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Blind
From one of the most cherished writers of Urdu literature comes a rare story about sight and blindness. Forged from his experience visiting a blind home in Nairobi, Joginder Paul crafts a masterly novel addressing basic issues vis-a-vis human existence - territoriality and borders, strife for political power, relationships and vested interests, corruption, accepting our frailties and discovering the truths about our own selves. Paul also includes a gentle indictment of those with of what use is your sight when you can only look but not see. The blind home of the novel develops as a metaphor for the whole country, recording the spiritual malaise and blindness of contemporary society, its degeneration into sloth, corruption and darkness through journeys into the minds of its characters.
244 pages, Paperback
Published July 5, 2016
7 people want to read
About the author
Joginder Paul
16 books2 followersThe noted Urdu fiction writer Joginder Paul was born in Sialkot in present day Pakistan and migrated to India at the time of Partition. His mother tongue is Punjabi, but his primary and middle school education was in Urdu medium.
He did his M.A. in English literature, which he taught until he retired as the principal of a post-graduate college in Maharashtra. Mr. Paul chose to put his creative expression in Urdu language, as he believes that Urdu is 'not a language but a culture' and for him writing is to be in the culture. He was part of the Progressive Urdu Writers' Movement.
Mr. Paul's nineteen fictional works are widely read not only in India but also in Pakistan. In all his writings he exposed social ills and all his characters are full of life and their struggles. He has won all the important awards that an Urdu writer can achieve.
Among his works, Dharti ka lal (1961), Main kyun socum (1962), Mati ka idrak (1970), Khudu Baba ka maqbara (1994), Parinde (2000), Bastiyan (2000) (all short stories), Amad va raft (1975), Bayanat (1975) (both novelettes), Be muhavara (1978), Be irada (1981) (both short fiction), Nadid (1983), Khavab-i-rau (1991) (both novels) are most sought after.
He did his M.A. in English literature, which he taught until he retired as the principal of a post-graduate college in Maharashtra. Mr. Paul chose to put his creative expression in Urdu language, as he believes that Urdu is 'not a language but a culture' and for him writing is to be in the culture. He was part of the Progressive Urdu Writers' Movement.
Mr. Paul's nineteen fictional works are widely read not only in India but also in Pakistan. In all his writings he exposed social ills and all his characters are full of life and their struggles. He has won all the important awards that an Urdu writer can achieve.
Among his works, Dharti ka lal (1961), Main kyun socum (1962), Mati ka idrak (1970), Khudu Baba ka maqbara (1994), Parinde (2000), Bastiyan (2000) (all short stories), Amad va raft (1975), Bayanat (1975) (both novelettes), Be muhavara (1978), Be irada (1981) (both short fiction), Nadid (1983), Khavab-i-rau (1991) (both novels) are most sought after.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 29, 2016
There is a small, seemingly insignificant incident in Joginder Paul’s novel Blind: the inhabitants of a home for the blind hear a piece of news. A man convicted of murder has been hanged, and his eyes are being donated. One person among those in the home may receive the gift of sight.
Is there chaotic clamouring for that precious pair of eyes? Do the blind fight, each struggling to be the lucky one?
No, because these are the eyes of a hanged man. Not because he was a criminal (in a sad twist of fate, it is discovered—after his execution—that he was innocent) but because the blind, in the wisdom, and paradoxically, the naïvete born of years of blindness, know that eyes can hang a man. Sight can be the death of a man, it can bring ruin.
Blind (a translation of the original Urdu title, Nadeed) is only loosely woven into a plot. A home for the blind, run by a benevolent, fatherly blind man named Baba. A place where the blind, like the canny Bhola, the basket-weaver Sharfu, his beloved and beautiful Roni (who has also been the beloved of Baba, and in one brief tryst, of Bhola), live in their own not-quite-cocooned world. From being the story of Sharfu and Roni and Bhola, though, this becomes the story of one central character: Baba, who in a fall, suddenly regains his eyesight. Unwilling to let his ‘children’ know that he is now different from them, Baba hides the truth.
