Khafeef Makhfi ki Khwab Beeti:A Representative of the Postmodern Urdu Novel

Abstract

This article examines Mirza Athar Baig's literary standing and his novel Khafeef Makhfi ki Khwab Beeti as a representative text of the postmodern Urdu novel. The study first traces the author's fiction philosophy and experimental trajectory  from the themes of time and globalization in Ghulam Bagh to the technological "illusion" of cyberspace in Sifar se Aik Tak , establishing this as a precursor to the epistemic skepticism of the novel under study. The analysis then tests the text against key postmodern markers: interdisciplinarity, intertextuality, the power/knowledge nexus embodied in "Arzal Nasleen" and the dissolution of linguistic and generic boundaries, the treatment of metanarratives as satirical spectacle, active reader participation, and the balance of the local and the global. The study concludes that the novel's representative status lies not in flawless theoretical conformity but in the self-scrutinizing contradiction it leaves open between its class-based moral stance and thoroughgoing relativism.

References:

1. Mirza Athar Baig, “Mirza Athar Baig Se Guftagu,” Saeed-ur-Rehman, trans. Kabir Ali, Jaiza, March 20, 2019.
2. Irfan Aslam, “A Novel Should Have Something Novel About It,” Dawn, April 20, 2014.
3. Mirza Athar Baig, Khafeef Makhfi Ki Khwab Beeti, 2nd ed. (Lahore: Zahid Bashir Printers, 2025), p. 222.
4. Ibid, p. 11.
5. Ibid, p. 14.
6. Ibid, p. 428.
7. Ibid, p. 497.
8. Anwar Pasha, Hind-o-Pak Mein Urdu Novel: Taqabuli Mutala‘a (Delhi: Delhi Publications), p. 90.
9. Imtiaz Ahmad, ed., Caste and Social Stratification Among Muslims in India (Delhi: South Asia Books, 1973), p. 90.
10. Mirza Athar Baig, Khafeef Makhfi Ki Khwab Beeti (2025), p. 399.
11. Ibid, p. 955.
12. Ibid, p. 349.
13. Ibid, p. 311.
14. Munir Ahmad, Zunaira Siddiq, Asma Aslam, and Fatima Kazim, “‘Khafeef Makhfi Ki Khwab Beeti’: Mirza Athar Baig Ke Novel Mein Mawara’i Nafsiyaat, Bayania’i Tajurbaat aur Hai’ati Saakht Ka Tajziya,” Al-Athar Journal 2 (2025).
15. Mirza Athar Baig, Khafeef Makhfi Ki Khwab Beeti, p. 731.
16. Irfan Aslam, “A Novel Should Have Something Novel About It.”
17. Abdul Aziz Malik, “Novel Garaan: Pothohari Tehzeeb Ki Shikast-o-Rekht Ka Nauha,” Jahan-e-Urdu, September 2, 2020.