(I) Nadeem Aslam’s debut novel “Season of the Rain Birds” (henceforth called

Season), originally published in 1993, is set in a small town presumably Gujranwala

in Pakistan in the 1980s, around the end of the Cold War, during Zia’s military
regime. The story is wrapped around the mailbags lost in a train crash some two
decades before. The characters include clerics of disputing schools, a judge, a civil
servant, a landlord politician, a lawyer, an ex-socio-political activist and journalist,
an Ahmadi school teacher, a Christian maid, an ex-courtesan and now landlady, a
watchman, a barber, a butcher and several others. The novel portrays Pakistani
society caught in the conflicts of creed, culture and class, causing intolerance,
violence, frustration, exploitation and marginalization. Aslam braids these conflicts
into discording historical and cultural discourses usually overlooked previously by
mainstream Pakistani English novelists before him and generally by the state
national narrative. Aslam’s outlook as a novelist seems heavily influenced by
childhood training, experiences and the revolutionary background of his father
ultimately forced into exile by Zia’s military regime. According to Berry (1955), such
a writer depends “on the degree of unconscious assimilation” of a particular
philosophy depicted “in a mythology: Images, symbols, narrative" of a society
(p.299). Underlining such influences affecting the writers and their writings, Cilano
(2014) reminds us of the role of fiction drawing our attention to the "events that
occur right before our eyes" (p. 3/29). Aslam's fictional response to the Cold War
seems immediate, realistic, and thus subscribes to the aforementioned role of
fiction. Furthermore, as a writer with a perspective alternative to that of the state,
he explores experiences deeply rooted in the extra-personal conditions, i.e., the
socio-political backdrop and the philosophy of life, society, and geography in which
the fiction is composed. His fiction displays strong tendencies to resist the state
hegemony. It unearths, otherwise deliberately covert in the state narrative, the
core issues in the Cold War milieu such as the surging religiosity, extremism,
bigotry, marginalization, intolerance, and minority rights. Paying tribute to his
fictional enthusiasm and progressive commitment, Muneeza Shamsie (2017)
regards his works as novels of "an embattled world" (p. 360).

(II) Contrary to both the hegemonic mythos of the global power players and the
nationalist telos of the state narrative, Aslam's fiction represents the socio-cultural
ethos of the people of Pakistan. Season concerns the calamities befalling the
wretched people and landscape in the global conflicts of the Cold War; relocating
its trajectory, humanizing its impact, scrutinizing its consequences, and
contextualizing its repercussions. Introducing a trilogy of broad historical themes
of change, continuity, and conflict, Season paves the way for establishing numerous
implications in Aslam's later fiction. Season also reflects his preliminary depiction
of the historical themes in focus, trailing the itinerary of the disastrous impact of
the Cold War. Without propagating any particular weltanschauung, Aslam is aware
of and affected by oppression of the martial law and offers an alternative
perspective against Pakistan's established narrative of the Cold War. Highlighting
that the elites hide their vested interests behind the slogans of national interests,
Aslam uncovers that such narratives are executed by the state through its
machinery: bureaucracy, political aristocracy, clergy, judiciary, and the state-
controlled media. It fuses the plights of the common man into the tragedy of the
society, giving these predicaments new meanings. It searches the missing links in
the personal and collective tales by exposing the prevailing corruption, decadence,
oppression, intolerance, and authority in society.

