Snuffing Out The Moon
Author- Osama Siddique
Publisher- Penguin Random House, Rs 599
Osama Siddique’s debut novel focuses on the problems of varied ages and how with time, existence of inhabitants has deteriorated because of the degeneration of its value system, writes Shweta Duseja
Osama Siddique’s Snuffing Out the Moon has been praised immensely by renowned writers like Bapsi Sidhwa as an “ambitious historical novel” and by Shashi Tharoor as “a daringly original novel”. Such introductions are enough for a reader to grab hold of the book and discover for herself how “ambitious” or “daring” the work of fiction is and what makes it so.
The description of the novel on the book jacket itself is an indicator of the vastness of narrative in terms of the time span it covers. The narrative of the novel goes back in time to 2084 BCE and charts the disparate and yet connected narratives till 2084 CE. This makes the novel ambitious and daringly so as the author of the historical fiction cannot situate his work without the in-depth knowledge of each era he writes about. The book covers a period of 4,168 years in a typographical space of 427 pages. It has been divided into five sections. Each section begins with a title page which contains the name of the section and quotes from well-known writers and poets. The omniscient third person narrator traverses different eras with a critical eye. He is no objective viewer of things. The novel presents a satiric view on varied institutions of the society like religion, law and Government- criticising each of it for its brutality and deceitfulness.
The novel overall is a delightful read but not without setbacks. It is set in six different time zones — 2084 BCE, 455 CE, 1620 CE, 1857 CE, 2009 CE and 2084 CE. The different time zones render a clear perspective on the downfall of each era and its values. Despite that the novel fails to present a gripping narrative. The structure of the novel does not allow the readers to engage with the characters of each time zone for long because each narrative is presented in fragments in the five sections. In other words, the six stories from different time periods run parallel in each section whereby because of the large number of simultaneous narratives, it becomes difficult for the reader(s) to remember what happened in a specific time zone in the previous section(s). And this necessitates the constant flipping of the pages back and forth to recall where the narrative ended last. Had it been divided in six sections instead of five with a narrative continuity of each story, the impact would have been stronger.
The novel begins in 2084 BCE with a poetic description of the city of Mohenjodaro. I call it “poetic” because no one before Siddique has poeticised the “bricks” the way he has done — “A city of bricks. Of bricks kiln-fired and sun-baked. The realm of brick-red, ochre, buff and various shades of brown, interspersed with the greens of deep sunken gardens and groves of trees.”
The city was built in the 26th century BCE and was abandoned in the 19th century BCE. The author very strategically sets the narrative in the 21st century BCE showing one of the possible reasons for the decline of the city. The central characters in this section are Prkaa who is a hunter who has been disillusioned with the progressiveness of the city and hence, has abandoned the city to live in the wilderness; a regal maiden, Sthui who is misled by the corrupt High Priest Bhogi; Prkaa’s adopted brother Motla who is also the chief caretaker of the Great Bath and an old master architect who had a major hand in the building of the city. Prkaa has a vision of doom of the city of bricks and the entire narrative revolves around how the city is moving towards its downfall because of the corrupt priests who mislead the city dwellers by prying upon their religious faith. The novel offers a scathing critique of organised religion by exposing the scheming priests.
The second story is set in the fabled university of Takshasilla around 455 CE. Buddhamitra, a monk, similar to Prkaa, has visions of invasion of Takshasilla and he makes several attempts to guide his followers and inform his superiors about his visions of doom. Those who do not discard his visions start a journey away from Takshasilla to find a safer haven. Though the first two narratives are separated by a span of 2,539 years, they have several similarities that connect the two disparate stories. Prkaa and Buddhamitra have a foresight and they talk about an army of unknown people variously called as “Neel Sant” or “Mara” who would come to destroy the very ideals and values on which their civilisation was founded.
The third story takes its readers to lahore (1620 CE) during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Jahangir. The two main characters in this tale, Sikander-e-Sani and Mirza Ferasta Beg are two vagabond fortune seekers who plan to con the emperor by using a poor young man, Manmohan, to their advantage. Both Sani and Beg exploit Jahangir’s religious sentiments and his respect for the sages for their self-advantage by incarnating Manmohan as an ascetic. The poor soul almost loses his life in the process. The conclusion of this section is the high point of the narrative which I leave for the readers to discover for themselves.
The fourth narrative focuses on the 1857 CE rebellion against the British Raj and how many sepoys and civilians lose their lives in the process. The fifth narrative (2009 CE) revolves around two characters’ lives. This story is narrated with subsections within the story. The narrative of an old woman (who is harassed by the judicial system, its money minded lawyers, the delay in justice and the power invested in money which is misused equally by the upholders of justice as well as the lawbreakers) is interspersed with that of an “emotional” thief/kidnapper whose making into one is traced through his childhood. And here the narrative is again connected to his visiting Taxila/Takshasilla wherein he meditates upon the lives of the monks who lived there centuries back. A central event in his childhood on the hill where Buddhamitra and his followers meditated changed the course of his life and he became a criminal who ran away from his home. Similarly, the old woman’s narrative intersects the narrative of a young man who lost his life during 1857 CE rebellion when she visits the graveyard. The last story, set in 2084 CE, is a warning to the mankind against the horrors of humanity and its degeneration wherein a superior (technologically) race of mankind subordinates the regressives to an extent that it plans to remove any traces of them from the surface of the earth.
Osama Siddique’s debut novel focuses on the problems of each age and how with time the existence of the inhabitants has deteriorated because of the degeneration of its value system. In doing so, he presents characters which are not round, complex figures with a complicated psyche but types. Each age has good and bad characters which are juxtaposed to each other to show how one kind can lead to the progress of the civilisation and the other to doom. There is a sense of nostalgia for old value system that one can sense throughout the novel. Overall, the book makes the readers ask several questions while engaging in the important debates that are relevant for the contemporary times even if the novel takes us centuries back in time.
The reviewer is an Assistant Professor of English literature in University of Delhi