BOOK
The Political Chess King
Campus Life
With the publication of her debut collection of stories last year, Nadya Chishty-Mujahid skilfully depicted the concerns of Pakistan’s vibrant student population through a fictional lens. Timeless College Tales arguably stands out as the one of the only texts in the country’s contemporary Anglophone literature wherein the challenges faced by university students are brought to the fore.
A compelling prequel to this collection, The Political Chess King was initially released by the Edwin Mellen Press and has now been republished by the Royal Book Company. A celebrated academic, Nadya Chishty-Mujahid has penned monographs on poetry as well as the complex dynamics between twins in modern English fiction. She has also established an enviable reputation as a literary critic. However, a quick perusal of Timeless College Tales and The Political Chess King may leave readers with the impression that writing fiction is her first love.
Nadya Chishty-Mujahid is an “eclectic writer,” and The Political Chess King is welcome proof of her ability to venture into different genres. The prequel to Timeless College Tales isn’t a collection of stories set in the fictitious Saeed School of Business but a dramatic play deriving its creative thrust from the same milieu.
At first, readers may be astonished by the author’s unconventional decision to write a play instead of fiction. The former must have a distinctly performative quality, and a dramatist must possess the skill of writing cogent dialogue. If the stories in Timeless College Tales are to serve as a gauge, Nadya Chishty-Mujahid has a knack for writing realistic dialogue laced with a generous pinch of slang and the occasional expletives. Readers are, therefore, encouraged to read the play without harboring any unwarranted suspicions. The Political Chess King has the trappings of a Shakespearean tragedy delivered with breezy readability and a contemporary touch. In a little over 80 pages, readers are immersed in a plot fuelled by the murky realities of student politics. The premise is intriguing, especially for a Pakistani readership. Student activism has remained a critical force in Pakistan, even though the machinations of a military dictator resulted in student unions being dismantled in the 1980s.
Four parties hold sway at the Saeed School of Business: Jazba, MKC, Laiq and Saathi. Nadya Chishty-Mujahid draws attention to the hierarchies within these political groupings by linking their activities to the game of chess. “Chess,” the author writes in her afterword, “follows a clear hierarchy; and student politics, in spite of all its surface chaos, is no exception.”
Readers who have savored Nadya Chishty-Mujahid’s stories about the conflicts between these parties in Timeless College Tales will be pleased to rediscover some of their favorite characters, including the influential and astute Umar Kapadia. Over the course of the play’s five acts, Kapadia and Salal Zahid, who heads Laiq, actively handle an array of challenges faced by student leaders. Interestingly, the play isn’t set in the hallowed grounds of the Saeed School of Business. Instead, the bulk of the action takes place on Karachi’s beachfront. Through this choice of setting, Nadya Chishty-Mujahid eschews discussions about mundane academic concerns and sets the stage for a dramatic chain of events that aren’t typically associated with campus life. The Political Chess King is a testosterone-fuelled account where a vast majority of the characters are men. Even so, women occasionally appear on the pages as rare yet potent voices of rationality.
A large number of plays penned by Pakistani authors only exist as texts and seldom make it to the stage. It would be a pity if The Political Chess King encounters a similar fate as it is a racy, action-packed treat that will leave audiences enthralled.
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