We Are Not in Pakistan

"While Baldwin’s heroines in her two novels are three South Asian women, along with a host of other ordinary men and women, her short stories cover a wider canvas and involve Ukrainians, North Americans, South Americans and Europeans, as well as a fair representation of South Asians. Here again the characters are mostly immigrants who, otherwise well-established law-abiding citizens, often get trapped in the whirlwind of events such as post-9/11 xenophobia and other forms of racism. Her story ‘We Are Not In Pakistan’, is about a Pakistani-American grandma who is Christian and, along with her American husband, has been settled in the United States. Kathleen is her granddaughter whom she daily accompanies to her school, whereas the grandpa, Terry, is often busy watching football matches on television and is a retired diplomat. Terry and Grandma had met a long time back in the US embassy’s dance parties in Pakistan and got married and moved to the midwest where their daughter, Safia, married a local man. Kathleen often argues with her grandma over her insistence on some of the traditional mores, which, according to the younger lady, are not American per se. For instance, Kathleen is often irked by Grandma’s insistence on Pakistani-style of modest dressing while the granddaughter keeps reminding her that they are in the US and not in Pakistan. Grandma was herself born of an Iranian Christian mother in India and an Anglo father but culturally is more akin to Pakistani Muslim women. She still has one of her older address books containing the names and contacts of her close relatives and friends from Pakistan who had been living in the United States, and quite a few of them ‘disappeared’ following 9/11 as the Home Security and the US Immigration Service personnel chased them up with one excuse or the other. Some of them have already been repatriated to Pakistan; several are languishing in detention centres unknown to many of their relatives, while other harassed individuals are seeking asylum in Canada. On a normal day Grandma disappears and the entire house initially takes it rather lightly, expecting her return any time but after a day or two Kathleen, Terry and Safia all become immensely concerned. Safia, because of her employment at the airport, remembers that the Home Security and the Immigration Service often connive to arraign unsuspecting residents of Pakistani origin. She is convinced that her mum had been whisked away by the same people. Certainly, this is an untold chapter of a recent unwritten history where a large number of Muslims, especially Pakistanis, in the United States have ‘disappeared’ and, unknown to their relatives and authorities, are lost somewhere in no-man’s land. The rounding up of most of these people owing to sheer xenophobia is initially owed to a suspicion of being a potential terrorist, irrespective of age, profession or gender, and, with no tangible evidence available, it begins to bank on some immigration-related technicalities. As a consequence, the suspects end up in an obscure recess of the US and other West European detention centres. Trauma of dislocation is a favourite theme in Baldwin’s fiction as in her first story in this collection, ‘We Are Not in Pakistan’. It focuses on a Ukrainian Jewish professional family who, after suffering from the fall-out from Chernobyl, face a greater sense of alienation across the Atlantic. ‘The View from the Mountain’ is the story of Ted Grand, a retired American military official, who builds a resort on a scenic hill in Costa Rica and develops an interesting but unequal relationship with the locals. 9/11 reawakens a vengeful American nationalist in him as he watches the planes ramming into the World Trade Centre and boils with rage. The last longish story in this collection, ‘The Distance Between Us’ is about a Sikh academic who teaches in Santa Barbara and is a frequent victim of racist abuse, largely because he is a non-white and also because many Americans mistake him for a Muslim because of his beard and turban. Karanbir Singh’s solitary life as an economist is shaken up with an email from Uma Ginther who claims to be his daughter from his brief marriage with Rita Ginther, and who was born in August 1982, after their split, and is now on her way to California from Detroit. Rita had never disclosed to Karan the existence of Uma and now, at 23, her email brings a turnaround in his life. He is finally convinced that she is his daughter, meets her at the local train station and the next few days are a unique experience for both in learning about each other. Rita could have caused serious problems for Karan by going to the court seeking alimony for their child and even endangering his immigration status in the US by claiming his marriage is only to obtain a permanent stay in the country. Karan takes Uma out to the beach and entertains her to curry dishes from a local Pakistani restaurant whose owner experiences a raucous post-9/11 hostility all around him. Karan had also been investigated for having visited Pakistan once with his ailing mother who had been born in Multan and wanted to see her birthplace before her death. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter While on the way back from the beach on that Sunday, Karan and Uma are horrified to see his house gutted due to a malicious arson attack. All his clothes, books and papers, including his passport, have been destroyed in the fire and Karan is both homeless and stateless. Fire evokes all kinds of memories and brings both the father and daughter closer together. Two days later, Karan drives Uma to the train station for her return journey and then comes back to the car park to drive home his old white Toyota. It has been stolen, but he does not want to report it to the police to avoid new complications. Baldwin’s prose reads fluently and persuasively and anchors itself on a strong sense of authenticity, drawing on the religious, cultural and personal experiences of her characters. Her own immersion in Punjabi (both Gurmukhi and Persian scripts), Urdu and Hindi, along with, of course, her ease with French and English, add a superb quality to her expression while her diverse characters, despite a fair number of Punjabis, come from plural backgrounds. They are multi-cultural people who, like Willa Cather’s pioneer immigrants, are struggling against the regimented forces of official and private dehumanisation and in the process seek strength from their own inner humanity and traditional values. These might be tragic characters but they are valiant, sober and resolute people in a modern world, which is often callous and too exacting."