BOOK REVIEW
Mapping an Empire of Smoke
Review of Who Knows the Bounds of Desire
“All roads leading towards despair are devoid of floral traces; we don’t know where they will us take us,” notes Zehra Nigaah in one of her poems. Similarly, Noon Meem Rashid’s Andha Kabariya (the blind junk seller) laments how pa shikasta, sar bareeda khwab (broken and silenced dreams) lie strewn across the city. This woeful atmosphere swells to apocalyptic proportions in Osama Siddique’s Who Knows the Bounds of Desire.
Here, the elegiac strain intensifies, recording the fall, decay, and degradation of a city already in shambles. Remorse and regret turn into nostalgia. The once glorious past bears no resemblance to its present self. The rot runs deep, unapologetically. The monstrous expansion of the metropolis eclipses all logic, acumen, and character. What remains is a fitting modern day elegy for Pakistan’s colossal decline into the pits of a smoke empire, both literal and metaphorical.
The arrangement and design complement the lyrical flow of the narration. Two major characters take turns in this grand Dastangoi — time and city. The former recalls, remunerates, and records the golden and beleaguered, the rebellious and the subdued chapters of history in a performative satire. Memories and imagination abound. Fiction embraces experience, and vice versa. Alif Laila resurrects, and the portals to hidden realms open in fragments.
Just when one feels dreamy, the city takes over, simmering with its own laments. The pretentious, predatory, delusional, and corrupt hold the reins. Their self-aggrandizement strikes an absurdist note which is comical yet too relatable. The judiciary, academia, bureaucracy, and law enforcement, the whole state machinery, are reduced to a farce. An everyday spiraling of a country that no longer dreams, dares, desires, as it moves in constricted circles. In this mesmerizing chiaroscuro, Khalid and Tayyaba Khala resemble mourners around a city collapsing beneath a heavy sky.
The epigraph alone establishes the tone for a riveting act. Each chapter, each moment in time and space, carries its own set of tales within tales. The richness of the poetic and prose references thus curate a narrative that moves in loops and spirals, layers and rhythms. The chapter titles work like refrains, while the city, the lives, the heart, the space within and outside, and the memories come alive like a magician’s panoramic spell.
Get Maria Khalid’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
Siddique’s narration embracing poetry, intense satire, magical realism, adds grandeur, depth, and a sense of utter despair to this epic downfall. Are there any last straws to grasp, any star blazing in the darkness? Yes, but you have to meander through hidden, often crowded spaces to shade the flickering flames — the last hope, the lost hope, the art of creating from nothingness, from dust, the art of کوزہ گر (koozagar).
The potter, the narrator leads you through dark alleys, moonlit streets, and surreal gardens, the play of particles in evolving spaces, in medias res, encouraging readers to pick a strain and create their own melody of These Days, Those Days.
© Maria Khalid 2026
Who Knows the Bounds of Desire
By Osama Siddique
pp. 568, Book Corner, Pakistan
ISBN: 978–969–662–642–8
I started it in April, so while reading, T. S. Eliot’s lines kept playing in my mind:
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Do share your thoughts if you are reading it or planning to add it to your TBR. The book can be purchased from Book Corner from the following link:
