Are You Enjoying?

Description

An exhilarating debut by a young writer from Pakistan: provocative, funny, disarmingly original stories that upend traditional notions of identity and family, and peer into the vulnerable workings of the human heart.From the high-stakes worlds of television and politics to the intimate corridors of the home–including the bedroom–these wryly observed, deeply revealing stories look at life in Pakistan with humor, compassion, psychological acuity, and emotional immediacy. Childhood best friends agree to marry in order to keep their sexuality a secret. A young woman with an anxiety disorder discovers the numbing pleasures of an illicit love affair. A radicalized student’s preparations for his sister’s wedding involve beating up the groom. An actress is forced to grow up fast on the set of her first major TV show, where the real intrigue takes place off-screen. Every story bears witness to the all-too-universal desire to be loved, and what happens when this longing gets pushed to its limits. Are You Enjoying? is a free-spirited, confident, indelible introduction to a galvanizing new talent. “Fresh, intelligent, and bold: Mira Sethi’s stories open up fascinating slices of contemporary life in Pakistan.” —Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West“Mira Sethi has an extraordinary talent for capturing the vulnerability of people caught in the contrasting currents of modernity and the past. These are complex, delicate stories, alert to both the comic and the tragic. And while they focus on characters changing in a changing society, there is a timelessness about Sethi’s work that I think comes from her precise observations that a reader will remember like lines of poetry, for their beauty.” —Kiran Desai, Booker Prize–winning author of The Inheritance of Loss “A powerful book with a light touch, marking the arrival of an assured storyteller…Sethi is operating in a rich tradition of South Asian storytelling, but also, with the distinct and vibrant perspective she offers, making it her own.” —Vogue
“Are You Enjoying? is emotional, equally hilarious, and gutting. I couldn’t put this book down because I’d been welcomed into the most intimate parts of these characters’ lives.” —Rupi Kaur, author of Milk and Honey
“It’s pure joy to read this book…Bracingly sharp…While Sethi clearly has fun with her characters, she also treats them with sensitivity and compassion.” —Refinery29“Perceptive, witty, and beautifully written, these stories open unusual windows into the world of young, urban South Asians. Signals the arrival of a hugely gifted young writer.” —Amitav Ghosh, via Instagram“A striking debut collection…Fascinating…Sethi’s writing brings a fresh view to Pakistani life.” —Publishers Weekly
“In her provocative and deeply satisfying debut story collection, Sethi brings a fresh, smart twist to life in Pakistan mostly through the lens of young women…Sethi keenly catches subtle class and status distinctions but also brings wise insight into her characters as they grapple with questions of relocation and dislocation and matches it with a sharp edge.” —National Book Review“With #OwnVoices nuance and precision, Sethi both exposes and enthralls.” —Booklist (starred) 
“Biting and incisive stories…especially striking for their portrayal of hidden homosexuality.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Vibrant, incisive, and provocative.” —Buzzfeed
“Mira Sethi knows of what she writes…A welcome addition to the canon.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A voice that is as fresh as it is formidable…Sethi’s stories are a real crucible for personal and national feeling, and she evokes a harrowing sense of ‘lostness’ through her characters…Enormously compelling.” —Dawn “A delightfully daring debut . . . Enthralling, and at times heart-rending . . . A sweeping critical reflection on South Asian society, set in the day-to-day hustle and bustle of life in contemporary Pakistan . . . Sethi pulls back the curtain of propriety to highlight hypocrisies and scandals not for the sole sake of exposing them, but to give a glimpse into the emotions and experiences . . . Sethi crafts characters with layered complexities.”—The National “Sethi’s stories apply an admirably sharp and witty lens to a spectrum of young, urban Pakistanis. This is an important demographic and one that deserves to be presented to a global audience often subjected to reductive media portrayals of Pakistan.”—Foreign Policy“Sethi writes about class mobility, sexuality, and gender inequality with care and complexity . . . Here, Pakistan is not a set of binaries seen under western eyes; it holds its own place in the world.”—Sana Goyal, Irish Times “Delightful and refreshing . . . A debut worth applauding . . . The trope of Pakistan as a failed state, struggling under the weight of terrorism, has become so jaded that it needs to retire. Beyond the stories that reinforce stereotypes about the country, there are many others waiting to be told—of people who love, dream, hustle, scheme and cross boundaries. Are You Enjoying? probes their lives with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.”—Chintan Girish Modi, Open magazine “The perfect airport read . . . The stories are quick, crisp reads that nudge the reader into the everyday lives of the relatable protagonists . . . The boundaries between the real and the fictional are enticingly blurry.”—Navmi Krishna, The Hindu
“A breath of fresh air . . . Strong stereotype-smashing female protagonists bring these stories to life.”—Mita Mistry, Eastern Eye “Mira Sethi is a skilled writer: her narratives are well-paced, the characters nuanced, and the social critiques subtle. These stories overturn any stereotypes we might have of Pakistani culture and about Muslim women.”—Nalini Iyer, International Examiner MIRA SETHI is an actor and a writer. She grew up in Lahore and attended Wellesley College, after which Sethi worked as a books editor at The Wall Street Journal. She has written op-ed pieces for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. Sethi regularly appears in mainstream Pakistani drama series on television. She lives in Lahore, Karachi, and San Francisco. Breezy Blessings 
How many girls from good families have gone into this line of work? I’m not the type of mother who says, ‘Sit at home.’ But do something decent I say. Now look at your sister.”
 
