Cambridge Forecast Group Blog

Daniyal Mueenuddin, the Pakistan-based author of the current book In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, mentions various aspects of Pakistani life such as “qabzi” land grab mafias, “qom” or lineages, and the “Arian” caste (also Aryian).

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders

by Daniyal Mueenuddin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From The Washington Post

Because of Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Rohinton Mistry, to mention just a few of the most prominent authors, American readers have long been able to enjoy one terrific Indian novel after another. But Daniyal Mueenuddin’s In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is likely to be the first widely read book by a Pakistani writer. Mueenuddin spent his early childhood in Pakistan, then lived in the United States — he attended Dartmouth and Yale — and has since returned to his father’s homeland, where he and his wife now manage a farm in Khanpur. These connected stories show us what life is like for both the rich and the desperately poor in Mueenuddin’s country, and the result is a kind of miniaturized Pakistani “human comedy.” In the original Comédie humaine, Balzac had the ingenious notion of tying his various novels together by using recurrent characters. Eugène de Rastignac is the protagonist of Le Père Goriot but is subsequently glimpsed in passing or sometimes just referred to in several other books. In like fashion, Mueenuddin interlaces eight stories, while also linking them to the household of a wealthy and self-satisfied landowner named K.K. Harouni. In “Saleema,” for instance, Harouni’s elderly valet, Rafik, falls into a heartbreaking affair with a young maidservant, and we remember this, with a catch in our throat, when in another story we see him bring in two glasses of whiskey on a silver tray. In “Our Lady of Paris,” we discover that Harouni’s nephew is madly in love with a young American woman named Helen; later on, we discover that he is married — to an American named Sonya. Many of Mueenuddin’s stories conform to a common dynamic: We learn about a character’s past, then zero in on the central crisis of his or her life and, even while we expect more development, suddenly find everything wound up in a paragraph or two: “The next day two men loaded the trunks onto a horse-drawn cart and carried them away to the Old City.” (Flaubert or Chekhov might have written that.) In other instances, even so minimal a resolution remains cloudy: Mueenuddin just stops, having given us all that we need to know about the future or lack of future in a love affair or a marriage. The epigraph to In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a Punjabi proverb: “Three things for which we kill — Land, women and gold.” Throughout the book the Harounis are gradually selling off their ancestral lands to pay for business losses and a Eurotrash lifestyle. (Two of the patriarch’s three daughters reside in Paris and London.) Nearly everyone in the book is more or less corrupt. In “Provide, Provide” we learn of the machinations of Jaglani, the manager of K.K. Harouni’s estates in the Southern Punjab. When Jaglani “would receive a brief telegram, NEED FIFTY THOUSAND IMMEDIATELY,” he would “sell the land at half price, the choice pieces to himself, putting it in the names of his servants and relatives. He sold to the other managers, to his friends, to political allies. Everyone got a piece of the quick dispersion. He took a commission on each sale.” But even the immensely shrewd and politically powerful Jaglani has his weakness. He begins to sleep with his driver’s sister, a young woman he employs to cook and clean for him: “Finally he could not deny to himself that he had fallen in love, for the first time in his life. He even acknowledged her aloof coldness, the possibility that she would mar his life. And yet he felt that he had risen so far, had become invulnerable to the judgments of those around him, had become preeminent in this area by the river Indus, and now he deserved to make this mistake, for once not to make a calculated choice, but to surrender to his desire.” In Mueenuddin’s Pakistan, happiness is usually short-lived. Jaglani’s beloved develops a urinary-tract infection, then discovers she cannot bear children. A man finally achieves success, only to be diagnosed with cancer. When a party girl resolves to change her life, she discovers how hard it is to be virtuous. On every page there are wonderful, surprising observations and details: A judge says of his wife that “you need only see her disjoint a roast chicken to know the depths or heights of her carnality.” The rich young Sohail Harouni suddenly recites from memory some poetry by James Merrill. An old caretaker builds a wooden cubicle that can be dismantled and simply carted away whenever he needs to move. In every instance, Mueenuddin convincingly captures the mindset or speech of any class, from the hardworking Nawab, a roustabout electrician with 11 daughters, to the flamboyantly decadent Mino, who imports tons of sand to his country estate for a “Night of the Tsunami” party. But my favorite character is the mysterious judicial clerk Mian Sarkar: “There is nothing connected with the courts of Lahore that he has not absorbed, for knowledge in this degree of detail can only be obtained by osmosis. Everything about the private lives of the judges, and of the staff, down to the lowest sweeper, is to him incidental knowledge. He knows the verdicts of the cases before they have been written, before they even have been conceived. He sees the city panoptically, simultaneously, and if he does not disclose the method and the motive and the culprit responsible for each crime, it is only because he is more powerful if he does not do so.” Mian Sarkar — half Sherlock Holmes, half Jeeves — actually functions as a detective in “About a Burning Girl,” and the result is the most light-hearted of Mueenuddin’s stories. I was only sorry that he didn’t include more about this “man of secret powers.” Maybe he will in his next book. As should be clear, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is a collection full of pleasures. I saw only a single improbability in it: At one point, a gorgeous young wife grows dissatisfied with her hard-working and high-minded husband’s routine love-making. So she dons a pair of stockings and a garter belt and, otherwise naked, lies fetchingly in their candle-lit bedroom. The husband comes in, glances at her and says, “So that’s how you wear those!” and then begins to trim a broken fingernail and talk about a problem on the farm. Not even a Princeton graduate, which he is, could be quite such a moron. .

