Feature: Andaleeb Wajid and Kite Strings

This is the young writer Andaleeb Wajid’s first novel and after you read it, your predominant feeling is that Kite Strings deserves a better editor. Mistakes mark the book, ranging from small typos to glaring grammatical errors but here’s the thing: they don’t mar the book. Which leads this reviewer to fall back on that old cliché, of Wajid’s story being a small gem of a tale, somewhat begrimed but still shining through.

Wajid’s work is a slice of life, a Muslim slice-of-life in particular. Set in Bangalore, with much of the emotional drivers placed in an old house in Vellore, Kite Strings is the story of young Mehnaz who is both the catalyst of and observer to all that befalls her immediate family.

Mehnaz’s world is peopled by a mere handful of individuals but each and every one of them leaves some kind of impact on her. She goes to school, then college, fighting with her somewhat conservative mother to not wear a burkha at both the educational institutions.

She wins that fight but there’s no rush of triumph here; she is pragmatic enough to know some of the bigger battles waiting round the corner could well be lost.

Family ties

On a terrace in Vellore, to which place Mehnaz and family return often and on, a small romance unfolds, full of potential but then, stops at the very verge of becoming a full-blown one.

Mehnaz loves her father unconditionally, has a somewhat complicated relationship with her mother even though that, too, is underpinned with affection; she is negligent then sorry about her relationships with others, be it her brother Mateen, the young household help Aasia or her cousin Rehana. Ammi’s approval is the undercurrent that informs the narrative throughout, in a very credible manner.

If Mehnaz is impatient of the unseen but very much felt kite strings that tether the girl to a stolid foundation, it is just that and not much more…the impatience every young girl on the threshold of life and love feels.

It doesn’t turn to rebellion for Mehnaz only because she is firmly grounded in her feelings for her family, her concern for their well-being and actually, her unusually (for such a young girl) clear-headed thinking.

There is no existentialist angst, in itself refreshing in a story about a girl coming to terms with all that life holds in waiting for her.

A little lost

Either through editorial indifference or because the author wanted it so, several terms exclusive to Mehnaz’s world, the different azans, the typical festival foodstuffs, are all italicised but left unexplained. Which actually, isn’t too bad a device. Again, the story never really moves too far from Mehnaz’s milieu, which again, is good.

This is no account of someone breaking free from the hijab-burkha-purdah shackles. It would be easy for the reader to read more into the story of Mehnaz but clearly, Wajid does not intend this to be a ‘ freedom-at-21′ tale.

Through Kite Strings, the reader gets a glimpse into the lives of a small clutch of Lababin Muslims from Tamil Nadu. To repudiate that this is a Muslim story would be to repudiate the very essence of Kite Strings. However, it is more than just a story about a set of Muslims. Substantially more.

Wajid’s style is fancy-free, direct. At some point, Ammi asks Mehnaz: “When will you learn which things in life are important, Mehnaz?” Well, we think Mehnaz, whom we have come to like, is doing just fine.