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Invitation
The novel’s narrator, Shahbaz, is a young Pakistani from Paris who returns out of a 19-year exile to his home city in West Pakistan, to settle a family property dispute. He arrives in a 1970s Karachi preparing for democracy, seething with political machination, corruption and class tensions – and, above all, facing the prospect of a changing power balance between the dominant West Pakistani establishment and the Bengalis of East Pakistan. The property dispute pits Shahbaz against his father’s older sister, Mona Phuppi, a strong-willed woman with deep knowledge of Karachi and, unlike Shahbaz, certain of her place in it. More than defeating his aunt, Shahbaz wants to reclaim a place in a Karachi aristocracy he was once entitled to.
387 pages, Hardcover
First published November 12, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 1, 2012
This is a wonderfully good read!
It is dark, informative, atmospheric, and exciting.
INVITATION is the first novel by Shehryar Fazli, who lives in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
It is 1970. Shahbaz returns to his birthplace, Karachi, having spent most of his youth living with his widowed father Ghazanfar in Paris with his father, a filmmaker who, is living in exile there following his involvement in some attempted coup in Pakistan. Shahbaz has come to protect a mango orchard owned by his father and his aunt from being sold by the latter.
At first, the sex-crazed and drug-addicted Shahbaz stays in a dissolute hotel - somewhat of a brothel. He is driven around Karachi by his Bengali driver Ghulam Hussain. The orchard, it turns out, has become a home to squatters, which is one of the reasons that his mentally unstable aunt wants to sell it.
At his father's suggestion, Shahbaz connects with the Brigadier, one of his father's old friends. The Brigadier runs a hotel, the Agra. He falls in love with one of the Agra's cabaret dancers, Malika, an Egyptian, and spends many an evening with her. The Brigadier invites him to stay in his house.
Soon after Shahbaz moves in, he is joined by two other house guests, who turn out to be Moslem fanatics whose behaviour he finds quite sinister. In the end, they help him solve the squatter problem, but only after he has become implicated in the death (in revolution-torn East Pakistan) of one of the Brigadier's old Bengali acquaintances.
As the plot unwinds leisurely, Shahbaz becomes increasingly aware of the West Pakistani's military offensive against the East Bengali's whose leader has, to the annoyance of the West Pakistanis, won the latest election. And as Shabaz becomes aware, he is unwillingly drawn into activities designed to prevent the East Pakistani's from achieving independence.
This dark, but fascinating, novel is filled with detailed observations that not only made its characters highly believable, but also made me feel as if I was living in, and breathing the air in, Karachi. Shehryar Fazli has certainly presented the days and months leading up to the separation of East Pakistan (now 'Bangladesh') brilliantly and in a highly original way.
It is dark, informative, atmospheric, and exciting.
INVITATION is the first novel by Shehryar Fazli, who lives in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
It is 1970. Shahbaz returns to his birthplace, Karachi, having spent most of his youth living with his widowed father Ghazanfar in Paris with his father, a filmmaker who, is living in exile there following his involvement in some attempted coup in Pakistan. Shahbaz has come to protect a mango orchard owned by his father and his aunt from being sold by the latter.
At first, the sex-crazed and drug-addicted Shahbaz stays in a dissolute hotel - somewhat of a brothel. He is driven around Karachi by his Bengali driver Ghulam Hussain. The orchard, it turns out, has become a home to squatters, which is one of the reasons that his mentally unstable aunt wants to sell it.
At his father's suggestion, Shahbaz connects with the Brigadier, one of his father's old friends. The Brigadier runs a hotel, the Agra. He falls in love with one of the Agra's cabaret dancers, Malika, an Egyptian, and spends many an evening with her. The Brigadier invites him to stay in his house.
Soon after Shahbaz moves in, he is joined by two other house guests, who turn out to be Moslem fanatics whose behaviour he finds quite sinister. In the end, they help him solve the squatter problem, but only after he has become implicated in the death (in revolution-torn East Pakistan) of one of the Brigadier's old Bengali acquaintances.
