MG Vassanji’s novel captures the inner conflicts and predicaments of Abdus Salam (fictionalised as Nurul Islam), a genius weighed down by the baggage of his identity as the ‘other’ in Pakistan, and in the West
Award-winning Canadian writer M.G. Vassanji’s new novel, Everything There Is (Context), is almost everything about a genius, Pakistan’s first Nobel laureate Abdus Salam (fictionalised as Nurul Islam), who defied all manners of odds to reach stratospheric heights in the rarefied field of theoretical Physics. However, he would be weighed down and done in by the assorted baggage of ascription and identity in Pakistan on the one hand and the difficulty of being a genius from the East in the West on the other hand.
Pakistan, created on the basis of a separate homeland for Islam, is not sure about what constitutes real Islam and this ambiguity would put on trial those whose version of Islam is at variance with the dominant version. On the other hand, while his instinctive genius would break glass ceilings for him in the West, he would often find himself torn between conflicting pulls and expectations. Vassanji brings out the predicament of the genius against these conflicts and contradictions deftly and empathetically.
The dilemmas galore
The author lays out his difficult dilemmas on the table, “An Asian Muslim in a white country, a devout Muslim scientist among mostly atheist or agnostic colleagues of Jewish and Christian backgrounds, a persecuted minority in his own country. That country had made a meal out of his troubles more so than his host country.” Nurul Islam, the genius scientist working upon the ultimate rational basis of the universe, is quite a nuanced character. Born in undivided India and not a witness to the harrowing tragedy of the Partition as he was away in England, his sensitivities are rooted in civilisational affinities and continuities. But Pakistan after Partition is particularistic, parochial, regimented and militaristic.
Watch: M.G. Vassanji interview: ‘I had to humanise the story of Abdus Salam’
So, while Pakistan would expect its top-notch nuclear physicist to head the ‘Project Babur’ to develop a nuclear arsenal or the Islamic bomb, Nurul Islam has moral qualms about it. Many questions hang in the air: What does it mean to belong? Does the country of birth have exclusive claims upon the intellectual credentials of its citizens? Could Science transcend ascriptive narrowness? Could one be a devout believer and a rationalist at the same time? Envy and bitterness in the realm of academia. Vassanji has understanding (himself a nuclear Physicist), vantage point (subcontinental roots) and the enviable knack for storytelling.
A palimpsest of a novel
Vassanji weaves together different strands of the story of the genius in an admirable manner. When Nurul Islam — the genius scientist — falls in love with a research student of his colleague, he is in a bind as he already has a doting and devoted wife in Sakina and kids for a stable family. Vassanji does a brilliant job in bringing out intimate tensions involved — rendezvous, ambiguities, self-doubts and finally, going for the second wife. “After Nurul Islam’s marriage to Hillary Chase, Sakina remained a proud Mrs Islam, the original and authentic. Between her and Nurul was a partnership, built on familiarity and experience, and occasional nostalgia. He always claimed to love her, but there was no longer that gentle glowing fire between them that had kept alive the humour, the security, and the warmth in their home.”
In fact, homelessness, home and homeland operate at different levels through the novel. Nurul had known the undivided India as his home which was lost to the mayhem of partition. Sharmila — his first love — would fall to mindless violence. What became the new homeland of Pakistan did not promise to extend affection to all those who found themselves in Pakistan after Partition. His host country — despite its openness and cosmopolitanism — would not forget to remind him intermittently that he was not one of them, he was the ‘other’.
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The author comes to the question of ‘othering’ time and again. Nurul belongs to the persecuted Shirzai community — not the authentic Muslim but the other, a heretic, an apostate. When Nurul chooses not to join the project for an Islamic bomb, he would be called names — a traitor. When fanatics understand that the protective umbrella of the state no longer shields Nurul, they come out all guns blazing against him and while he would survive the targeted bombing, his daughter would not and this is sort of the final confirmation — if it was needed at all — of his being the other. Even in the hubs of science and rationality and meritocracy of Europe and America, his genius arouses envy and bitterness among certain quarters.
The enigma called Pakistan
Most of all, it is Pakistan and the way it has evolved since 1947 that constitutes a permanent background of the novel. In the author’s view, a separate homeland for Islam would soon degenerate into a besieged fortress. As religion was the rationale for its creation, the dose of religion would increase in its realpolitik every time it would find itself pitted against crisis. As Pakistan was not sure about its bearings and moorings, it would grow increasingly shriller and more strident. A small but influential conclave of Pakistani clerics would declare Nurul Islam a heretic and apostate — so he would not remain even a Muslim. Coupled with these, the presence of a geographically larger and militarily superior India would only aggravate its existential woes. The clamour for a nuclear bomb would follow. The author puts it aptly, “For Pakistan, a nuclear bomb was a status symbol, like an airline. It would solve their bruised ego after the 1971 humiliation.”
This novel should be read for a number of reasons. Its beauty of expression goes wonderfully well with the sharp psychological insights into the psychodynamics of characters. For instance, “The extra shows of affection always hide a preoccupation” when Nurul is torn between his family and his love interest. Its characters — all nuanced, all vulnerable, all battling their own fears and demons, all trying to make sense of a flawed world, which offers no sense of certainty. For the beautiful way different strands of the story are embedded into each other. And, finally, for the tender empathy which the novelist reserves for the protagonist of the novel.