III) Amid the aforementioned socio-political impacts of the Cold War politics during
the 1980s and 1990s, especially against the backdrop of rising religious
fundamentalism, Season begins with the Images, symbols, narrative" of a society
(p.299). Underlining such influences affecting the writers and their writings, Cilano
(2014) reminds us of the role of fiction drawing our attention to the "events that
occur right before our eyes" (p. 3/29). Aslam's fictional response to the Cold War
seems immediate, realistic, and thus subscribes to the aforementioned role of
fiction. Furthermore, as a writer with a perspective alternative to that of the state,
he explores experiences deeply rooted in the extra-personal conditions, i.e., the
socio-political backdrop and the philosophy of life, society, and geography in which
the fiction is composed. His fiction displays strong tendencies to resist the state
hegemony. It unearths, otherwise deliberately covert in the state narrative, the
core issues in the Cold War milieu such as the surging religiosity, extremism,
bigotry, marginalization, intolerance, and minority rights. Paying tribute to his
fictional enthusiasm and progressive commitment, Muneeza Shamsie (2017)
regards his works as novels of "an embattled world" (p. 360). (II) Contrary to both
the hegemonic mythos of the global power players and the nationalist telos of the
state narrative, Aslam's fiction represents the socio-cultural ethos of the people of
Pakistan. Season concerns the calamities befalling the wretched people and
landscape in the global conflicts of the Cold War; relocating its trajectory,
humanizing its impact, scrutinizing its consequences, and contextualizing its
repercussions. Introducing a trilogy of broad historical themes of change,
continuity, and conflict, Season paves the way for establishing numerous
implications in Aslam's later fiction. Season also reflects his preliminary depiction
of the historical themes in focus, trailing the itinerary of the disastrous impact of
the Cold War. Without propagating any particular weltanschauung, Aslam is aware
of and affected by oppression of the martial law and offers an alternative
perspective against Pakistan's established narrative of the Cold War. Highlighting
that the elites hide their vested interests behind the slogans of national interests,
Aslam uncovers that such narratives are executed by the state through its
machinery: bureaucracy, political aristocracy, clergy, judiciary, and the state-
controlled media. It fuses the plights of the common man into the tragedy of the
society, giving these predicaments new meanings. It searches the missing links in
the personal and collective tales by exposing the prevailing corruption, decadence,
oppression, intolerance, and authority in society. (III) Amid the aforementioned
socio-political impacts of the Cold War politics during the 1980s and 1990s,
especially against the backdrop of rising religious fundamentalism, Season begins
with theNotion of change and connects it to a much larger, more relevant historical
theme of conflict. In the title of the novel "Seasons of the Rainbirds," both the
words "season" and "rainbirds" (various birds believed to be singing before the
rain) purportedly suggest deeper meanings of change in geographical, historical,
and political contexts. The political connection seems to suggest the socio-political
upheaval in society. To connect the unusual changes in the season of the country
to her political emergencies, Aslam writes that "Seasons and governments are at
their most dangerous whilst changing" (Aslam, 2013, p. 117-18). The historical
context relates to the cultural and communal turmoils frequently highlighted in the
novel. The geographical correspondence of the word 'season' can further be
extended to the 'monsoon,' a typical sub continental season of heavy rain pouring
between April and September across much of the Indo-Pak region and Sri Lanka.
Season is set entirely in the monsoon. The monsoon imagery also tends to highlight
the physical and geographical unities binding various regions in the subcontinent.
The novel thus suggests the common climatic conditions and a deeply rooted
common cultural heritage of South Asia. Interestingly, the monsoon rainy season
has frequently been referred to as a common motif in the folk literatures and
legends of South Asia. Aslam's fiction implies cultural and geographical bonds often
disregarded in Pakistan's state narrative. Similarly, the word 'rain birds' in the title
of the novel seems to relate a rain bird's habit of forecasting rain to the novel's
attempt at disclosing the country's cultural, historical, and political realities,
considered taboo and deliberately kept silent by the state narrative.
In Season, the notion of change also connotes diversity, which for the author is
related to the second historical notion of continuity. Aslam believes that diversity
promotes a healthy evolution in the progress of society. Frequently recurring as a
distinct theme throughout Aslam's fiction, diversity means unity in diversity. In his
novels, including "Season," Aslam presents two contrasting perspectives of
diversity: the existence of individual and social differences of caste, color, creed,
and culture viewed as unity and continuity; the disregard of the same unity when
viewed by the state as conflict. The first outlook considers these diverse attributes
as sources of nourishment enriching the society, community, and nation. It also
views diversity as a redemptive power widely displayed through nature, history,
art, archaeology, and culture, binding humans into a state of togetherness and an
eclectic whole, signifying tolerant and progressive human values, resulting in
forming an inclusive society. On the contrary, the second approach of disregarding
diversity entails disputes, collision, and conflicts leading to religious extremism,
intolerance, and bigotry, Wamiq's internment at these infamous prisons suggests
the conditions suffered by dissidents during the oppressive regimes of the country.
(VI)A dialogue between local culture and global politics tends to be among the most
essential fictional imperatives in Aslam's works. His novels follow an unambiguous
line of enquiry that questions the state- authored hypothetical myths of national
integration imposed upon diverse cultural realities rooted in the local soil and
influenced by regional metaphors. Cultural tensions run throughout Season. It
depicts how Pakistani society experiences an unremitting loss of cultural cohesion
during the political shambles of the Cold War. Cultural tension negotiates with
Aslam's second favorite theme, conflict which lies at the core of his fiction,
morphing into schism of creed and disparity of class. Whereas the issues of class
emerge almost in similar ways in his fiction, those of the creed differ in manner and
magnitude. The latter form of conflict is represented in Season in more dangerous
forms of sectarian antagonism among various Muslim sects and thereby
highlighting the absurdity of imposing a unified Islamic regime on a diverse
community. Violence and terrorism in society. Aslam's fiction exhibits these
contrasting implications of diversity in various ways. Season significantly proclaims
the diverse and harmonizing cultural realities experienced by peoples of the
subcontinent before the 1947 Partition. Corresponding to the historical diversity of
the Indian subcontinent in terms of faith, the region has shown a unique
amalgamation of peoples of almost every existing faith, living for centuries on its
soil, dissolving their differences and emerging with cultural similarities, and
displaying an interfaith tolerance. These diverse concurrent ethnic and religious
communities commingling and integrating in the "melting pot" (Kabir, 1945, p.). 12)
of India, have frequently enjoyed a most tolerant cultural environment down the
ages. In "Season," it is largely through the narrator that Aslam frequently alludes to
the subcontinent's broad secular outlook on life by emphasizing the shared
memories of the pre-Partition cultural amity. Contrasting those harmonious
moments with the present animosity and conflict, he calls the former the “other
times” (Aslam, 2013, p. 12). This was a time when goodwill prevailed and peoples
of different faiths interacted with one another tolerantly and considerately, living
together happily.

Contrary to Aslam's notion of diversity, the country's national discourses view the
Hindu-Muslim interaction as an 'encounter' and strife between the opposing
ethnicities having inexorable differences; to quote Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, the
former Pakistani Premier, the two communities disagree to the minute extents of
"the clothes, the foods, the household utensils, the layout of homes, the manner
of speech, the words of salutation, the postures, the gestures" (2009, p. 1). Aslam's
other times are "bitter times" for Ali (2009, p. 1). In the post-Partition times,
Season's narrator reports a somewhat different situation even in a place,
presumably Lahore or some district of northern Punjab, that once had "a Hindu
neighborhood," occupying houses with their doors open, suggesting the pre-
Partition harmony; but now one can see the ruins of a temple behind "the mosque"
(Aslam, 2013, p. 12). Aslam underscores the contrast between the pre-partition
Hindu-Muslim harmony, irrespective of their differences in the socio-cultural
perspectives, with the post-Partition communal riots leading to intolerance in the
overall national behavior of the peoples of the two separate dominions. Whereas
Pakistan's state narrative purposely overlooks the tolerant ethnic interactions and
harmonious cultural relations among the various communities in India before the
Partition and magnifies ‘Hindu-Muslim differences,' Aslam's fiction underlines
harmonious chords of communal relationship by investigating how the communal
politics damages the inter-cultural harmony among various ethnic communities of
the subcontinent. This communal antagonism, as viewed in Aslam's fiction, gave
birth to two hostile states fragmented and divided in almost every respect (Aslam,
2013, p. 12). Aslam views the Partition as a cause rather than a solution for the
country's fragmented identities. He seems to agree with Abul Kalam Azad's famous
argument on the Partition, contending that the result of the 1947 Partition "was to
weaken the position of the Muslims in the subcontinent of India. The 45 million
Muslims who have remained in India have been weakened" (2011, p. 246). For
Aslam, the inextricable genealogies of the post-Partition cultural sensitivities within
the same ethnic community further increase divisions into sects, groups, and cults
in a country founded ironically on the ideological structure of religion-based polity
commonly known as the Two-Nation theory.

As discussed earlier, for Aslam, conflicts emerge when diversity is disregarded.

Season depicts how cultural variations are marred by Pakistan's nationalist
narrative, which portrays them as cultural conflicts among the two communities.
The novel contemplates the various facets, layers, and curves of cultural issues
deeply rooted in the Partition and Cold War milieus, resulting in multiple traumas.
Reflecting further on the post-Partition riots, Season indicates the spells of
intolerance among the Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims, who, while moving across the
borders to their respective new abodes, “had torn down many of the sacred places
of their predecessors" (Aslam, 2013, p.12). Contrary to the monolithic perspective
of Pakistan's state narrative on the first Partition, mainly presenting the Hindus
responsible for the communal bloodbath of 1947, the Season's narrator recounts a
place where the "conical tower" of a temple is dynamited and reduced to "rubble"
during the Partition riots in a northern Punjab town on the Pakistani side of the
border (Aslam, 2013, p.12). Aunt Khursheed, an old woman, recollects the days
before, during, and after the first Partition in 1947: "When we went back to India it
was all so different. When they announced that there was going to be a partition,
no one took it seriously. We left our horses and mules with a neighbor. A Hindu,
everyone thought it was a temporary division and that one day India and Pakistan
would be a united country again" (Aslam, 2013, p. 58).

She remembers her painful journey which was then called "the pilgrimage" to their
new homeland “across the bloody August of 1947" (Aslam, 2013, p. 58). When She
remembers how they were "followed by Sikhs who held in their hands moons
dripping with blood," her whole features "contract in pain" and "her eyebrows are
tense as bows" as if in a nightmare she has seen the images of "Savages!" (Aslam,
2013, p. 58). While the state historiography on the first Partition, Concealing the
reciprocal cruelty of the Muslims during the 1947 bloodbath blames mainly the
Hindus and/or partly the Sikhs for the Partition crimes, Season explicitly subverts
this nationalist narrative. For instance, Aunt Khursheed's eldest son "born on a pile
of corpses as his parents were fleeing the massacre" (Aslam, 2013, p. 59), Irfan has
a different narrative: "That is not true. Hindus and Sikhs did not harm any
emigrating Muslims. Not until the Muslims of this area, the area that is now
Pakistan, slaughtered a trainload of Hindus and Sikhs going in the opposite
direction, from Rawalpindi to Amritsar" (Aslam, 2013, p. 58-9).

Paradoxically, the idea of a monolithic nationhood based on a unified religion could

not keep Pakistan as a unified Islamic state for long, and within a period of less than
a quarter century, the country lost its East Wing in 1971. In his article "Pakistan as
a Historian Sees Her," Arnold Joseph Toynbee views Pakistan as "the child of
encounter and strife" (1955, p. 1). Discussing her as "a going concern" (1955, p. 2),
Toynbee agrees that she does stand as a nation "transcending" the "physical and
linguistic differences by a common religion" (1955, p. 2). However, he anticipates
the repercussions of Pakistan's strong religious national outlook:
"[I]t would be a calamity if Pakistan were ever to become a Muslim state in an
exclusive and intolerant way, for then Islam might become a far more disruptive
force than the racial and linguistic differences which Islam at present overrides. For
one thing, Pakistani Islam is not unitary; the Shi'ah and the Ahmadiyah, as well as
the Sunn[i], are represented in it, and for this reason, so it seems to me, Pakistan
could never be identified, as some Islamic countries can be, with some particular
Islamic sect. And then Pakistan contains numerous and valuable minorities,
particularly a Hindu minority and a Sikh one. The majority community and the
several minority communities in Pakistan have the task of living together as fellow
citizens and, more than that, as friends" (Toynbee, 1955, 3).

Toynbee warns Pakistan's political pundits on the misadventure of enforcing the

grand project of national integration through Unitarian religious identification,
disregarding other-than-religion significant realities of the soil. To Toynbee, the
diversified religious composition and structure of Pakistani society, widely split into
a kind of religious mosaic of the Shia, Sunni, Deobandi, Barelvi, Ahle Hadith, etc.,
makes it difficult to identify Pakistan with any particular Islamic sect. Toynbee
extrapolates that Pakistan should inevitably promote religious harmony and
establish good relations among her own citizens and also with her neighbors (1955,
pp. 2-3). Haqqani maintains that instead of re-evaluating her ideological
imperatives and reconsidering her cultural and ethnic Diversity after the loss of East
Pakistan, Pakistan's emphasis upon her renewed reliance on the religion-based
politics entangles her people and society into the specter of religiosity and thereby
paradoxically falls into the aforementioned sound apprehensions of Toynbee
(2018, p. 222-223).
The renewed religious metamorphism after the adoption of the 1973 Constitution
in Z. A. Bhutto's tenure complied with the needs and motives of the players of the
Cold War. Similarly, Zia's martial law was strengthened by the agenda of
Islamisation which in turn morphed Pakistan into a state that suited the West's
interests against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Political scientists and scholars regard
Zia's regime notoriously responsible for the country's insurmountable socio-
political degradation, culminating in religious fundamentalism, sectarian and ethnic
polarization, domestic and political violence, religious obscurantism, elitism in the
state establishment, feudalism, intolerance, and moral socio-political decadence
(Haqqani, 2018, pp. 99-104). Against this political context, Seasons unfolds
Pakistan's socio-political chronicles otherwise hidden under state propaganda
during and after the Cold War. Overwhelmed with a compelling portrayal of Zia's
repressive regime, the novel investigates the state's maneuvering of the country's
politics and policies through its proxies: bureaucrats, judges, landlords, and clerics.
Aslam explicates the notion of conflict through the class differences in Pakistani
society. Season portrays this partly through its narrator's statements, motifs,
symbols, and the realistically fictional medley of characters representing almost
every important social stratum. It displays the conflicts between the two opposing
segments of society: characters representing the state and those representing the
society. Hardly ever is the class struggle voiced in Pakistan's state narrative. Season
places class under the limelight, highlighting the tussle between the dominating
and the dominated. The former group is represented by a set of characters: two
traditionally rival orthodox clerics, a corrupt judge, a licentious bureaucrat, and an
oppressive landowner. The latter group is represented by another set of characters:
a progressive journalist, a retired headmaster of Ahmadi faith, a Christian maid, a
barber, and a butcher, etc.

Season provides a fictional rationale to understand the pathology of Pakistan's

national predicaments affecting people and society primarily in two ways:
fundamentalism of the clergy, and moral decadence and corruption of
bureaucracy, judiciary, and politicians. The floodgates of religious obscurantism,
intolerance, sectarianism, and extremism pushed Pakistani society into a battlefield
of sectarian ideologies mainly divided between the Barelvis and the Deobandis at
the National level and the Shias and the Ahle Hadith (identifying with the Wahabis)
at the international level. Season sets the rising religious and sectarian polarizations
in Pakistani society during the Cold War as preliminary to their growth in the
relatively deep-seated conflicts illustrated in Aslam's later novels. Observing the
impact of these religious morbidities on the people and society, the novel
scrutinizes sectarianism and extremism morphing into the most lethal forms during
the Zia regime. Portraying the sectarian split through characters of the two rival
orthodox clerics with their elaborate representations: Maulana Hafeez of the Ahle
Hadith/Wahabi School and Maulana Dawood of the Barelvi school. Whereas the
former sect is portrayed prone to fundamentalist tendencies, the latter is shown
inclined towards more traditionalist approaches. The two are often at loggerheads
over various sectarian issues: raising disputes on the refrains ya-Allah and ya-
Muhammad, whether or not to celebrate the birthday and mourn the death day of
the Prophet; believe or not in the mortality of the Prophet Muhammad in his grave
and scores of other such conflicts (Aslam, 2013, p. 80).

Season also reveals the double standards of the orthodox clergy, bitterly
lampooning the commoners "for having TV sets at their homes," deliberately
disregarding the debauchery, immorality, corruption, scandals, exploitations, and
looting of the landlords, bureaucracy, judiciary, and nouveau riche politicians
(Aslam, 2013, p. 121). For instance, having known about the illicit relationship of
Azhar, a deputy commissioner, with Elizabeth, a young Christian maid, Maulana
Hafeez compels her father that she had better convert to Islam (Aslam, 2013, p.
201). Zafri, a butcher in the novel, captures this true face of the clergy: "What
annoys me is the way these maulanas never preach to the rich people. They are
always asking us to come to the mosques" (Aslam, 2013, p.121).

While Pakistan's national narrative is silent about the oppressive role of

bureaucracy, judiciary, clergy, and aristocracy during and after the Cold War,
Season spotlights how "[f]ar worse things go on behind the walls of the bigger
houses" of these exploiters (Aslam, 2013, p. 55). For instance, a judge "corrupt to
the core" and "involved in politics" puts many "obstacles in the way of justice," fails
"to remand known criminals, even the murderers, in custody and allowing them to
intimidate witness," and gives "court credentials to some of the killers on the
Special Commission's list" (Aslam, 2013, p. 40-41). The deputy commissioner is a
known fornicator, yet no one dares to speak of his debauchery despite the fact that
the whole town frequently "finds a woman" in his house and one day a mob
instigated by the clergy drag the poor Christian maid by her hair, leaving her in torn-
clothes in the Street (Aslam, 2013, p.201), a landlord who considers the "Martial
Law" as an answer to his "prayers" because his “expropriated lands" and "mills" are
returned and his brother becomes a minister (Aslam, 2013, p.105). This nexus of
aristocracy, bureaucracy, judiciary, and clergy commits crimes against the
miserable masses, thereby muting their subversive voices on every forum.
Attitudinizing as guardians of the ideology of Pakistan, these agents tend to exploit
the marginalized groups, especially the working-class women and minorities.
Within Aslam's fictional schema, the clergy is generally bracketed with
bureaucracy, judiciary, and political aristocracy. Season displays one of the most
obvious manifestations of this collaboration. Here the clergy persists in nurturing
obscurantism and intolerance in society, preventing it from every progressive
motion. Unveiling the retrogressive role of the clerics, the novel emphasizes how
Maulana Dawood denounces the Japanese robot, stressing upon the sheer
imperfection of this scientific invention and further “emphasizing the superiority of
human body" (Aslam, 2013, p. 51). All are "misguided mortals" who attempt to
mimic "the Almighty's adroitness" (Aslam, 2013, p. 64). He invokes "Allah's curse
on science and the scientists" (Aslam, 2013, p. 64).Season further underlines the
dramatic empowerment of Pakistan's retrogressive clergy imposing its influence
soon after the emergence of Pakistan and going through a speedy evolution in the
subsequent phases of history and reaching its zenith under Zia's Islamisation.
Season's orthodox cleric Maulana Hafeez eulogizes Zia's dictatorship: "It will be
nothing like those months.
The whole country is now blessed by the grace of God. The General is a God-fearing
man"(Aslam, 2013, p. 159). Paralleling this religious encomium of General Zia and
his Islamisation, Season alludes to Ayub Khan's martial law in the 1960s which was
characterized by religious and patriotic fervent praising the Unitarian Islamic
identity of Pakistan. The novel alludes to the jingoistic and nationalist propaganda
of the state when scores of copies of Ayub's "The Little Green Book" containing
"the President's thoughts" were sent to "schools, mosques, cinema houses, hotels,
roadside tea-stalls" to prepare the whole nation for the war against India (Aslam,
2013, p. 195). Jaffrelot observes that this religious fervour of the 1960s could not
keep the West and the East Wings of the country united; it rolled on in 1970s,
