Book: A Beggar At the Gate

Author: Thalassa Ali
Publisher:

Thalassa Ali’s first novel A Singular Hostage introduced us to a “singular hostage” but an even more singular heroine – Mariana Givens, a nineteenth century Englishwoman come to India in order to find a husband. Instead, she finds the path to mysticism in the family of Shaikh Walliullah Khan, whose grandson Saboor has magical abilities, and whose son, Hassan Ali Khan, she marries in order to protect the little boy from the machinations of those in power in the Punjab. Now, in A Beggar at the Gate¸ Ali picks up the story, and we return to British India to see what happens next.

Mariana is back with her family in Calcutta, living in disgrace because of the “native marriage” that she conducted – but never consummated, thus preserving her chastity – with Hassan Ali Khan. Saboor is under her guardianship, but her aunt and uncle have decided that she must dissolve the marriage and try again with someone else of her own background. They will stop in Lahore, where the Shaikh’s family lives, en route to Kabul, in order to ask for Mariana’s divorce and return Saboor to his father. Mariana is torn between her love for her stepson and her wish to be a part of English society, so she agrees to the decision that has been made for her.

In the first half of this novel, Ali must catch her readers up to the events of the first book as well as set the scene for the events in the second. This she does as well as she can, but the details feel sketchy and incomplete, with never enough psychological insight into the minds of the characters, especially Mariana. There is no real reflection or soul searching into her decision to marry Hassan or now divorce him. Ali states over and over again that Mariana burns with love for Saboor, but the basis for this love is not clearly explained, and the child himself seems curiously one-dimensional. Mariana also comes off as superficial in some places; her main reasons for disliking people still remains the fact that they have “beady eyes”.

The journey to Lahore, too, is a little too reminiscent of The Far Pavilions, complete with a long baggage train, camels, elephants, and stallions, a haughty English lady, and a bumbling, amorous young English officer who focuses his attentions on Mariana and attempts to rape her. There are far too many British Raj novels with exactly these elements, and the “heat and dust” scenes sometimes just feel like a thinly-disguised attempt to describe the exotic locale and strange natives – babies playing in the dust, hawk-like men with Afghan rifles slung over their shoulders, mysterious couriers who have ridden hard day and night to deliver secret messages to the heroine. The novel is slow going at this point, and you get the feeling that this has been done better elsewhere.

Although Mariana Givens is the heroine of this story, you cannot help but feel that she is not exactly an active character. Events happen to her; things feel fated; she does not have as much of a hand in events as most protagonists in other novels do. But this is one of the elements of Sufism, in which the ego must take a back seat and allow God to direct the hands of fate around you. In fact, when Mariana is acting things feel more clumsy and awkward, and her actions almost always have disastrous results. She is not a very convincing romantic object either; she neglects her appearance and apart from a “beautiful, transforming smile” does not have much to offer in the way of feminine beauty. One wishes that Ali had explained or shown in more detail what exactly it is that draws Mariana and Hassan to each other and causes them to finally consummate their wedding, thus ensuring that divorce is not the simple affair her family hoped it would be.

However, much changes in the second half of the novel, when Mariana finally reaches Lahore and makes her way to the haveli in the Walled City with Saboor. The Punjab is undergoing a great deal of unrest, with the death of a king and a fight over the throne between the Rani and the king’s successor, Sher Singh. A battle royal is shaping up and Mariana finds herself and her relatives thrust right in the middle of it. While she is going back and forth between the English camp at Shalimar and the house of the Shaikh family, trying to negotiate her future, things are heating up between the rivals for the throne, and the end result is a bloody skirmish and siege of the city, endangering the lives of Mariana, her husband, and his family.

At this point the novel picks up and finally finds its wings. Ali weaves some of the key elements of Sufism into her story, including the parable of the Beggar who must go out into the city and discover the meaning of love and charity before he can see the face of his Beloved. This story, told to Mariana by the Shaikh’s sister Safiyah, illustrates another of the main tenets of Sufism, and plays itself out in several ways throughout the story, ending with Mariana’s own turn as a beggar pleading for charity at the gate of the Shaikh’s house during a crucial scene in the novel. This whole allegory is beautifully done, and reading passages relating to it, one gets the feeling that Ali has hit her stride here. Her prose combines simplicity with a spine-tingling elegance that stays with you long after the story is over and the other elements of the plot have faded away.

On the whole A Beggar at the Gate is a pleasing offering, involving one deeper into the trilogy that is possibly one of the world’s first Sufi-themed novels. Ali writes with more confidence and style than in A Singular Hostage, and although the first half of the novel is definitely weaker than the second, one finds oneself willing to overlook the minor flaws in favor of the greater whole. One reader complained that the three books should have actually been combined into one large novel, but this approach seems more thoughtful and gives the reader more time to digest the deeper spiritual elements. As with many things in the Sufi path, the plot is the superficial layer and the spiritual lessons underneath are the more vital part of the novel, but they have to be dug out with patience and care for the greater reward at the end of the story.

Finally, it’s a relief to find a novel that portrays the positive elements of Islam – the peace, love, charity and tolerance that are its true tenets, rather than the contentious image of Islam that has emerged in the media today. The constant repetition of jihad, violence, and terrorism has become tedious and Ali has stated in numerous interviews that in writing this trilogy she wishes to throw light on a more compelling version of the religion. If this is what Ali intended when she set out to write A Beggar at the Gate, then she has succeeded very well.