Review

A stunning achievement….Such is its the page. —Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Daniyal Mueenuddin takes us into a sumptuously created world, peopled with characters who are both irresistible and compellingly human. His stories unfold with the authenticity and resolute momentum of timeless classics. —Manil Suri

Under Daniyal Mueenuddin’s gaze, Pakistan is lit up as though by a lightning flash, clear, sharp-edged. This is a debut as auspicious as something arresting, beautiful, or wise (as opposed to clever) on every single page. I can remarkable, I admire it so deeply. –Nadeem Aslam

Under Daniyal Mueenuddin’s gaze, Pakistan is lit up as though by a lightning flash, clear, sharp-edged. This is a debut as auspicious as something arresting, beautiful, or wise (as opposed to clever) on every single page. I can remarkable, I admire it so deeply. –Nadeem Aslam

Product Details:

• Hardcover: 256 pages

• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; 1 edition

• February 1, 2009

• Language: English

• ISBN-10: 0393068005

• ISBN-13: 978-0393068009

Arain

The Arain, are an agricultural^[1] caste^[2] settled mainly in the Punjab^[3][4] (India andPakistan), with significant numbers also in the Sindh^[5] (Pakistan). They are chiefly associated with farming,^[6][7] traditionally being small landowners or zamindars.^[8][9]

Origin

Arains are arguably descendants of Arab invaders to the sub-continent, though some people believe that the Arains are native to the northern areas of the Sub-Continent. They purport to have come from Areeha (Jericho, Syria) which is now in Palestine. Reference to their linage is made by Akbar Shah Khan Najeebabadi who declared that they entered India through Debal, Sindh with Muhammad Bin Qasim. He declared that they are Areehai Ummayad Arabs from Areha which was a Punjabized nasal sound to Arain and the claim Arab descent^[10] is doubtless based upon the demographic that nearly all Arains are Muslims, and of these, almost all have been Sunni Muslim, as were the early Arabs of Muhammad bin Qasim’s expedition.^[11]

In the Punjab Census Report (1911), Harikishan Kaul points out that members of the Arain tribe are “mostly Muhammadans,” (as opposed to the tribe being entirely made up of Muslims), and as a corollary, reference is also made to Hindu and Sikh sections of the tribe. In the Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North West Frontier Province, Denzil Ibbetson refers to the Arains as, “Almost to a man Muhammadans.”

Kaul also states that the term ‘Arain’ is, “derived probably from Rain or Rahin, equivalent to Rahak (tiller of soil).” This is consistent with the Arains traditionally being chiefly associated with market-gardening. As Alison Shaw states in Kinship and Continuity, “Jats and Rajputs from Jhelum consider that the Arain are a service caste, ranked ‘lower’ than the zamindars and refer to the Arain by the term Maliar, which is apparently used in Jhelum to refer to people who traditionally grow vegetables around wells.”

The Arain during the British Raj

The Arain land holders should not be confused with the more gentrified zamindars such as the feudal Rajput landlords of vast holdings. Polo, partridge shoots and tea parties were therefore not associated attributes. Neither were the more negative and profligate practises such as “…dancing girls, drunken evenings listening to poetry, or numerous marriages..”.^[12] When the British wanted land developed in the Punjab after its annexation, Arain were brought in to cultivate lands around the cities, forming irrigated colonies.^[13] The Arain were so favoured for their “hard work, frugality and sense of discipline”.^[14] Subsequent development of towns and cities and increasing urbanisation resulted in the value of the land settled by Arain to rise significantly, and Arain families thus flourished.^[15] Education was prioritised with the new found wealth^[16] and the Arain came to dominate the legal profession amongst urban Punjabi Muslims. Many used law to enter politics.^[17]

The Arain were classified as a “non-martial race” by the British,^[18] a classification deemed arbitrary and based on prejudices prevalent at the time (see martial race).

