The Blindness of Superficiality

An Essay on Anees Salim’s novel The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Superficiality is a deadly human vice though most people seldom realise it. It is easy to live on the surface of everything from one’s profession to religion. Anees Salim’s novel, The Blind Lady’s Descendants, tells us a story of superficiality as lived by quite many people.

Amar, the protagonist of the novel, is 26 when he thinks that life is not worth living. He became an atheist at the age of 13. He had become a half-Muslim at the age of 5 when his little penis was circumcised partly since he ran away in pain during the process. Amar’s atheism, however, is as superficial as most believers’ religion is.

What initiated little Amar to atheism is “Dr Ibrahim’s farting fit.” Islamic prayer has to follow many a rule. “If you break wind during namaaz, you break a big rule, and you are to discontinue the prayer then and there, with no second thoughts.” Little Amar was unable to control his giggles as Dr Ibrahim struggled to negotiate between his farts and his namaaz. Unable to attain the discipline and wisdom required to accept farts as inevitable parts of human existence, Amar chooses to stay away from the mosque. That was at the age of 13.

A couple of years later, Amar becomes a confirmed atheist when he is caught eating during the Ramzan fasting. On being questioned why he didn’t follow the canons of his religion, Amar answers with a calm smile, “We are all born with the freedom to do several things. The freedom of speech, the freedom to practise…” His elder sister Jasira mocks him saying, “That’s from his history text.” Okay, then take it in his own words: “I have long stopped believing in Allah.”

Jasira consoles the pained mother, “Don’t worry, Mother. He will come back to the faith once fasting is over.”

Amar’s atheism is more a matter of expediency than any conviction. It is facile to blame Ibrahim’s (or anyone’s, for that matter) farting if you wish to avoid taking the trouble to offer the namaaz. It is more convenient to profess atheism than fast.

Religion is no better a conviction for most people. Akbal, Amar’s elder brother, is very religious.  He knows that the very first sound Neil Armstrong heard when he landed on the moon was “the muezzin’s call” to prayer. Akmal’s religion is founded on all sorts of lies which some believers have converted into a creed. Such people will distort realities to any extent to make them fit their religious perspectives. Neil Armstrong will transmute into Akmal Legstrong in their theology.

In Dec 1992, when Babri Masjid is going to be demolished by some Hindu activists, Akmal the firm believer is convinced that Allah would protect the masjid unscathed. When the masjid actually falls, Akmal refuses to believe it until BBC and the Doordarshan confirm it again and again with video reports. A few days later, Professor Muhammad Nasiruddin, Akmal’s and Amir’s brother-in-law (Jasira’s husband), gives a radio talk on ‘Life after Babri Masjid’. He says in his talk how his wife was busy making a Christmas cake though she was a pious Muslim. Jasira explains that “Islam never stopped anybody from respecting other religions.” The prof extracts the necessary essence of tolerance from Jasira’s cake.

Akmal the religious believer will soon mature into a terrorist.

Amar the atheist will soon lose the little faith he had in the meaning of human life.

Jasira, the most superficial character, will go on being a good Muslim, a good wife, a good daughter… though she is the most selfish and greedy person.

There is hardly any difference between Akmal’s religion and Amar’s atheism and Jasira’s apparent refinement. All of them remain at the surfaces of their respective realities without even feeling the littlest desire to probe beneath.

They are all the blind lady’s descendants. The blind lady of the title is their grandmother who loves to watch the television all the day though she is absolutely blind.

PS. This post is part of the Bookish League blog hop hosted by Bohemian Bibliophile