The conflict of life and death in Ghafir Shahzad's novel "Mokash"

Abstract

The novel "Mokash" by Ghafir Shahzad was published by Fiction House Lahore in 2023. In this novel, Ghafir Shahzad has tried to prove that some people are able to choose the place and time of their choice to die by making death a topic related to the deceased. Four characters in this novel, who are familiar to us to a recognizable extent, determine their own place and time to die. For example, Azhar Nafees, who lives in the narrow and dark streets of the inner city, dies at the radio canteen so that his relatives do not have difficulty in bringing his body to the funeral parlor, because in these streets he has seen the scene of another body being desecrated. This character's relationship with his past and present is so strong that the novelist had to create his counterpart to show it. Rahat Wasim, a curious person,'s progress towards spirituality, his attempt to hide his illness, and then his premeditation in choosing the place of his grave also reinforces the novelist's theory. After this, his mother's illness after coming to the city, the Corona epidemic The plot of dying and waiting until transportation was convenient, then dying in the city and then remaining safe in the hospital's cold storage for three days until the arrival of his children also serves as a major reference to the novelist's philosophy of life. And on top of all this, the story of Mustazad Ahsan Jamal dying among his loved ones in his village shows that these four characters were free to choose the place and time of their death, and despite not being able to defeat death, they did not become targets of its spirit of mockery. This philosophy has been discussed in the article.