Saga of a lost river
In his first novel, Abdul Qadir Junejo beautifully represents the mythological characters of
folktales from Thar
Thar is in limelight, again. But, this time, not for any odd reason.
We have been hearing of deaths of children caused by severe drought in Thar for the last two and
a half years. However, not all news coming out of this desert is bad.
Being the repository of culture and folk wisdom, this arid region of southern Sindh is widely
considered as nature’s open museum. Buried under the sand dunes are thousands of Thar stories
that have not been told in the international arena.
Abdul Qadir Junjo — playwright, Sindhi fiction writer and septuagenarian Thari – represents
colours of his native land in his debut English novel. The Dead River. It is basically the saga of a
lost river, called Hakro in Pakistan and Sarasvati in India, which ran from Sutlej and Yamna.
While anthropologists and researchers are busy in outlining the actual course of the dried up
river, Junejo has tried to trace its origin through fiction.
Back in 1980s, he had written his best drama serial, Chooti See Duniya for PTV. One of the
serial’s infamous characters was Janu German who knows English language but stays quiet.
A voracious reader of English fiction, Junejo had been planning to write a memorable novel on
his motherland Thar for long. In Sindhi, he is indisputably an authority on Thar and its literature.
As they says, “In Sought Asia, history flows with the rivers” and Hakro is no exception. It was
one of the major rivers of Vedic period which dried up in 1900 BCE after giving birth to Indus-
Sarasvati culture. While there is a debate going on whether Hakro and Sarasavti are one and the
same, Junejo has marvelously juxtaposed myths about Hakro with the historical facts.
Despite being dried up thousands of years ago, Hakro is not a strange word in Sindh. Traces of
this lost river are not only geographically identified by the researchers but can be witnessed
vividly in the fold songs of Thar. Junejo believes that our literary norms have been heavily
dominated by poetry and that is the only reasons we lack a substantial and unbiased account of
our past – because, in our parlance, history is not about facts but needs. It is Junejo’s labour of
love for his native land and its anthropology that is morphed into his novel with a tinge of
nostalgia.
Being a master storyteller, Junejo offer a thrilling story which is more like a family saga of his
own. Like his favourite novelist Garbriel Garcia Marquez, Junejo has beautifully embodied
mythological characters of folktales of Thar besides immortalizing some of the real characters of
his own family who had a unique knack of telling folktales.
As the renowned scholar Wendy Doniger has rightly said, “myth is smoke of history” , Junejo, in
his novel, has tried to weave a tory out of the smoke of history which has dominated the
narrative of Thar and Hakro river.
Stretching the story to present times, Junejo explores every aspect of Thar: Besides sticking to
the central theme, he narrates the stories of untouchables, nomads, outcasts, thieves, foot-tracers,
camels, snakes, peacocks, norms, traditions, religious harmony and everything that is under the
sun in Thar. Junejo Book.
He has skilfully portrayed the Trari peoples’ perpetual struggle for survival against all odds –
droughts, rough terrain and hardships. Junejo has compiled, preserved, thousands, of years old
cultural legacy of Thar by writing this novel. This is what a person can best offer to his
motherland. If we slightly modify the words of celebrated Czech writer Milan Kundera, the dead
river is an account of Thari peoples’ memories struggle against forgetting.
Content apart, in this Junejo’s first effort of writing in English, many issues of editing have been
overlooked. One must be mindful of the role of editors especially when writing in a regional
milleu in a global lingua franca.
However, the novel is highly recommended to those who have been to Thar and have been
enticed by its cultural diversity, and those who have interest in history and love the rivers.