Kartography by Shamsie Kamila

Author:Shamsie, Kamila [Shamsie, Kamila]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Itzy, Kickass.to
ISBN: 9780547541129
Amazon: B00D2DU5QQ
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2004-06-07T04:00:00+00:00

. . .

1971

‘Of course there won’t be war,’ said Asif, running his fingers through his luxurious mass of hair. ‘Everyone’s playing brinkmanship, that’s all. Here’s what’ll happen: Mujib will back down on his Six Points, give up the whole idea of a decentralized federal system of government in exchange for some political and economic concessions towards East Pakistan. Once he does that, Yahya will invite him to form the government, and at that point Bhutto will also take his place as leader of the opposition. It’s the only sane, rational, not to mention cheerful, choice. Mujib’s no zealous revolutionary, and, besides, whatever the Bengali masses might want, they’re just rabble, and our army will decimate them if they try to make some kind of one-legged stand. No one wants to be slaughtered.’ He snapped his fingers at the Ampi’s waiter and asked for more ice.

‘No one wants to be enslaved either,’ Maheen said, waving down at Laila and her new husband, who had entered and taken a table on the ground floor. ‘Yasmin, don’t you love what she’s wearing?’

‘My God, she is so gorgeous. What does she see in him?’ Asif shook his head. ‘And come on, Maheen, isn’t enslaved a little too dramatic a word?’

‘Nothing dramatic about it,’ Ali said. ‘Just look at the statistics.’

‘Oh, you and your statistics,’ Asif said with a laugh.

‘Well, but just think about it. East Pakistan is the majority wing of the country in terms of population, and yet...’ He started to count off his fingers, ‘It gets less than 30 per cent of foreign aid allocation, less than 20 per cent of civil service jobs, less than 10 per cent of military positions, fewer schools, fewer universities, it makes up near 70 per cent of the country’s export earnings but receives the benefits of less than 30 per cent of our import expenditure.’

‘All these stupid bloody politicians on their own power trips,’ Zafar said, picking up the menu and looking at the dessert section. ‘Why don’t Mujib and Bhutto just have a duel to the death, pistols at dawn, and leave the rest of us out of it?’

‘It’s not that simple, Zafar,’ Ali said, folding his napkin neatly into a little square.

‘Well it’s not the little numbers game you make it out to be either, Ali.’

Maheen put a hand on her fiancé’s arm. ‘Jaanoo, Ali’s right. Look, Asif, I wish—really, really, I wish and pray—that everything could be easily resolved, but you’re deluding yourself if you think the Bengali people’s demands are going to go away, because I don’t know if they’ll even accept a federation at this point when the word Independence has gone around and it’s such a more soul-stirring word than federation.’

‘Ah, but you don’t know what I know,’ Asif said.

‘And what’s that?’

‘That just today Yahya told newsmen that his talks with Mujib were satisfactory, and that Mujib will be the next Prime Minister of Pakistan. They’ve reached a compromise, Maheen; I’m sorry, but your soul will have to do with being a little less stirred.

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