Saleem Shezad is a well-known literary figure. He writes poetry and fiction. Being multilingual he publishes his writings in Seraiki, Punjabi and Urdu. It’s remarkable that away from our happening big cities, based in far-flung Bahawalnagar bordering Cholistan, Saleem Shezad has kept his creative spark alive. In small cities and towns intellectual and creative activities are rare. Tradition rules the roost. Infrastructure, material and intellectual, that spurs and supports artistic and creative endeavour is almost nonexistent. Written word valued is just as a curiosity. It’s centuries-old oral tradition that holds sway in the social life. Whatever knowledge or creative skill the towns have is orally inherited and orally transmitted to the next generations.

Orality though a reliable tool of transmission in the past has lost its effectiveness due to the intervention of technological aids and gadgets in the process of communication. It’s indeed no mean feat for someone immersed in the ethos of oral culture to take to writing seriously as Saleem Shezad has done. He has 10 publications, three in Seraiki, two in Punjabi and five in Urdu, to his credit and it seems as if he is just warming up. He is a poet and fiction writer. In recent years he has emerged as a novelist to reckon with.

‘Ploota [The curse]’ is his latest novel in Seraiki published by the Multan Institute of Policy and Research. Since the canvas, the evolution of Indus valley society during the last five thousand years, is large, Saleem Shezad employs symbolic method. Realising that symbolic method has its limitations in terms of communication we find his symbolism robed in a descriptive narrative. So he ends up having what one may call a symbolically descriptive narrative or a descriptively symbolic narrative. Our ancient society that has been incessantly mauled and ravaged by the unending stream of invaders is symbolised by an eternally resilient tree ‘Wann’, another name of Pilu tree. The tree is called ‘Panjhazari’ [a tree that has been there for the last five millenniums]. The symbol chosen is quite apt. The choice of ‘Wann/ Pilu’ tree whether conscious or subconscious reflects the novelist’s organic connection with society that he puts under his microscope. In the ancient epic ‘Mahabharata’ the Punjab is described thus: ‘Panchanadyaowahanti eta yatra Piluwanaanyapi…[The land where five rivers flow and where there are forests of Pilu trees…]’. So the Wann/Pilu and the river have been the natural emblems of this land. The Wann is witness to what has been happening to the society that in its present incarnation is in a state of utter despair as a result of what it has suffered at the hand of time that has been ruthless and unsparing. The Wann, the witness and the resilient victim of leaner time, is rooted in the soil and thus is obliquely a source of a mysterious but distant hope for the people.

Another symbol that hangs overhead is the perpetually overcast sky that neither rains nor allows the light to filter through the clouds to the ground. The ever-present semi dark sky over head is a sign of a denial of spiritual illumination. It also has a material dimension; the lack of sunlight would lead to the wilting and withering of what grows on the earth. All this implies the impending disaster that works gradually or a temporarily suspended punishment that would eventually extract its heavy toll any moment in the future that is uncertain.

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Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses in one of his stories the symbol of unending rain. Saleem Shezad uses the static canopy of clouds whose pouring out or dispersal seems impossible. All these mysterious happenings have to be deciphered by an amorphous character who may be an intellectual or narrator or historian organically linked with his benighted society. He takes upon himself to decode the mystery and communicate the arcane reality to his people. The situation he is faced with develops into an existential crisis for him that makes him come close to the edge.

The narrative is a somber but gripping. Saleem Shezad very wisely doesn’t allow his narrative to be marred by parochial or colloquial tinge as is some Seraiki writers’ wont these days. His culturally nuanced idiom which is unencumbered and close to natural speech, can communicate all across Punjab. ‘Ploota’ is one of the best books that have hit the stalls this year. It must be on your table if you care to know the story of our complex anthropological and social trajectory.