Zubair Qureshi
Barely two years after publishing his short stories, ‘Invisible People,’ Senator Raza Rabbani has now come up with yet another major work of fiction ‘a novella’ this time titled ‘The Smile Snatchers.’
This lawyer-turned-politician-turned-writer has been giving us surprises, one after the other. And he is doing justice with all the roles life has assigned him to play on the stage of the world.
Senator Raza Rabbani, as we have heard him say on a number of occasions, identifies himself with the working class of Pakistan. Though he was born and brought up with haves yet his heart beats and he always speaks for the rights of the have-nots, for those less fortunate sons and daughters who have been exploited, deprived, victimized by the powerful elite of society for centuries.
While ‘Invisible People’ a recipient of Parveen Shakir Best Fiction Awars (2017) highlighted miseries of the farm labourers and factory workers, plight of the rural women and poor jobless people who keep moving about but are rarely noticed, ‘The Smile Snatchers’ is spread on a vaster canvas and its subject is also close to everyone’s heart, sufferings of children in the war torn parts of the world.
These children are bearing the brunt of the failed peace negotiations among powers, poor economic conditions of their own country, escalating terrorism and extremism in society, rise of militants within their surroundings.
First they lose their smiles and then ultimately, they lose their lives to pay the price for the wrongs done by their elders. After reading this novella (that is so riveting you cannot put the book aside unless you finish it) Raza Rabbani has established his identity as a fiction writer.
The story moves forward as some mysterious events start unfolding in the life of a struggling artist, a painter Zaheer who is also the protagonist of the novella.
He is visited by refugee children of the war torn parts of the world in dreams and visions. They warn him of looming calamities and challenge him to paint their smiling faces (as their faces are covered in blood, dust and tears).
Zaheer takes up their challenge but his thoughts go frequently to those refugee children of Mosul’s holocaust, young kids who lost lives in airstrike at Aleppo (a city in Syria), Aylan, a three-year old Kurdish boy whose body was washed ashore after the boat capsized, Afghani children whose limbs were amputated and life torn apart, suffering kids of Indian Occupied Kashmir and even Pakistan’s young victims of violence and terrorism.
They visit Zaheer as he takes up the brush to paint ‘smiling’ kids around him. At the end of the day, he finds, so do his fans that children he painted were not smiling any more. Zaheer’s popularity though grows, city’s administrator doesn’t like this and first gets exhibition of his works cancelled and later even gets him arrested.
The 114-page novelette is published by Pakistan’s leading publishing house Sang-e-Meel Publications Lahore and is available at the well-known bookstores of the twin cities as well as those in Lahore and Karachi.
The plot of the story, diction and treatment of the subject are captivating and the writer also conveys his message: Let peace prevail in this world. He also quoted Oscar Wilde in the beginning of the novella: “The best way to make children good is to make them happy.”
In acknowledgement, Raza Rabbani pays compliments to Tryna Lyons, University of California for editing his work and his close friend and a great fiction writer of our times Mazharul Islam for motivating him.