Another Gulmohar Tree by Aamer Hussein
What an extraordinary book this is! The first third of this short novel, or rather novella, of just over 100 pages, is made up of 25 very short chapters of interwoven jewel-like fairy tales, almost familiar but not quite, featuring frogs and crocodiles, in which a gulmohar tree figures.
The remaining 70 pages tell the story of the marriage of Usman, a Pakistani writer and Lydia, Englishwoman, who is an artist and illustrator. They meet in London after the War where Usman is spending a year on secondment to the Daily Telegraph. Both are in marriages that aren’t working. A few years after Usman’s return to Karachi, and the death of his wife and her divorce, Lydia follows him there: they marry, settle down and have children, drift apart. There is another flowering gulmohar tree in their backyard.
Sometimes the deepest emotions and most subtle of revelations are found in the simplest of stories. Although nothing much happens in Another Gulmohar Tree—the couple have children, Lydia immerses herself in a home away from home, Usman’s work turns him inward and away, Lydia (who has taken the more local name of Rokeya) finds success in her art—the ending is a triumph of gentleness and patience and a celebration of beauty in simple things and romance in everyday life.
Another Gulmohar Tree somehow manages to be both clever and charming, evocative and down-to-earth, old-fashioned in a comfortable sort of way yet immediate, laconic and brief yet expansive and vibrant. And it is, above all, beautifully-written.