I have been reading 'Our lady of Alice Bhatti' by Muhammad Hanif. Hanif is well known for his novel 'A Case of exploding mangoes' it won several international awards but some how the book have recently disappeared.
Our Lady of Alice Bhatti is about social issues but mostly it revolves around religious discrimination and abuse of lower classes by upper classes (yeah definitely my kind of book).
The Characters
Joseph Bhatti
Joseph Bhatti is an eccentric catholic Christian. He is an amazing, brutally honest character. Joseph by profession is a sweeper aka a
choora (hey it says in the book). Joseph's routine involves cleaning people's toilets, ranting against both Christians and muslims for their discriminatory behavior towards
chooras. one of the most amazing lines he said.
"Yeah, we are the shit cleaners but what are they? shit"
Joseph is not ashamed of who he is infact he believes that the lord sent prophets to clean humanity's refuse. Joseph walks what he talks and during raining season when the city is flooded he volunteers for draining the blocked pot holes and sewerage lines. Joseph also has a unique talent for curing stomach ulcers, he does that by reciting quranic verses. The church pastor believes that he is secretly a muslim. joseph has one daughter Alice Bhatti
Alice Bhatti
Alice Bhatti is a young girl in her twenties. Alice Bhatti is a strong feminist character. Her dialogues in the book can easily be converted in to feminist manifesto. she had already spent six months in prison after she stabbed a doctor who tried to force himself on her. after leaving the prison she manages to get a job in sacred heart hospital. she works as a nurse. Alice knows foul language which will even put hardened men to shame. she has a figure which tunrs heads.
Noor
A young boy of fourteen whose mother is suffering with three different types of cancers. Noor and his mother were in the same prison where Alice Bhatti was. Noor manages to get the favour of hospital's head Dr. Pereira. form there on he works he works like an unpaid slave in turn his mother gets a bed at the hospital.
Teddy Butt
Teddy Butt is unpaid pet of the local police. he does all the dirty work so the police can keep their hands clean. but he also has a soft heart, in his free time he likes to watch National Geographic. He actually cried when he saw a bear trapped on a melting ice patch.
Sister Hina
Senior nurse, a tough, smart mouth woman, who has keen interest in history.
Dr. Pereira
A puppet Christian head of the hospital who has lost his power ever since sacred heart hospital has been taken over by the muslim authorities.
Not Abu-Zar
Not Abu-Zar is a boy who claims that he is not Abu-Zar. Abu-Zar is a criminal young boy wanted in three different countries. The boy Inspector Malick has captured claims he is Abu-Zar's driver hence not Abu-Zar.
Inspector Malick
A sexist, loose canon cop involved in illegal activities and fake encounters.
Plot/Summary
The plot loosely revovles around the Sacred Heart hospital, which was founded by the catholics but is now under local government. several misfits, Noor, Alice Bhatti and Teddy Butt have found their way in to the sacred heart hospital. The story is narrated in third person, the narrator narrates the events of the characters lives as it unfolds, satire and dark humor fill the pages of this very entertaining yet disturbing novel.
My Thoughts
Devastating, painfully Honest and Original.
I have read alot over the years. This book is too good. It is better than Harper Lee's novel 'To kill a mocking bird' Harper lee never managed to adapt the mocking, insulting and rude tone which Hanif has used. Hanif has met the subject of religious discrimination head on with a heroic Valor. His satirical attacks on religion will even give Joesph Heller (Author of Catch 22) run for his money.
what makes this novel so good, so real, is its brutal honesty. Hanif shows us a picture of a society in which religious discrimination in not the exception but the rule. All this is done with a dark humor, I mean you laugh and then you stop and think, man, that's not okay.
This novels tells you that if you belong to a certain society. you can never wash it off you. if you have a certain past you can never escape it. The society won't let you. you can become of gold but still it won't
The novel turns really sad after 140 pages. I mean its funny in parts. but it gets really dark. As the characters lives are thrown in to circumstances they can't escape. It eventually leads to one of the most devastating endings I have ever read.
This novel will give you trauma that will take weeks to get over. There is something about Hanif's characters, dualism, they are tough and soft at the same time. I have no idea how someone can manage to pen something like this.
