaction which can be had by reconnecting with things from

the past. Basti has its issues, but the prose is beautiful and

there is always beauty within the desolation of the modern

world. There is a simple solution to the problems, Basti implies:

work hard, live simple, and be virtuous.