The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam
'Her mind is a haunted house'.
This is how the story begins. This certainly is a story of a haunted land with ghosts walking all around you once you enter that land. The distinction between living and dead is feeble, if any at all. I will not be surprised if you dont find any living person at all. Forget human beings, even animals and birds and butterflies are not real. All ghosts. Dead fragrances and dead feelings. Dead hopes and dead aspirations.
Aslam is like Mahabharat's Sanjay, aimlessly roaming around among the deads in the field of Kurukshetra. Or, may be, a powerful cruel magician who brings the dead to life for a while- summoning the souls who come spellbound to narrate the stories of thier misfortune, struggle and defeat. Not that it matters much- their individual petty tragedies. What actually frightens the readers-the unfortunate traveller to the haunted land- is the realization of millions of echoes, that the stories of pain and defeat and attempts at failed survivals produce. The cold still wind, the dark night, the morning sunbeams all carrying their million voices, whispering in your ears-its my story.
Aslam, the powerful, malevolent magician that he is, produces some of the strongest delusions to keep us moving around this dreadful journey. Only when we are near the end of our nightmarish journey, does he release us from his spell and we realize how acutely we want to run away from this place. Alas! The damage is done already. We come back but carrying the curse that every traveller to that land of the dead has to live with for the rest of their life. The curse of having to go through the pain that the ghosts went through- to suffer the agony and bitterness and a feeling of losing everything. Realization that there is basically little difference between life and death. Worse still, experiencing life itself gradually turning to death. Realizing that they never actually got out of the land- that they are carrying a part of the land with them.. inside them!
Mind is a haunted house!
