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Mohammed Hanif is the author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes

What does spirituality mean to you?
The meaning has changed very recently, actually just a few weeks ago. I used to associate it with words like unorthodoxy, something which would never be part of the establishment, always challenging the order whatever it is, whether good or bad.
Then I read a phrase in a novel about Arabic poetry, explaining that spirituality is nothing but heavy breathing. And today I see it as the desire to create, whether a joke, or a chair, or a book. Anything.

How does it manifest in your day to day life?
It doesn’t. It doesn’t figure in my day to day life. More mundane things usually clog my life so there generally is no room for spirituality. Therefore there is not much room for creativity, and it is a daily battle. Most days I avoid that battle. I always think that tomorrow I will fight this fight. I keep delaying, procrastinating. I am very good at that.

Spirituality was never connected to a religious or metaphysical quest?
I used to read and listen to a lot of Sufi poetry and Sufi rituals, as they are practiced in Pakistan, in Penjab and Sindh mostly. I picked up from it some lessons about life which have stayed with me. There is a Sindhi poet by the name of Sachal Sarmast, who said “what is, is”, which sounds really banal when translated, but it is strong for me. He is talking about himself. There is also a brilliant episode in Shah Hussain’s poetry: he was being taught at some madrasa, where he came across this line in one of the religious texts: “life is a game”. He threw the book down the well and started saying “life is not a game, game is life” --- game, in the sense of playing. All this informed my way of seeing life.

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