Hundred Shades of New York by Mustansar Hussain Tarar

Hundred Shades of New York

by

Mustansar Hussain Tarar

I had to re-write all of this. This has never happened to me before. Google does not save a copy of what you draft. I spend all the time in writing this peace and inadvertently pressed the delete button one more time than I should have. And I lost the whole draft. 

So, here I go again, and hopefully I do not make the same mistake again. Perhaps I wrote something Providence didn't like and hence suffered this fate. 

So, last December, I was in Lahore airport waiting to come back to NY. It was the foggiest day and the six a.m. PIA flight ultimately took off after thirteen hours. I had a lot of time to kill in the International lobby. On my umpteenth visit to the lone book store, I finally picked up the book. It had an attractive cover, Mustansar Hussain Tarar ( it seems that one has to say his full name otherwise something is left out) sporting an unworn jersey around his neck with Lady Liberty and NY Skyline in the background. My journey was long and the book would make good company. Why not. It was a recent book, about his trip in 2005 and so not that much about the distant past.

I had never read his travelogues, which are I presume his main claim to fame; in his writings, I mean.  I have read his two novels, Raakh and Des Howay Perdes and really enjoyed Raakh. It is a very powerful story. And obviously everybody knows Tarrar as a tv person, as an actor and an anchor.

It is a long book, more than 650 pages, and although it is named for NY, has more than 150 pages about Florida; Orlando and its environs to be specific.

He claims he never felt a desire to visit USA as he thought there was nothing much to see here. He had traveled the world extensively which is obvious looking at his list of books. He thought of America as a land of gaudy and belligerent people, who have nothing to impress him; so not worth his time and money.

He visits USA in 2005, that is where the book is set in, to see his first grandson for the first time and to attend his first birthday. His daughter, a physician had married a Pakistani American and moved to Orlando. Now Mr Nofal, named after Warqa b Nofal is to celebrate his first birthday. In addition to that, his son, a CSS officer in Foreign Service, is in NY on a World Bank scholarship to study International Relations in Columbia and is living in a Broadway apartment. 

He lands at JFK and anticipates 'special treatment' being a Pakistani. To his astonishment he has a rather pleasant and positive experience. he somehow feels deprived of what he expected.

Tarar has the amazing skill to explain the things in a vivid way. He takes you along with him and no matter how much he wanders into the details he does not let you drift far away. The readers believes he has been wherever Tarar takes him. He has quite strong opinions on almost everything, but when his observations and experiences let him feel differently than what he thinks he should, he is not shy to admit and change his opinion. That is a rather unique characteristic different from our other writers. Many would bend over backwards and come up with convoluted explanations to stick to their initial position in the face of obvious on the contrary; not him. Tarar has the courage to admit and change.

He starts his book with reference to Maxim Gorky's 'City of the Yellow Devil'. Written at the turn of last century, it is a scathing account of NY and the superficial and shallow life of its inhabitants. He predicts it as a doomed city which corrupts those who live in it. This was the mindset Tarar came in with. Before he left, New York had changed him and his opinion. He admits falling in love with the city.

He spends considerable amount of time and pages of his books on visiting various museums and centers of arts. From Metropolitan Museum of Art to Museum of Natural History to Guggenheim Museum to Museum of Modern Art to Lincoln Center to Broadway Theaters to The Public Library and the Greenwich Village. He shows the excitement of a child and does not feel shy at all expressing it when talking about the artifacts he had known and read about all these years. 

Being an artist and raised in the 40's and 50's he mentions time and again names he had felt a connection all his life. From Allen Poe to Whitman, Mark Twain to Hemingway, Charles Ray to Louis Armstrong, Rock Hudson to Al Pacino, Elizabeth Taylor to Whitney Houston and of course Marilyn Monroe.

He does not like country music and loves Jazz.

A tendency seen in many but perfected by him is the way he connects what is in front of us with what is in our collective past. He finds similarities in strange ways, hidden from many eyes. Looking at the staircase of Guggenheim he recalls the Minar of Samarra Mosque in Iraq and the Giraldo in Seville. Jazz reminds him of a painful voice of the oppressed people around the world. 