As the plot unwinds leisurely, Shahbaz becomes increasingly aware of the West Pakistani's military offensive against the East Bengali's whose leader has, to the annoyance of the West Pakistanis, won the latest election. And as Shabaz becomes aware, he is unwillingly drawn into activities designed to prevent the East Pakistani's from achieving independence.
This dark, but fascinating, novel is filled with detailed observations that not only made its characters highly believable, but also made me feel as if I was living in, and breathing the air in, Karachi. Shehryar Fazli has certainly presented the days and months leading up to the separation of East Pakistan (now 'Bangladesh') brilliantly and in a highly original way.
February 7, 2021
this is a novel about shahbaz who is a young pakistani from paris,france who comes back to pakistan after living in exile for 19 years to settle a family dispute.
his full name is shahbaz ghazanfar,
his father is ghazanfar aslam.
the property dispute is with his fathers older sister mona phuppi.
he arrives in karachi,pakistan during the 1979's.
this is when there is a war going on between west and east pakistan.
he then starts to miss paris,france.
he starts taking drugs and going to a brothel.
people tell him that it is better to live in his own country then abroad.
then there are details about the jammatis.
he starts having a relationship with a girl called malika.
he starts having sex with her.
then there is talk about zulfiqar ali bhutto and yahya khan.
it is about the political situation in pakistan.
there are some details given about karachi,pakistan during the 1970's.
in the end he goes back to paris,france to his father.
his full name is shahbaz ghazanfar,
his father is ghazanfar aslam.
the property dispute is with his fathers older sister mona phuppi.
he arrives in karachi,pakistan during the 1979's.
this is when there is a war going on between west and east pakistan.
he then starts to miss paris,france.
he starts taking drugs and going to a brothel.
people tell him that it is better to live in his own country then abroad.
then there are details about the jammatis.
he starts having a relationship with a girl called malika.
he starts having sex with her.
then there is talk about zulfiqar ali bhutto and yahya khan.
it is about the political situation in pakistan.
there are some details given about karachi,pakistan during the 1970's.
in the end he goes back to paris,france to his father.
May 12, 2019
Loved it. The dark, gritty underbelly of Karachi in the early 1970s erects itself around you through the pages - the fetid fluorescence of the Khyber brothel-cum-hotel; the smokey booths of the bars filled with Murree beer drinkers; the cabarets and the kiosks on the street selling opium. It feels like a portrait of Pakistan from an alternate reality. Each of the characters is gloriously flawed - greedy, selfish, biased, destructive, mad, arrogant, deluded, somehow broken - in a way that makes them unlikeable while distinctly human and recognisable. Fazli has a knack for capturing the ticks, gestures, and odours that bring them to life in the sort of town where a 'Bentley' is just too soft to get by.
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July 22, 2017Review of the novel..Invitation by Shehryar Fazli
A novel based in 70 s when time was ripe for the fruition of the new state Bangladesh and air was congealed with the discontentment and disillusionment of Pakistani populace. It traces the journey of one Shahbaz Ghaznafar, a Pak muslim returning to Karachi after a period of 19 years.
Shahbaz s father was part of an attempted coup and since then he had been exiled from his home turf. An immigrant in Paris ,life has not been the same for father and son. Ghazanafar sends his son Shahbaz to lay claim to an ancestral property, an orchard which becomes the bone of contention between the siblings.
An eccentric Mona phupi, who intends to sell the orchard since it has been infested by the squatters and has been sullied. It is no more in the pristine condition as it has been,she portends and so cannot be inhabited by the family.
Shahbaz comes in contact with Brigadier Alamgir, an old acquaintance of his father who runs a hotel called Agra. The place is frequented by the rich and elite of Karachi. Power equations created, secret pacts reaffirmed, its a place where the hob nobbings of the power packed politicians are carried in stealth.
He gets in touch with the extremists who carry out their promise of extracting his land from the squatters. A liaison with the cabaret dancer Mallika makes him melodramatic. He gets a peep into the trappings of the power, the disillusionment accost him at every step and the dejection of being an outsider, the labelling of his persona as a novice and unknown to reality makes him sulky and sombre at the same time.
