The works of fiction of K. B. Vaid (born in 1927) question the relationship between postmodern literature and religiosity. The novel Dard lā davā (1975), a long non-referential monologue, close to the Beckettian "absurd" parallels the concepts of exile and the mystical quest, where the notions of "pain:, "doubt", "alienation" and "separation" are equally convoked. Nevertheless, the lack of "faith", as claimed by the author, finds its "raison d´être" in his refusal to employ definite religous categories, such as orthodoxy, the polarisation of Islam and Hinduism, and the divine authority itself when blasphemy is exploited. The religious discourse, the author insists, should be human, secular, mixed and polyphonic. The purpose of this paper is, primarily, to bring to liht the way Vaid´s most unreferential narratives continue to draw their metaphysical discourse from indigenous sources. Subsequently, from this metaphysical and mystical discourse, I will investigate the way the author elaborates a new form of "faith", non subservient to the constraints often conveyed to be orthodox religious discourses. What the author calls "mystical agnosticism" is not just a matter of the re-appropriation of an indigenous discourse, but also a matter of the hybridization of sources.
This paper takes into consideration the role of myth and religion in Kr̥ṣṇā Sobtī’s novel Zindagīnāmā [A book of life, 1979]. The introduction highlights the composition of Śāhjī’s household, where people of different faiths live, and explores the fellowship among Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, which was a distinguishing feature of Sufism in pre-partition Panjab. The introduction is followed by a section which deals with the core theme of myth and religion. Three main myths are dealt with in the narrative: the Islamic myth of Khvājā Khizr; a Hindu myth based on the concept of avtār; and the Hindu myth of the sun and the moon. When compared with the myth, however, it is religion which plays a more important role in the novel. The paper analyzes the subject of religion through three main characters: spirituality, through Śāhjī’s younger brother, Kāśī Śāh; religion in everyday life, through Śāhjī’s wife, Śāhnī; and human love and divine love, through the young Muslim girl, Rābyā̃, with whom Śāhjī falls in love. Her name recalls the greatest woman Sufi mystic poet, Rābi‘a of Basra (c. 717-801), who introduced the concept of Divine Love. As the theme of divine love is closely linked to Sufism, it is the love-romances of the Panjabi Sufi poets, in particular, that are incorporated into the story.