FICTION : MELANCHOLIA AND SUSPENSE |
Echoes of Sorrow
By Raheel Ahmed
Legacy Books
ISBN: 978-627-7706-04-3
247pp.
Echoes of Sorrow is written by Raheel Ahmed, who has also authored Reforging Nations: The Definitive Chronicles of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Indira Gandhi. Ahmed is a researcher and educator in the Department of Political Science at the University of Karachi; hence, the latter work falls into his ambit of specialisation.
Ahmed states that he has been recording ideas/experiences in his diary for several years. The seven stories, which the author refers to as “novellas”, in Echoes of Sorrow, his first foray into fiction, are the culmination of that process. The collection is distinguished by an erudite foreword written by writer Taha Kehar.
Urdu ghazals, nazms and vintage Bollywood and Lollywood songs are close to the heart of the author and have a ubiquitous presence in the stories he weaves. Couplets from Urdu poetry are used at the beginning of five stories. In the story ‘The Colour of Tears’, two entire songs, one sung by Mala and the other by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, are featured.
As the title suggests, the stories are all sad. But, in many of them, Ahmed weaves in suspenseful threads and knows exactly how much to divulge and what to keep hidden until the final curtain, keeping the reader on tenterhooks. The characters in the stories are developed with a sure touch. Readers become invested in the fates of the tales’ protagonists, for they seem real and familiar. There is, however, a hint of stereotypical thinking in the narratives, for it is often the female characters who are made to suffer,........