On his visit to New York Public Library, he searches for Urdu books and to his dismay finds a very limited collection. He offers his books to be there and three of his books are now part of the collection. That includes Bahao, Raakh and Qurbat e Marg main Muhabat, a sort of trilogy.

He enjoys the strolls in the Central Park and is in Times Square the first night in New York. He visits many other neighborhoods like Harlem's 125th Street and Chinatown. He has an interesting conversation with a Jewish Rabbi.

Writing about the Village, he recalls the gayness of the area and the Stone-well Inn. He reminds the West and his readers that certain areas in Pakistan are far ahead in the creed of brotherly love. He could not help admit how he had felt a heartbeat dropped while watching a performance of a Lakhtai dancing boy from Bannu.

He runs into a Pakistani in Greenwich Village; in fact an Uzbek from Peshawar. His attempts at hospitality looks suspicious to Tarar as feigned. In his excitement to show Tarar a Cafe owned by a Pakistani and frequented by Al Pacino, he asks Tarar whether he has ever heard of Al Pacino. Tarar, feeling offended, writes and I translate. "Not all but many Pakistanis living in New York, have this problem; coming straight from Mandi Bahuddin, having never been to Lahore or Peshawar, landing directly in New York, ask you, 'Do you know what is a Pizza?Have you heard of Statue of Liberty?, Do you know Marilyn Monroe?"

While talking about the superficiality of a nova rich Pakistani, he exposes, in my opinion, the problem of the educated intelligentsia elite. Why he picked up Mandi? Perhaps there is a close personal connection; the Wikipedia mentions his birthplace as Mandi and Lahore on the same page.

The Uzbeb takes him to Cafe Vivladi, which has Woody Allen and Al Pacino connections; the Pakistani owner is not present. He talks to him on the phone and offers him a return visit when he could entertain Tarrar appropriately. Tarrar takes it as a shallow gesture and does not even remember his name. Ishrat Ansari is a gem of a person and has patronized art of various sorts through his Cafe which has regular live performances. Tarar, I feel, is rough with him.

Another common style of our writers and Tarrar is no exception here, is to express quite freely while elaborating upon the physical attributes of women of color; whether they are from African or Asian origin. Moreover he is amazed why Americans go crazy about the less endowed Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy.

He has no good words for US Presidents expect one. Strangely that is Richard Nixon. Like a believer in conspiracy theories, he almost absolves Nixon of his actions and puts the blame of his exit on the 'secret hand' and says that Nixon was made to leave by the powers to be.

He makes a comment that during his various visits to the Met, he hardly saw any Asian, or South Asian to be specific. That must be his sampling error, as they are there all the times.

Although he mentions a few Pakistani friends and artists whom he meets, he does not spend any time on the social and literary life of Pakistanis in New York. Shaukhat Fehmi and Hammad Khan are amongst the lucky ones mentioned. 

Thanks to Tarar, I came to know the full name and age of Mamoon Aimen who was his class mate in elementary school; and so is Dr Khalid Butt, the famous transplant surgeon.

Errors, minor but noteworthy

While commenting on the food, he expressed his dislike of American Pizza. He mentions that Pizza are better in Europe and that Americans did not make this Italian dish right. I did not know before coming to NY that Pizza was 'invented' in USA by Italian Americans, particularly in New York.

While talking about Julia Roberts he called her movie American Beauty. I think he meant Pretty Women

He mentions Captain James Yee, The first Muslim Chaplain in the military.  He called him a doctor which he is not. I am glad that he mentioned Yee as he was the first one to expose the treatment of Gitmo prisoners and had to pay a heavy price for that. 

While talking of Orlando, he mentions Disney World as Disneyland. Disney Land is in California. 

Overall I enjoyed reading the book although it took me a lot longer than I thought to complete it. It was interesting to read about a place you live in for major part of your life, explained by someone who shares your background and is visiting it as a tourist.