“I’ll marry whomever you want me to marry,” Mehak said.
 
“All day I’ll be left alone with this useless man,” her mother said, unafraid of her wounding candor about her own husband, who sat at the edge of the sofa stirring sugar into his tea. Mehak’s father did not look up.
 
Afterward, he went to Mehak’s room and took her hand in his own. Mehak looked at his hand, strewn with black wisps of sideswept hair. He smiled, and told her not to worry: it was her first lead role, and there was no doubt in his mind she should take it. One day, when she won Best Actress at the Jeet TV Awards, he would give the speech.
 
“I love you, Abbu jaan,” she told him.
 
She returned the director’s call as her father looked on.
 
“It sounds perfect, sir,” she said on the phone. “I’m over the moon. I’ve been a fan of yours for sooooo long.” She tapped the speakerphone button.
 
“So sweet of you. And feeling is totally mutual. I wanted someone sweet, even little bit shy. The story is little violent. Nothing serious. Just a few slaps.”
 
Mehak said it would be her honor. She looked at her father and shrugged.
 
 
 
Two weeks later, in a large apartment complex by the name of Breezy Blessings, Roshan tipped a tray before Mehak. “VIP chai for you, moonface.” He lifted his shoulder in a shy heave and laughed, his own words a thrill, a tickle.
 
Roshan’s fitted T-shirt and denim bell-bottoms made him look like an overgrown boy, which Mehak supposed he was, considering he was twenty-one. His eyelashes dipped and curled and seemed to smash up against the glass of his purple spectacles.
 
The anticipation of Roshan’s teasing grin, the taste of Lipton Yellow Label whipped with powdered milk, had become the high point of Mehak’s day: a gracious ceremony between two people who’d met just a few days before. Unlike the rest of the crew, who treated Mehak as if she were a gnat in a well-oiled machine, Roshan had conferred an aap upon her the moment they’d been introduced. This gesture of respect, as gentle as it was solemn, had touched Mehak more than she could say. She was, after all, a year older.
 
 
The same evening, as Mehak stepped into the ironing room to retrieve her clothes, she pulled herself back: Roshan was leaning into a boy. His lips grazed the boy’s ear and his chin hovered, as if depositing a secret—or a kiss.
 
Mehak hadn’t imagined Roshan’s life beyond the churn of duty: running in and out of rooms replenishing cups of chai, bottled water, reused makeup sponges glistening with soap.
 
Mehak swiveled around and, in her nervousness, shut the door behind her with utmost respect.
 
Roshan yanked open the door and stepped outside.
 
Mehak looked him in the eye. “I didn’t see a thing.”
 
The stranger bolted.
 
Roshan opened his mouth, his eyelashes rippling in panic.
 
Mehak said: “Won’t say a thing. Didn’t see a thing.”
 
“If you didn’t see a thing, why are you telling me you didn’t see a thing? I know the type of girl you are. I know you’re seeing everything.”
 
“No!”
 
“My heart beats fifty-two times a minute. Every time with the permission of Allah.”
 
She blinked, hoping to invite a revelation of some sort.
 
“When a baby is thrown into the crib for the first time, the direction in which his feet fall tells the mother the direction her son will walk for the rest of his life: left or right.” A vein rose on Roshan’s forehead. “My feet fell to the left. So now you’re going to judge me?” He glared at her. “My mother is my life. Everyone else I don’t care about.”
 
“Please understand—”
 
“Last night a stranger messaged me saying my family doesn’t love me because it’s haram to love me. I got so upset I uploaded a photo of myself without a shirt. Lots of ‘likes’ came. Then I
was relax.”
 
“I promise I won’t say anything,” said Mehak. “That was the point I was trying to make. I don’t care what you do in your private life.”
 
He looked at her suspiciously. “Promise to Allah?”
 
“Promise. To Allah.” US