Prominent Arain

General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the sixth President of Pakistan (and Chief of Staff of the Pakistani Army) was an Arain from Jalandhar.^[19]

Mian Sir Muhammad Shah Nawaz, an influential politician of the Punjab in the 1920s.^[20]

Mian Iftikharuddin,^[21] a politician,^[22] landlord and founder of the Imroze and Pakistan Times newspapers (later to be nationalized by the Ayub government). He was to play an important role in turning the Muslim community of urban Punjab towards favouring an independent Pakistan.^[23]

References

1. “…but also among the so-called agriculturist castes, so designated by the British… …Chauhan, Arain, Gaud…”, An Alternative to the “Sati” Model: Perceptions of a Social Reality in Folklore, Prem Chowdhry, pp. 259-274, Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 49, No. 2, 1990, http://www.jstor.org/view/03852342/ap040052/04a00070/0.

2. “Behind them an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole. He was a market-gardener, Arain by caste, growing vegetables and flowers for Umballa city, and well Kim knew the breed.”, Kim, Rudyard Kipling.

3. “…communities: 1. Acharaj. 2. Ad-Dharmi. 3. Aheri. 4. Ahir. 5. Ahluwalia. 6. Arain. 7. Arora. 8. Bahurupia…”, “The land of the five rivers was known as panchanad in the ancient period, and as Punjab in the medieval period.”, People of India: Punjab: Volume XXXVII, edited I J S. Bansal and Swaran Singh, New Delhi, ISBN 81-7304-123-7, https://www.vedamsbooks.com/no34962.htm.

4. http://ncbc.nic.in/backward-classes/punjab.html

5. See Arain population distribution on http://www.joshuaproject.net/index.php.

6. “The Arain were small peasant-proprietors…”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

7. “Behind them an angry farmer brandished a bamboo pole. He was a market-gardener, Arain by caste, growing vegetables and flowers for Umballa city, and well Kim knew the breed.” (Kim, Rudyard Kipling).

8. “…from other zamindar (landowning) categories: Arain (5), Jat (2), Gujar (2), …”, Kinship, cultural preference and immigration: consanguineous marriage among British Pakistanis, Alison Shaw, Brunel University (http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.00065).

9. “The Arain were small peasant-proprietors…”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki (http://www.jstor.org/view/00044687/di014466/01p0206e/2?frame=noframe&userID=a301f288@ox.ac.uk/01cce4405f00501b38b9c&dpi=3&config=jstor).

10. “Additionally, the Arain group, to which I belong, claims Arab extraction.”, There is many a slip betwixt cup and lip, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Daily Times, Pakistan, 18/04/2006 (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C04%5C18%5Cstory_18-4-2006_pg3_2).

11. “. One of the arguments in favour of this claim is that Arains are nearly always Muslims and almost entirely Sunnis as were the early Arabs who came with Muhammad bin Qasim.”, There is many a slip betwixt cup and lip, Ishtiaq Ahmed, Daily Times, Pakistan, 18/04/2006.

12. Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

13. “When the British opened new lands in Punjab, they brought in the Arains to cultivate…”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

14. Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

15. Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

16. “…the Arain families put their money into education and reaped quick rewards.”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

17. “Soon they came to dominate the legal profession… …and… …spring into politics.”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

18. “The army was an unusual career for an Arain youngster; the British had not regarded the community as one of India’s “martial races”…”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

19. Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

20. “Mian Sir Muhammad Shah Nawaz, a prominent and influential politician of Punjab in the 1920s, was an Arain as was Mian Iftikharuddin…”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki (http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=98917428)

21. “Mian Sir Muhammad Shah Nawaz, a prominent and influential politician of Punjab in the 1920s, was an Arain as was Mian Iftikharuddin…”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

22. http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00003445&channel=civic%20center&start=0&end=9&chapter=1&page=1

23. “…who was to play an…”, Pakistan under Zia, 1977-1988, Shahid Javed Burki.

Bibliography

• Punjab Census Report, 1911, Pandit Harikishan Kaul

• A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, H. A. Rose

• Kinship and Continuity: Pakistani Families in Britain, Alison Shaw

qom (ranked lineage)

land grabber or Qabzi group

The Arain land holders