Main, Mohabbat Or Tu (Aymal Raza)- Novel Review by Shoby

Main, Mohabbat Or Tu (Aymal Raza)- Novel Review by Shoby

Daniel had only one option to listen all the tragedies of this not-so-downtrodden dashing-rich Jibran in this one of its kind Theme park. From losing a bet of merely 500 Dollar (not a big deal obviously :p ) to getting blackmailed on the hands of his very own mother to marry the girl (Maria) that he used to love in his teens only. You just count on your finger and it was not possible that this very problem has not occurred with this young-smart chap. And if anything was left to make his life worst, guess what he got impinged with (not so real) Cinderella (for whom he was just praying to meet anytime sooner in this real living world) in the theme park... (Poorest he)...

Larkiyon ke libaas aisey hi hotey hain... Un ki hi tarah hassas... (Ahhhh this one strike the chord correctly Aymal)...

Rumi was basically an antecedent struck poor girl who was doning the avatar of Cinderella in the theme park in order to give her (single-parent) mother a helping hand and the first attire that she was asked to do was of a bear... Or chhohiya ne bhaalu ban'na pasand ker liya  (#Feeling super sad for her) :-(

Bhalu ke libaas ka ooperi hissa muskurata hua sa tha... Dekhney wala yeh gumaan bhi nahi ker sakta tha ke is muskuratey chehrey ke ander wala kis qarb se guzer raha hai... And the truth is "When the king gets depressed, he doesn't call for his wife. He doesn't call for the cook. He calls for the court jester." Richard Simmons

Anyways, as a token of punishment, Rumi asked for the indemnity of 150 dollars from Jibran on account of making her Cinderella costume messy and the amount was just about perfect for Rumi to spend some bucks for the shopping. After all, she & her mummy would have deserved at least this much taste of joy courtesy (looted) money. :p

The magician's scene was real funny especially when he hits her with the stick. All the dialogues between Jibran and his mother are written sweetly with nice dose of humour embedded within.

They say, Karma is what does the justice, so 150 dollar indemnity was equally (read more brutally) replied by a 300 dollar compensation as bad-luck struck Rumi unlickly breaks Jibran's expecnsive cell phone in the university. And Aymal Raza was at her satirical best when she penned the dialogue:

Rumi: Agar koi aera ghera ghar aa ker aap ki beti ke khilaf kuch ulta seedha boley to kiya aap yaqeen ker len gi???

Faryal: Main sir phor du gi...

Rumi: Well done Ammi...

Faryal: Us ka nahi... Tumhara

Jibran arranges his cartoon- themed birthday party and Rumi along with her complete crew had to go there but right before the cake cutting ceremony, she falls and her heads gets removed and her identity is revealed in front of all. Enraged & infuriated Rumi slaps Jibran and breaks the things at the place. From nowhere, Aymal Raza has managed to pull over yet again the same heartbreaking melancholic aura in Main Mohabbat Or Tu, which has always been a fortay of her writing. See, how bereaved Rumi's character looks in these scenes.

Rumi pays back his 300 dollars in university and thre onward starts a story of love-hate relationship between the two. Needless to mention that Maria (Jibran's to be fiance') enters and exits the story without making certain noise and so does Rumi's (assumed dead) father. Rest should be read in the story itself.

Aymal has told this very sensitive story write from the heart. This time her writing was a bit different as she tried her hand on a more light-hearted note with chunks of suitable situational comedy but I still feel the overall ambience of the story was gloomy. It was a forlorn tale sugar-coated beautifully with burlesque. I loved the beginning portion of the novel very much, where Rumi was shown getting ready to re-do Cinderella. It somehow reminded me of William Wordsworth's famous poem Daffodils.

Aymal is one of the best in today's Urdu literature world, when  it comes to one-liners and she proved her mettle in this department once again. Watch how Jibran's mom sums it all regarding her own theory about fairy tale's leading characters:

Jo humari ankhon ko bhali lagti hain... Wohi humarey liye Rapunzel, Cindrella, Caty, Barbie, Frozen ya Snowwhite hoti hain...

While reading the novel, I could not repel the thoughts of Raj Kapoor's epic film Mera Naam Joker... No there is no similarity between the two except the one thing that protagonist of both (film & the novel) had to do certain jester sort of makeover in order to earn their livelihood. Apart from this, Aymal managed to bring the same grief-stricken atmosphere through her words which was present all over in the movie.

To tell you honestly, culminating part of the story was a typical living happy ever after sort of ending which was just OK considering the fact that story started off with humour and these sit-coms require a nice made-for-each-other type of all-goes-well ending.

I don't know, but I feel something was visibly lacking somewhere in the ending. May be, a couple of more scenes where Jibran would have put some more effort to persuade Rumi would have done wonders but again I can understand that writer must have taken the lenght of the story in her notice.

However, one thing that really was all over my mind while reading the ending part of Mai, Mohabbat or Tu was my this one couplet:

Aao ankhon ko mal ke dekhey hum

Tu ne khuahish saraab ker di hai (Shahbaz Ali Naqvi)

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