But Baba can see, and what he sees sends his life into a mad whirl of corruption and deceit. ‘I roam around with open eyes in my blind home, and steal all their secrets without their knowing it,’ he confesses. He sees the mild pilfering that goes on, the way one blind person steals from another, cheats another. And he sees, beyond that, the ugliness of the world. This is not a case of innocence gone sour; Baba is not an innocent—but it is a reinforcement of several interrelated themes that dominate this book. The difference between seeing and looking; between sight and insight; between vision and vision, in its literal and metaphorical senses.
This is an abstract, metaphysical story, not an easy book to grasp if you're looking only at the obvious—which, of course, is ironically enough a message of the story. It is thought-provoking, at times elusive, paradoxical. An interesting and unusual book, and one that is symbolic of so much: of modern society itself, of the loss of values and morals that mark this world of ours. Of how we have all, to some extent or the other, become blind to what goes on around us, and have built up our own perceptions of what we would like the world to be.
‘Is the eye of the mind better or that of the body?’, a character in Blind asks another. A pertinent question, and one the author encourages us to ponder.
(From my review for The New Indian Express: http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifes...)
Is there chaotic clamouring for that precious pair of eyes? Do the blind fight, each struggling to be the lucky one?
No, because these are the eyes of a hanged man. Not because he was a criminal (in a sad twist of fate, it is discovered—after his execution—that he was innocent) but because the blind, in the wisdom, and paradoxically, the naïvete born of years of blindness, know that eyes can hang a man. Sight can be the death of a man, it can bring ruin.
Blind (a translation of the original Urdu title, Nadeed) is only loosely woven into a plot. A home for the blind, run by a benevolent, fatherly blind man named Baba. A place where the blind, like the canny Bhola, the basket-weaver Sharfu, his beloved and beautiful Roni (who has also been the beloved of Baba, and in one brief tryst, of Bhola), live in their own not-quite-cocooned world. From being the story of Sharfu and Roni and Bhola, though, this becomes the story of one central character: Baba, who in a fall, suddenly regains his eyesight. Unwilling to let his ‘children’ know that he is now different from them, Baba hides the truth.
But Baba can see, and what he sees sends his life into a mad whirl of corruption and deceit. ‘I roam around with open eyes in my blind home, and steal all their secrets without their knowing it,’ he confesses. He sees the mild pilfering that goes on, the way one blind person steals from another, cheats another. And he sees, beyond that, the ugliness of the world. This is not a case of innocence gone sour; Baba is not an innocent—but it is a reinforcement of several interrelated themes that dominate this book. The difference between seeing and looking; between sight and insight; between vision and vision, in its literal and metaphorical senses.
This is an abstract, metaphysical story, not an easy book to grasp if you're looking only at the obvious—which, of course, is ironically enough a message of the story. It is thought-provoking, at times elusive, paradoxical. An interesting and unusual book, and one that is symbolic of so much: of modern society itself, of the loss of values and morals that mark this world of ours. Of how we have all, to some extent or the other, become blind to what goes on around us, and have built up our own perceptions of what we would like the world to be.
‘Is the eye of the mind better or that of the body?’, a character in Blind asks another. A pertinent question, and one the author encourages us to ponder.
(From my review for The New Indian Express: http://www.newindianexpress.com/lifes...)
May 3, 2018
The premise proved interesting.
The execution, not so much.
The book fails to hold the narrative together, and in the process makes it a quite difficult read.
I picked it up for my love of Urdu Literature, but either the fault lies in the translation or the book’s narrative is to be blamed.
Will check the Hindi translation and pass my final verdict.
But for now, one star it is.
The execution, not so much.
The book fails to hold the narrative together, and in the process makes it a quite difficult read.
I picked it up for my love of Urdu Literature, but either the fault lies in the translation or the book’s narrative is to be blamed.
Will check the Hindi translation and pass my final verdict.
But for now, one star it is.
May 15, 2023
Considering it was translation, it's not bad . Sometimes, some passages were quite good.
But something felt missing.
It's always a good thing to read political satires
But something felt missing.
It's always a good thing to read political satires
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews