Out of all of Gen Zia’s children of dictatorship, M. Hanif, the author of the new novel, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, is the lost sibling I’ve been searching for most anxiously.

Of course, given that we grew up in an era of sexual taboos and forced abstinence, the state made sure I could imagine no other social relationship with him (or any man, for that matter). So brother it must be. I say ‘lost’ because as a generation to find us you will have to search deep inside the closets of depoliticisation, cultural vacuity or, increasingly, layers of beards and hijabs.

Hanif is amongst the few of us who didn’t recede into any of these. Instead, he rescues those years and writes about how they made us damaged goods. No one from the next generation will get the real importance of his title, but in our politically incorrect hearts of the 1980s, only we know how we waited for that crop of mangoes for 11 years.

In Mangoes, Hanif’s strength is his complete and unapologetic irreverence. Every page reeks of a historical mockery of the Gen Zia years and the plot revolves around a reinvention of political moments and opportunity. It is as if the novel is trying to reclaim the dark years of militarisation, drugs, lies, torture, cultural asphyxiation and most of all religio-political hypocrisy. But not in the way that we activists, sociologists or researchers do.

In my attempt to search for the cultural impact of the Zia years and as I look to further my activism which germinated in that political wasteland, I am always too earnest, trying too hard and getting nowhere.

Hanif doesn’t insult the ‘oriental mind’ by explaining to any western audience about the twisted laws or bizarre social and political culture that suffocated us. He doesn’t look to be rescued either. He merely recollects and laughs while doing so. While we struggle to document and learn about ourselves from history, this novel is mostly a political mystery.

The highlight of the novel, however, is General Zia. Writings on dead leaders are either academic in nature, or veer towards hagiography. Hanif remorselessly reduces Zia to a pathetic cartoon of a man, who is constantly nagged and whose piety, instead of redeeming him, only makes him seem more comical. In fact, there is a strong critique at the start of the novel of the policy of mixing politics with religion, a policy that Hanif holds Zia responsible for.

Dictators do not have a support base or a legion of admirers, and clearly, General Zia is no exception. He is seen sharing notes about hanging onto power with Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, another dictator who came to a sticky end.

The novel also pokes fun at the omnipresence of the ISI in Zia’s time. Zia’s security chief is surprised when Mohammed Ali Jinnah winks at him from a portrait in Zia’s study. Upon further investigation, a hidden camera is discovered behind the eye of the founder of Pakistan. Even Jinnah is reduced to a device in an intelligence surveillance system.

While the satire and humour make for an enjoyable and gripping work, which can best be described as a political thriller with a twist, one cannot lose sight of the courage that Hanif must have mustered to write such a novel and get it published in Pakistan. The book relentlessly ridicules not only Zia but also the anarchy and mistrust in the top brass of the armed forces, the smugness of the Americans based in Pakistan and just about everybody who comprised the powerful elite in Pakistan during the late Eighties.

It then deteriorated into a long, boring and depressing litany of torture, childish intrigue and improbable plots.

It did continue to be somewhat amusing now and then, and a sad commentary on the politics of Pakistan, but was too much for me. I made it about half way through and then reluctantly closed it and did not finish.