He is accosted by a Bengali muslim, Ghulam Hussain at every step. Helped, cared and guided at every step he gets deeply attached with him. But some bad mouthing on his part, the vendetta against the Bengali muslims lands Ghulam Hussain behind bars. A crime Shahbaz could not comprehend and with a heavy conscious retreats back to his land.
The book is replete with history, the Ayub Yahaya nexus, the massacre of Bengali muslims, the atrocities and the pain suffered by the people in east Pakistan unfathomed by their own people. The presentation of that era has been done marvellously . Shahbaz s disillusionment , his musings, his inability to save Ghulam hussain, the repentance and the self loathing have been beautifully descripted. A good read i must say.
A novel based in 70 s when time was ripe for the fruition of the new state Bangladesh and air was congealed with the discontentment and disillusionment of Pakistani populace. It traces the journey of one Shahbaz Ghaznafar, a Pak muslim returning to Karachi after a period of 19 years.
Shahbaz s father was part of an attempted coup and since then he had been exiled from his home turf. An immigrant in Paris ,life has not been the same for father and son. Ghazanafar sends his son Shahbaz to lay claim to an ancestral property, an orchard which becomes the bone of contention between the siblings.
An eccentric Mona phupi, who intends to sell the orchard since it has been infested by the squatters and has been sullied. It is no more in the pristine condition as it has been,she portends and so cannot be inhabited by the family.
Shahbaz comes in contact with Brigadier Alamgir, an old acquaintance of his father who runs a hotel called Agra. The place is frequented by the rich and elite of Karachi. Power equations created, secret pacts reaffirmed, its a place where the hob nobbings of the power packed politicians are carried in stealth.
He gets in touch with the extremists who carry out their promise of extracting his land from the squatters. A liaison with the cabaret dancer Mallika makes him melodramatic. He gets a peep into the trappings of the power, the disillusionment accost him at every step and the dejection of being an outsider, the labelling of his persona as a novice and unknown to reality makes him sulky and sombre at the same time.
He is accosted by a Bengali muslim, Ghulam Hussain at every step. Helped, cared and guided at every step he gets deeply attached with him. But some bad mouthing on his part, the vendetta against the Bengali muslims lands Ghulam Hussain behind bars. A crime Shahbaz could not comprehend and with a heavy conscious retreats back to his land.
The book is replete with history, the Ayub Yahaya nexus, the massacre of Bengali muslims, the atrocities and the pain suffered by the people in east Pakistan unfathomed by their own people. The presentation of that era has been done marvellously . Shahbaz s disillusionment , his musings, his inability to save Ghulam hussain, the repentance and the self loathing have been beautifully descripted. A good read i must say.
September 28, 2015
Invitation is set in the Karachi of the 70's a world that today seems almost alien. Descriptions of the Karachi of the 70s were perhaps the saving grace of the Novel and kept me going through an otherwise drab plot. A good non-fiction about the era might've been a better pick though!
I found Shahbaz, the protagonist/narrator, peculiar and struggled to understand the reasons for his hedonistic ways. For much of the novel he evoked no sympathy in me, only pity and often outrage. A few other characters like Ghulam Hussain, Appa and the Brigadier left more of an impression, despite their elitist, bigoted outlook (Appa and the Brigadier) towards the events of the era. They felt more human, relatable, products of the post-partition sub-continent.
I found Shahbaz, the protagonist/narrator, peculiar and struggled to understand the reasons for his hedonistic ways. For much of the novel he evoked no sympathy in me, only pity and often outrage. A few other characters like Ghulam Hussain, Appa and the Brigadier left more of an impression, despite their elitist, bigoted outlook (Appa and the Brigadier) towards the events of the era. They felt more human, relatable, products of the post-partition sub-continent.
June 19, 2021
I am rather confused about this book—both its politics and aesthetics aspire to be something, but remain entangled in the self-aggrandising idea of their brilliance. It reads like the final project of a creative writing course, employing classic techniques of exposition, narration, imagery, and conflict (which would be great if it was not that apparent).
October 19, 2016
Became difficult to finish this book.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews