Pages 181- 200

Summary of 181- 200 (Chapter 9)

By: Miller Schweizer

(Edited by Noelia Valero)

Isky appears everywhere on heroic posters announcing "A New Man for a New Century." Then, suddenly, Isky falls, is condemned to death, and thousands beg for his life to be spared. Then, Isky is dead and buried, but still casting his shadow, relentlessly murmuring in his enemies' ears. Arjumand, shut away in Mohenjo with her mother, fills herself with her father's legend in order to serve as his epitaph. Aged Rani cannot accept her dead husband being thus divinized.

Pakistan is divided into two Wings when Isky is elected prime minister under disputed conditions in the West Wing, but soundly repudiated in the East. President Shaggy Dog dispatches an enormous army to the East. Arjumand does not dwell on the fearful war, in which the idolatrous Indians backed the East to divide-and-conquer. The East Wing is reconstituted, laughingly, as a basket-case autonomous nation, Bangladesh. Hourly radio bulletins describe glorious victories by the Western regiments, right up to the admission of unconditional surrender. Isky places the shameful blame on Shaggy, but spares him a war crimes trial on the condition that he accepts house arrest. The people are cynical about the pardon, knowing Isky is the principal beneficiary of the civil war. He copies a scene from the film Alexander the Great, in which Richard Burton bares his chest to a cheering crowd to show the battle scars he bears. Isky packs away the old army leadership and installs Raza Hyder - which proves to be his worst error.

At Mohenjo, Arjumand remembers how fervently the people loved her father during the election and he reciprocated, diverting love from Pinkie. Arjumand hires photographers to snap pictures showing how old and pitiful Pinkie has become for her father to find. Isky knows without being reminded that he accelerates the aging process in the women in his life. Rani suffers less than Pinkie because she spends most of her time in Mohenjo. Precocious Arjumand, too mature for her age, realizes her father feeds on his women. At 23, Arjumand is also far too beautiful for her own good. She moves into the prime minister's residence and rejects her mother's letters proposing suitors. She and Haroun never communicate. She becomes a lawyer, joins the green revolution and prosecutes enemies of the state so ferociously that "Virgin Ironpants" takes on a new meaning. Isky comforts his daughter that there is no shame in being hated by enemies of the people. He is building a nation with strength and caring.

Isky is adept at handling mealy foreign interviewers, Arjumand sees, reviewing videotapes. Isky dislikes arguments and sets up the Federal Security Force (FSF) headed the clairvoyant Ulhaq, who can head off traitors. "Nobody can topple me," Isky's ghost says on tape, because he is the incarnation of the people's love. "Masses versus classes" is an old saw. The five who love Isky - Pinkie, Rani, Arjumand, Ulhaq and Haroun -- are so divided, Arjumand thinks, they may have caused his fall. Fat cats, smugglers, priests, socialites and factory bosses contribute, but the chief culprits are the ambassadors, U.S., British and Russian. The prime minister makes their lives miserable in every way possible. Having given the ninth U.S. ambassador a heart attack, Isky is prevented from working over a tenth when he is unseated in a coup.

Isky wastes away grimly in prison. The self-proclaimed "New Man for a New Century" used the glib slogan too early and Time takes revenge. Isky is hanged in the middle of the night, cut down and delivered to Ulhaq to be flown home to Mohenjo for burial. Rani demands to see Isky's face. Ulhaq is under orders not to show her. Allowed to kiss him through the shroud, Rani claws a hole with her nails to reveal the grey face with eyes open. A hanged man should have a blue face, bulging eyes and a tongue sticking out, Rani declares. Morticians might have fixed these things, but Isky's neck is clearly free of rope burns. Arjumand is disgusted by her mother and only understands when Rami declares, "They hanged a corpse." Rani knows about hangings because she saw Little Mir.

Important Explanations and Quotations:

1. “What is being born?- A legend. Isky Harappa rising, falling; Isky condemned to death, the world horrified, his executioner drowned in telegrams, but rising above them, shrugging them off, a compassionless hangman, desperate, afraid. Then Isky dead and buried; blind men regain their sight beside his martyr’s grave And in the desert a thousand flowers bloom” (Pg. 185).

This passage is important because it shows the cruel intentions of the time and the worldly matters ensuing. At the time, Pakistan is divided into two Wings when Isky is elected prime minister under disputed conditions in the West Wing, but soundly repudiated in the East. President Shaggy Dog dispatches an enormous army to the East. Arjumand does not dwell on the fearful war, in which the idolatrous Indians backed the East to divide-and-conquer. The East Wing is reconstituted, laughingly, as a basket-case autonomous nation, Bangladesh. Hourly radio bulletins describe glorious victories by the Western regiments, right up to the admission of unconditional surrender. Isky places the shameful blame on Shaggy, but spares him a war crimes trial on the condition that he accepts house arrest. The people are cynical about the pardon, knowing Isky is the principal beneficiary of the civil war. He copies a scene from the film Alexander the Great, in which Richard Burton bares his chest to a cheering crowd to show the battle scars he bears. Isky packs away the old army leadership and installs Raza Hyder - which proves to be his worst error.

2. “By the end of the period of house arrest, when Arjumand had Captain Ijazz imprisoned and tortured slowly to death, he was twenty- four years old; but his hair, like that of the late Iskander Harappa, had gone permanently white as snow. When they took him to the torture chambers he said just three words before he started screaming: ‘So, what’s new?’” (Pg. 200).

This passage shows the gruesome situation ensuing as well as the humor. While Isky wastes away grimly in prison, the self-proclaimed "New Man for a New Century" used the glib slogan too early and Time takes revenge. Isky is hanged in the middle of the night, cut down and delivered to Ulhaq to be flown home to Mohenjo for burial. Rani demands to see Isky's face. Ulhaq is under orders not to show her. Allowed to kiss him through the shroud, Rani claws a hole with her nails to reveal the grey face with eyes open. A hanged man should have a blue face, bulging eyes and a tongue sticking out, Rani declares. Morticians might have fixed these things, but Isky's neck is clearly free of rope burns. Arjumand is disgusted by her mother and only understands when Rami declares, "They hanged a corpse." Rani knows about hangings because she saw Little Mir.