The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon: Dismantling Pakistan's class trauma through literary fiction

In Pakistan, you might be at a restaurant, and you’ll see a maid, nanny or helper holding the baby of their employer – but they aren’t seated with the rest of the family.

In the homes where they live and work, they aren’t served the same fresh, meat-filled meals the rest of the family eats – they’re given a simple vegetable dish instead. “There’s no concept of child labour – you might see a 12-year-old girl taking care of a 2-year-old,” says author, poet and lawyer Safinah Danish Elahi, rattling off observations about the poor treatment of domestic workers in her home country with a mixture of disgust and incredulity. “I think it’s so irresponsible to hire children to work jobs you would never expect your own child to do,” she adds.

We’re speaking over Zoom, just a few days before the release of her new novel, The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon, published by Neem Tree Press, and the week before the debut of Daurr, a Pakistani television series based on her first novel, Eye on the Prize.

"Much of Elahi’s writing is driven by a motivation to raise awareness, broaden perspectives and inspire change when it comes to societal mindsets that are unjust and outdated"

Elahi joins the call from Australia, where she is holidaying with her family. She wears a salmon-toned turtleneck and speaks passionately about classism – a topic that fuels much of her writing and is explored in her new book. 

“I think deeply about it because it’s very similar to a racial divide – it’s almost as if you’re from a certain class you live in a bubble and you deserve certain things that people working for you don’t deserve because of where they were born. They work for you; you don’t own them, but a lot of people act like they do.”

Nadia, one of the three main characters in The Idle Stance of the Tipler Pigeon, is one such domestic worker who is employed as a child and develops a close friendship with Misha, the daughter of her employer.

Along with Misha’s brother Zohaib, the young, naïve and fun-loving trio are as thick as thieves, until a tragedy alters their relationships forever. Years later, they find themselves in separate places and stages, still reeling from the trauma of this incident.

Elahi tells the stories of these main characters through their own perspectives – as children, and as adults. She writes around the tragic incident without delving into details, and readers are left guessing until the very end of the book. She also throws a curveball in the plot mid-way, with a completely unguessable twist.

Spanning different time periods and time zones, Elahi brilliantly inhabits Nadia, Misha and Zohaib, from their diverse backgrounds to their distinctive dialogues and thought processes.

While writing, she reveals the DNA of each character, formed from their deepest fears and insecurities and their utmost desires and aspirations, colouring them in a way that invokes empathy and makes them each relatable to readers.

Much of Elahi’s writing is driven by a motivation to raise awareness, broaden perspectives and inspire change when it comes to societal mindsets that are unjust and outdated.

In addition to delving into the class divide that can be so corruptive of South Asian culture, she also examines the topic of mental health, which is often perceived as taboo within this community.

One character in the story ultimately sees a therapist, and Elahi consciously spotlights the ways in which therapy can benefit those in need of healing from trauma. In between the lines, she also wordlessly critiques the resistance of other characters to seek therapy for themselves. 

"In addition to delving into the class divide that can be so corruptive of South Asian culture, she also examines the topic of mental health, which is often perceived as taboo within this community"

From starting her first draft to going through multiple rounds of edits and seeing it published this month by Neem Tree Press, the whole process took around three years. And in the middle of that period, Elahi was selected by the US State Department for the exclusive Iowa Writer’s Workshop Fall 2022 Residency. She packed her bags and stayed in Iowa for 10 weeks, immersing herself in all things creative writing with writers from across the globe.

Upon winning this coveted residency at The University of Iowa, Elahi wasn’t certain if she would actually be able to leave her children and go – but thanks to the support of her husband and family, was encouraged to take the plunge. She says that the timing was ripe for such a fantastic opportunity in both her career and family life. “I don’t think I would have accepted it if my kids were any younger,” she says.

While there, she worked on a story that’s still in progress, as The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon was in its final stage of edits. She says that the editing process was far more thorough than it had been with the publication of her first novel, Eye on the Prize, a commercial fiction story that was published locally in Pakistan in 2020, and tells the story of a group of parents in Karachi who are bound together by secrets, scandals and a competitive spirit.

Three years later, Elahi’s writing style has significantly evolved – even matured. “In a way, with Tippler I wanted to simplify things but also complicate things at the same time,” she says. “It goes deeper into the characters, and I’d call it literary fiction, so it’s almost like a genre switch for me.” She also sought to publish this story outside of Pakistan, so that it would be more accessible to international readers. “The publishing industry in Pakistan is still in its infancy,” says Elahi, who also founded her own independent press, Reverie, in 2021. She explains that prior to 2019, most books by Pakistani authors were published in India: “We didn’t really have much English fiction – we’re still kind of finding our ground.”

Nonetheless, Elahi’s work has not gone unnoticed – Eye on the Prize has been adapted into a television series which, currently airing in Pakistan, and she has been involved throughout the process. “I sat with the script-writers, and I did most of the dialogue,” says Elahi.

With her newest novel enjoying the potential to have considerably wider exposure, with a London publisher and presence in most mainstream bookstores (inaugurated by a launch event at Waterstones Gower Street earlier this month), I can’t help but ask if Elahi envisions The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon also being adapted into a TV series – or even a movie.

She says she can certainly envision her latest story making it to the big screen too:

“I mean, that’s the dream, right?”

Hafsa Lodi is an American-Muslim journalist who has been covering fashion and culture in the Middle East for more than a decade. Her work has appeared in The Independent, Refinery29, Business Insider, Teen Vogue, Vogue Arabia, The National, Luxury, Mojeh, Grazia Middle East, GQ Middle East, gal-dem and more. Hafsa’s debut non-fiction book Modesty: A Fashion Paradox, was launched at the 2020 Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. 

Follow her on Twitter: @HafsaLodi