Animals, others, and postcolonial ecomasculinities: Nadeem Aslam’s The Blind Man’s Garden

Abstract

Nadeem Aslam’s novel The Blind Man’s Garden (2013) describes the post-9/11 international conflict in Afghanistan and its effect on a Pakistani character named Mikal, who ends up imprisoned and tortured by both Afghan warlords and American soldiers and remains especially cognizant of the multispecies nature of our world. In this article, I argue that even though the novel presents the toxic effects of hegemonic masculinity by depicting war, it also provides an alternative. In particular, Mikal, with his non-hierarchical response to the War on Terror, gender equity, and nonhuman animals, models much-needed helpful rather than harmful behaviours. I call this stance postcolonial ecomasculinity and link it to the way in which a snow leopard cub influences Mikal’s decision to rescue a US soldier by risking his own life and wellbeing. Even though the US soldier also befriends the same snow leopard cub, his hegemonic masculine desire for dominance makes it difficult for him to overcome his ethnocentrism. Similarly, Aslam’s novel depicts Rohan, who identifies with and appreciates nonhuman birds and trees, but because of his patriarchal privilege cannot see the ways in which women are also oppressed. As the novel ends, its women characters provide hope for Rohan, the blind man, to navigate through the garden, which is Pakistan, using a rope walk to connect Rohan to the plants and trees in the garden. These connections are symbolic of lessons in egalitarian masculinity, teaching not only Rohan but also two young boys how to live without domination and violence. As a result, we are left with images of pathways which broaden our vision of masculinity beyond the stereotypical.