getting stronger and more assertive than before, overpowering the apparently
liberal and secular leftists like Z. A. Bhutto, bringing him in a compromising state
and making him yield to the demands of the religious zealots to declare the
Ahmadis non-Muslims. Such a demarcation "between the Muslims and the non-
Muslims" opened the "floodgates for the persecution" of the non-Muslims
(Jaffrelot, 2002, p. 245). From Ayub to Bhutto to Zia down to the present, the
country has experienced serious constitutional and ideological impasses,
incoherence and inconsistencies, reflecting the grave impacts on the country's
subsequent moves and stances in the national and international affairs, thereby
leaving the country in a catch- 22 situation. Bold and unequivocal to deal with the
controversial social and religious issues related to the family laws and affecting the
women and minorities in Pakistan, Aslam's fiction provides provocative
investigations into the meaning of such disputed themes. It explores how the
surging religious extremism in the 1970s and 1980s give way to intolerance towards
other sects and minority groups including the Ahmadis. The novel highlights the
despicable, humiliating and indifferent behaviour of the majority Muslims towards
the downtrodden and the wretched from the minority sects and non-Muslims. In a
situation when the landlord Mujeeb Ali visits the deputy commissioner's house, he
meets Elizabeth, a Christian maid, who offers him a cup of tea which he declines.
She then smiles satirically and says; "[d]on't worry," "you'll be served in the cup out
of which the Muslims of the house drink" (Aslam, 2013, p. 127). Referring to the
issue of Ahmadis during Bhutto's secular premiership, Season mentions the tragedy
of Mr. Kasmi, a retired Ahmadi schoolmaster who is "from one of the villages that
were burnt down" in the sectarian riots against this community because they were
"outlawed by the previous prime minister in an effort to placate the maulanas and
to win over the religious vote" (Aslam, 2013, p. 134).
Season also introduces an interesting figure Wamiq Saleem appearing as a motif in
all of Aslam's novels. He is presumably a depiction of Aslam's father whom the
latter admires him for defiance of the military regimes. Wamiq's inclusion implies
that Aslam cherishes the two major aspects of the Progressive Writers' Movement
in the subcontinent: love and revolution. Season features Wamiq as an Urdu poet,
writing on the traditional lines of Persian poetry, sympathizing with wretched and
oppressed groups of Pakistani society and openly defying Zia's tyrannizing regime.
The devastated people love him for his stance against the oppression, adoring him
to the extent of worshipping. A policeman in Season has tattooed Wamiq's name
on his chest often recalling meeting him during an incident when the later was
being shifted from the Lahore fort to the Montgomery prison. Both these prisons
were notorious for their cruel treatment of the political internees in Zia's regime
(Aslam, 2013, p. 96).
Wamiq's internment at these infamous prisons suggests the conditions suffered by
dissidents during the oppressive regimes of the country.
(VI)A dialogue between local culture and global politics tends to be among the most
essential fictional imperatives in Aslam's works. His novels follow an unambiguous
line of enquiry that questions the state- authored hypothetical myths of national
integration imposed upon diverse cultural realities rooted in the local soil and
influenced by regional metaphors. Cultural tensions run throughout Season. It
depicts how Pakistani society experiences an unremitting loss of cultural cohesion
during the political shambles of the Cold War. Cultural tension negotiates with
Aslam's second favorite theme, conflict which lies at the core of his fiction,
morphing into schism of creed and disparity of class. Whereas the issues of class
emerge almost in similar ways in his fiction, those of the creed differ in manner and
magnitude. The latter form of conflict is represented in Season in more dangerous
forms of sectarian antagonism among various Muslim sects and thereby
highlighting the absurdity of imposing a unified Islamic regime on a diverse
community.