Salt and Saffron by Kamila Shamsie

Review by Aparita

This is one of those books that raise questions so integral to our daily part of life that we mull over the book, reflecting, weeks later.

Kamila Shamsie's second novel, Salt and Saffron, has affirmed her a place in the canon that is somewhat loosely called 'diasporic literature'. It has also strongly asserted a place for literature written by young Pakistani writers. Shamsie is all of twenty seven years old and has managed to not only produce two books that have received international acclaim (her first book, In The City by the Sea, was shortlisted for the John Llewyn Rhys award (Britain) and she is currently working on her third novel) but is also an adjunct professor at Hamilton College, NY.

Coming back to the book, it is a lovely work that works around that timeless notion of the 'star-crossed lovers'. Before you groan "not Romeo and Juliet again…", Salt and Saffron uses this convention to address various issues that are a daily part of not just a Pakistani, but a South Asian diasporic reality. Besides bringing up the obvious problems that arise from notions of class disparity, the novel interweaves the questioning of one's identity into this issue. How does one construct one's own identity? Do we still draw the same lines that we would in our own country? Does leaving our country allow us to forget the constraints that we used to find ourselves bound in? Or do we seek to construct a new reality that partakes from both worlds?

Asking these questions in the center of the story is Aliya, twenty-one, and just finished the final semester at a university in America. En route to her annual summer holiday in Pakistan, she meets a young man from "the wrong side of the city", Khaleel. As she slowly finds herself falling in love with him, Aliya starts to question her family history and starts a quest to find out what really happened to her "Not Quite Twin" Mariam Apa, who had run away with the family cook Masood.

The element of the myth of the "Not Quite Twins" brings another interesting angle to the story. When I first started to read the book, I was immediately reminded of Rushdie. What with a genealogical chart that boasts of family members such as the Hairless Nawab and the Starched Aunts at the beginning of the book, the myth of the "Not Quite Twins", long descriptions of family histories that date back centuries as well as family histories affected by the Partition, there are some obvious parallels between the two. However, where Rushdie belongs to that school of 'magic realism', Shamsie is strongly grounded in 'realism'. Moreover, Aliya informs you at the beginning of the novel that she belongs to a family of storytellers and the entire novel unfolds in a series of stories periodically invoking the notion of storytelling, so much so that you will often find the narrative voice addressing you (the reader) and bringing up the concept of orality, a strong part of the South Asian tradition.

Since the question of a 'voice' is raised, it is further interesting to note the way in which Shamsie brings about a delightful amalgam of English and Urdu as well as witty wordplay that draws attention to itself. By infusing English with a Pakistani sensibility, Shamsie not only raises the important question of language but also manages to infect the novel with a definite sense of humor. Sample this line to get my drift - "Racy desi viciously and vigorously checking you out. Sitting next to purple-haired woman." In addition, she paints pictures with her words, allowing us to glimpse bits and pieces of Lahore, it's people, it's culture, and (since one of the main characters is a cook) it's food…

A dash of history, myth, orality, politics, liberally sprinkled over the Laila-Majnu story. This book is definitely worth a read.