The Tangles of a History Teacher
Teaching history has perhaps always been fraught. Given the contemporary recognition of subjectivity embedded in any account of the past or present, lingering questions about whose story or version approaches the ‘truth’ makes the content of any prescribed textbook iffy. However, such constructive acknowledgment of ambiguity turns into hardened, cherry-picked and self-serving ‘facts’ under totalitarian or dogmatic regimes.
In the midst of such challenges, Arif Ali, the protagonist of The History Teacher of Lahore, grapples with internal and external dilemmas. Should he, as “a history teacher and a poet” at the Government Model School, and later at the more preppy The Lahore Grammar Institute stick to the official and flagrantly distorted versions, or offer perspectives that align with his own conscience?
Arif’s formative years in Sialkot, Punjab, are marked by his encounters with the bookish, talkative and unconventional Kamal Ahmed who introduces him to three life-changing works: Tagore’s Gitanjali, Sartre’s The Age of Reason, and Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Philosophy.
Beyond modeling an unorthodox life – by living with a woman of “ill repute”, by abjuring higher education to repair fridges – Kamal also awakens his senses to the piquant pleasures of poetry: “But now Urdu ghazal and nazm appeared before Arif like a door into a magic garden from a fairy tale, promising hitherto unknown delights.” All this fills Arif with a yearning to break away from the stifling tedium of Sialkot.
When he shifts to Lahore, and lands a teacher’s job, larger happenings are refracted into his modest life. For instance, when the popularly elected leader, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is hung on a dark April day in 1979, and the General with the “with the kohl-lined eyes, the hair patted down with oil, and a sly smile,” slides into power. An ill-fated coup that ushers a host of regressive social changes and stokes internal divisions.
When he reconnects with Kamal at Lahore, Arif is both enticed by and afraid of his association with the one-time mentor. After all, Kamal and his seductive partner, Nadira, are activists, who protect minorities from the terrible fallouts of the blasphemy law. Their work is laudable no doubt, but also perilous. By then, Arif has started relishing the small pleasures of his Lahore life. Tending to plants in his courtyard, lounging with a book of poetry and a cup of chai. Savoring his own home-cooked food.
At school, he’s a relatively lax teacher. Who gives students more latitude than the school would like him to. He wants to do more with his pupils beyond filling their heads with facts. He would like to “jiggle their minds a little, to dive into the stagnant waters.”
One night, Nadira appears at his door, wearing a ragged burqa. She invites him to a secret rendezvous. Tentative or otherwise, he’s already “in.” For his first assignment, he’s asked to pick up the 10-year-old David and drop him off at Heera Mandi – the red light district, where dancers gyrate to Hindi film music, where men leer and women perfunctorily transact their sexual wares. Like a tantalizing Bollywood vamp, Nadira vanishes after leading him to an upstairs room, where little David is escorted into an inner room.
Nadira brushes past him at school after a few months, and drops off a well-thumbed copy of Iqbal’s poetry, in which a scrawled note from Kamal assures him that David is safe. Arif fears that someone might have spotted him picking up the book, because there are moral police all around. So far, he thinks no one has noticed.
The atmosphere gradually grows more menacing. The art teacher who wears ties is castigated by one of the extremists in the staff room, and when defended by another teacher, temporarily wards off any action. But how long can this continue? After all, it doesn’t seem too far away, before all such dogma becomes law. At a time when the youth are thumping their feet to Nazia and Zoheb Hassan, conservatives despise their Westernized mores.
At school, Arif befriends Salman, a young English teacher with an Anglicized demeanor. Who shares his antipathy towards the General. Unlike Arif however, Salman is congenial to all people, including to those who don’t think like him. Like to the conservative Islamiyat teachers and even to the more radical, dogmatic ones. Arif does not find himself capable of befriending such types even as he recites his poetry – edged with hope and despair – to a receptive Salman.
After getting into a physical altercation with one of the conservative teachers, Arif receives a warning from the Principal. Despite misgivings about joining the elitist Lahore Grammar Institute, Arif has no choice. In the meanwhile, he falls in love with Salman’s younger sister, Roohi – who seems to relish his ghazals and sends him adulatory letters. He dispatches new poems through Salman who remains blind to the growing intensity of feelings between the two.
Salman is distracted by his own romance. He’s in love with the progressive English teacher, Zehra. The duo decide to get married. But there are obstacles. Salman’s Sunni, Zehra’s Shia. “The warp and weft of faith produced such tangled intricacies as could only be imagined in nightmares.” At first the Ahmadis are targeted. Then the Christians. And now the Shias. During Muharram, there are violent clashes between Shias and Sunnis.
At Zehra and Salman’s engagement, the gaiety and dances are interrupted by the news: “The General’s dead!”
But the General’s sudden death in a plane crash does not signal the end of bigotry.
In the History textbook, Akbar’s syncretic Deen-e-Elahi is construed as sinful and wayward. “Aurangzeb’s intolerance was likened to patriotism. In this new equation, Akbar’s all-inclusive philosophy a betrayal of Islamic unity.” The textbook rules over the teacher; and what of the poor history teacher, who despises the text?
There’s a shooting at a Lahore mosque. Shias are killed by “men on motorcycles, armed with Kalashnikovs.” Salman gets a note: “You’ve joined the Shia Kafirs. There is still time to return to the right path.”
Arif is suddenly abducted. “Strangely, he felt calm, a fatalism set in.” They drive him into a field of yellow mustard stalks. He isn’t killed but badly beaten up. Which might have been worse. “Death was forgetfulness, pain on the other hand horrible and unbearable, a repeated knowledge, an endless dying.”
When he recovers, Roohi declares her love for him. But like in life, happiness doesn’t await him. How can it when the darkness is creeping up all around, inch by inch, till it washes over the last few dissenting voices? This is a novel that’s critical for all regions that are experiencing the imposed silences and suppressed questions demanded by despotic forces.
Tahira Naqvi, currently a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU, has translated the works of Ismat Chughtai, Saadat Hasan Manto and Munshi Premchand among others. As an Urdu scholar, she has translated frequently from Urdu to English, and also recently experimented with the reverse. She’s authored short fiction collections and The History Teacher of Lahore is her first novel. It’s a work that captures her alacrity with words, as well her deftness with evoking a slinking peril that detonates in a heart-shattering end.
References
Tahira Naqvi, The History Teacher of Lahore, Speaking Tiger, New Delhi, 2023