This novel can sound very sexist and racist at times. But it also shows why sexist and racist jokes are partly true and funny.
I can say with certainty that this is the best book I have ever read.who knew we had writers better than foreigners.
one wonders why these books, Dancing girls of Lahore, The Party worker and Our Lady Alice Bhatti are not being adapted for movies or web series, instead they are making love stories.
If you are bored by fiction I totally recommend this book.
My favorite lines
"Theses Muslas will make you clean their shit and then complain that you stink,... and our own brothers at the Sacred? They will educate you then ask you why you stink?"
"She always thinks his struggle to bring order to this world through the practice of good manners is a bit pointless"
He is too polite to point out that not all Christians are sweepers. He also fears the retort: But all sweepers are Christian."
"She has more moral principles than I have pubic hair"
"Sacred texts as well as profane novels don't record everything.
"These boys in Charya Ward are suffering from what everyone suffers from: life"
"You have to tell them everything is normal. They might have buggered their own sister and then burried her alive, but you must tell them that is normal. They obviously did it because some god told them to do it."
"Raising your arse to the sky has never seemed to her the best way to express devotion."
"Your Yasso couldn't have resurrected himslef. Moses couldn't have baked all the manna himslef."
"What has ... God got to do with Camels? why are they stuck on this ugly beast? what's wrong with the horses? what's wrong with horses with wings? hell, what's wrong with trains? why all these hoves and humps pornography?"
"He has seen the postcards they send, and it seems to him maybe Yasso wasn't the eternal savior of mankind but a visa officer."
"This kind of man: Joseph Bhatti Choora. we were here before the Christians came, before the Muslas came. Even before the hindus came.I am just not the sun of soil. I am the soil. Yes, I am Joseph Bhatti Choora."
"Imran Khan is a failed batsman masquerading as a bowler."
"Every little step forward in life is preceded by a ritual humiliation.Every little happiness asks for a down-payment"
"Love is not just blind, it's deaf and dumb and probably has as advanced case of Alzheimer's it's unhinged."
"Mostly call her daughter or sister and then do exactly what they would do with their own daughters and sister: They treat her like a slave they bought at clearance sale."
"Any man who reaches for a book when he thinks about you is a man that you should think about."
"Love can only survive if it comes with ration card."
"Qaiser from Oklahoma, who claims to sell the thing which catholic evangelists all over the world seem to sell, the promise that the lame shall walk... how about real miracles, like the drains shall remain unclogged? or the hungry shall be fed?"
"Not a single day when she didn't see a woman shot or hacked, strangled or suffocated, poisoned or burnt, hanged or burried alive. Suspicious husband, brother protecting his honour, father protecting his honour, son protecting his honour,jilted loved avenging his honour, feuding farmers settling their water disputes, money lenders collecting their interests: most of the life's arguments, it seemed got settled by doing various things to a woman's body. A woman was something you could get as a loose change in a deal made on street corner."
He feels that finally they have pulled Yasso down to their level, as if Yasso wasn't the savior of all mankind but a janitor who went around cleaning their streets, then sat in a corner drinking his Choora chai from his Choora cup until the day he quiety died and ascended to a choora heaven."
"First love is like first heart attack. Chances are that you will survive it, but you don't outlive it. That first gasp of air is beginning of the end."
"But keeping a woman happy, any woman happy is impossible. You can become a clown in a circus and learn to swallow real swords, but it won't bring a smile to her face. there is a deep hidden well of sadness in every woman, and on certain afternoons its mouth yawns open and it can suck in every colour in this world."
Faith is the same old fear of death, dressed in party clothes."
"you could not grow up in french and not have God shoved down your throat."
Now that I am getting old they want me to literally see God in vegetables. for the last five years, every year there is a aubergine somewhere that , when you slice it has word Allah running through it. I am sure if you slice it another way you can see your own husband's face and if you move it side ways you can read something obscence. ... I know some people see Yasso on a cross or his mother in a pretty dress in every seasonal fruit. isn't there always a flood or earthquake or a child run over by a speeding car driven by another child to remind us that god exists."
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