“I want to tell interesting stories” is Omar Shahid Hamid’s somewhat unassuming response when asked why he writes. “Shouldn’t that be the primary goal of every writer? To tell an interesting story?”
Interesting is too mild an adjective to do justice to his third novel. The Party Worker (Pan Macmillan 2017) is a fast-paced work of crime fiction that follows four very different characters as they attempt to overthrow the leader of a political party that has dominated Karachi’s politics for decades. The power and influence of the Don can be felt in every corner of the city and the novel guides us through the streets of Lyari, seats us at the Pearl Continental for lunch and even takes us for a jog in Aunty Park. The story begins, however, with the attempted murder of the Don’s right-hand man, Asad Haider, not in Karachi but in New York - where some of the action also takes place. (For those who have followed Omar Shahid’s writing, this third novel, thus also provides a delicious test of one’s ability to guess which real-life situation he is referencing.)
In his first novel, The Prisoner, Hamid investigated a policeman’s relationship with Karachi. This time, Hamid says he wrote his third novel because he wished to explore the city through the eyes of those who live to serve - yet also live in fear of - a political party. In The Party Worker, Hamid shows us how even the most powerful, feared criminals are cogs in a machine more powerful than them. He does this by telling a story that is as thrilling as it is complex. In a city where everyone from journalists to gangsters is an opportunist, even the Don struggles to establish total control.
Hamid tells a story that is as thrilling as it is complex. In a city where everyone from journalists to gangsters is an opportunist, even the Don struggles to establish total control
Who is Asad Haider? We get a glimpse of him right at the beginning and then, for the first half of the novel, everything we know about him is told to us through other people: old friends, bitter rivals, hapless detectives. As one character, Byram, a crotchety old man who wants to avenge his son claims, “He is not with the Party, he is the bloody Party.” Though Asad is central to the story, Hamid ensures that the novel is not just about him. There Ismail, a journalist who manages to make his way into the inner circle of a formidable gangster. There is Detective Russo who takes us through the sections that play out in New York and a host of other characters who have been affected by the United Progressive Front party in one way or another.
This is a novel about Karachi, and in order for it to capture what Hamid calls “the gritty reality” of the city, it must also contain the backstories and motivations of a variety of characters. Nobody in this novel has an easy life or an uncomplicated way of seeing the world. How can they when they’ve lived in a city where children kick a severed head around like a football? The number of characters may confuse readers at first and the wealth of information can be overwhelming but these elements are arguably vital in a novel that talks about party politics and the sheer extent to which they can affect a city.
In Omar Shahid Hamid's novel set in Karachi, it eventually becomes clear that the characters are locked in struggle with the city itself
Even those who pride themselves on being experts on Karachi will be surprised by something or the other in the novel. Hamid writes each character with an understanding of how what each of them does feeds into the politics of the city. However, the motivations of these characters often come from wanting a little agency in a city where the only way to assert oneself is through violence and intimidation. In their most vulnerable moments, it is clear that Byram just wants a little justice for his son, Ismail would like to be more than a mediocre journalist and Guddu is wounded because he lost the woman he loved to a more powerful man. Perhaps Asad Haider’s most honest moment is when someone lauds him for agreeing to kill a rival and he admits that he is doing it solely for himself. Like everyone else, Asad too is trying to navigate his way through this complicated web in order to find some space to make his own decisions.
This is also how the party was born in the first place. Though the United Progressive Front is now a corrupt and merciless institution, Hamid’s characters often speak of the past and claim there was a time when it gave people hope for a better future. Hence, the party emerged out of a need to give people a certain political space. The novel maps the journey of the party and by doing so, takes a shrewd look at politics and at the emotions that political parties tap into in order to win and sustain support.
Hamid keeps his narrative as clean and as simple as possible but that doesn’t mean the prose is unexciting. Ismail’s sections are all written in first person, which Hamid admits was a risk. But the payoff is immense because these sections are the most riveting. Because the story is told through several different characters, there are times when it borders on the dense, yet the understated manner in which Hamid tells these stories ensures that the novel does not collapse under its own weight.
No matter who rises to the top towards the end of this novel, the story will leave readers with a sense of unease. Hamid makes it clear that those who emerge victorious have only won for the moment. Ultimately, even the toughest characters are no match for what they’re really battling: the city of Karachi.
