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A Beggar at the Gate
It tells the story of Mariana Givens, the English woman who comes in search of a suitor from the ranks of the colonial force. Instead of hooking up with any of the English officers, she is bound by love and a mysterious force to a motherless native child, Saboor, to whose father, Hassan Ali Khan, she is tied in an unconsummated marriage. Shunned by the British and not readily accepted in Indian society, Marianna makes the gruelling journey from Calcutta to Lahore at a time of turmoil in the Punjab. Maharaja Ranjit Singh has died, and there is a bitter and bloody battle for the throne. War, family feuds and intrigue are further vitiated by the British machinations, and Mariana, fighting for her own survival, gets sucked into the conflict. The journey leads her on
the mystical path to the home of Shaikh Walliullah Khan, her
father-in-law, and lest the point be missed, the title is derived from
the parable of the beggar who must go out in the cruel world to arrive
at love and the sight of his beloved. A sensual narrative with mystical
allusions and much beauty, this sequel to Ali’s first novel A
Singular Hostage, which introduces Mariana Givens, is the second in
her Paradise Trilogy. To those unacquainted with her first novel, it is
hard to catch up with the ‘story so far’ despite her attempts to
fill in the reader. This deficiency does not put one off any more than
the uneven pace, or the fact that there have been many romantic,
historical novels of the Raj with almost identical strands akin to Kaye’s
The Far Pavilions. There are other dimensions, especially the
spiritual, and a pervasive humanism that set this work apart. |
AT
a time when the international media is flooded with demonised images of
Islam reinforced by violence and terrorism, a novel on the Sufi theme of
peace, love and acceptance of the different is a refreshing read. More
so when it is a historical romance set in 19th century India, more
accurately the Punjab and Lahore, by a Boston-born
stockbroker-turned-writer of half-British descent who converted to Islam
and lives in Karachi. And Thalassa Ali lives up to M M Kaye’s
description of A Beggar at the Gate being "eminently
readable".