Daniel Muin al-Din on the great curve of history

Bayezid is an unusual character because he has a drive, which is a form of curiosity like anything else. Even as a boy, he wanted something so badly, even though he didn’t know what he wanted. He knows he doesn’t want to spend his life making chapatis at a tea stall. His imagination is inflamed by movies, and when he learns to read through hard work, he is fed by gruesome novels. His magpie mind knows that there is something desirable and wonderful and different in that round, clear, impenetrable ball that lies at his feet, the one he taps on—like a snowball found in the streets of Rawalpindi’s bazaar, as foreign to him as this is. The scenes in that ball are real, but he does not know how to untie the magpie’s feathers and enter that magical space, to become like little children inside that fantasy ball, playing in the snow.

Since he’s an orphan, he might be of expensive origin – he might be the lost son of the World Emperor – or why not, maybe the long-lost son of the Ice Cream Emperor. He works at the tea stall next to the bus station, meeting all kinds of people, serving them, and talking to them. People of high standing, who had never frequented such a dingy establishment, hurried between buses and stopped to eat. The boy is smart, he listens to them, hears about far away places, and different categories of opportunities. After that, all kinds of people come to the market to trade, whether they are high or low. His luck holds. Magpie Bayezid meets boys from a higher station who go to the nearby private school and live in a world almost as strange as the snow scene in a snow globe. He sees them every day, when they come for a cup of tea or a bowl of dal after school. This is his chance, and he’s a smart guy, so he won’t let it pass him by. He slips into their world.

Bayezid forms a close friendship with one of the boys, Zein. His family is welcoming and cosmopolitan. How unusual would this be in their 1960s social environment?

The gap between the tea stall and his middle-class friend Zain’s house is not large. Zain’s grandfather was a small shopkeeper, a country man, who had somehow discovered that in Pindi, where the British had a camp, he could make a good profit selling the good things they coveted, the expensive things – Dundee jam and canned Devon cream, Gentleman’s Relish and Earl Gray teas, the sweet and savory luxuries he ordered from suppliers in Delhi and Bombay. In India, great fortunes have been made through the help of foreigners; He made a small one, setting up his grocery to sell luxuries to luxury customers.

Through contact with foreigners, educated Indians and then Pakistanis, the shopkeeper developed an understanding of foreign customs. As long as he could remember where he was, the Companions would indulge the delicatessen in a little small talk. The smart shopkeeper will study these aliens to understand their tastes. Just as Bayezid rose to be initially welcomed into the shopkeeper’s home, so the shopkeeper rose to a limited level of bantering acquaintance with his wealthy customers. The scent of social renaissance was in the air in his shop.

And then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto found the magic words with which to fool unsophisticated voters — equality, power to the people, wealth distribution, nationalization — and so all those ideas were in motion. During Pakistan’s short spring, a move to the upside was not just a possibility, it was a right.

Bayezid and Zain are supporters of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, campaigning in the 1970 elections. They are intoxicated by his socialist rhetoric and attend one of his rallies. There is no doubt that Bhutto was a prominent figure in Pakistan’s political history until his execution in 1979 following a military coup. Why did you want to make Bhutto part of the story? Is it inevitable that Bayezid will be more pessimistic than Zein in considering whether Bhutto’s call for an equal society can lead to anything at all?

Pakistan was a new entity in 1947, a project and a dream. The nation’s founders thought that here they could draw a line in history, and show humanity what humanity can do, when it rolls up its sleeves and starts from scratch. At least there were idealists who dreamed such illusions, and their dreams were the pretext for creating this nation. The 1950s, 1960s and even the early 1970s were still a time of innocence and hope in Pakistan, echoed around the world in the boom of hippies, yippies and dancing youth. The pinch of reality – of bribery and power-grabbing – was cutting even then with gold leaf and braids, yet this was the golden atmosphere in which Bayezid formed his ambition to rise, to become more than just a boy in the tea stall. He was empowered by those policies, and this is partly the story of his disempowerment. Although his sarcasm was greater than that of more tamed souls like Zain, it was not enough for the reality that followed.