A Short Story By Aamer Hussain

1. The swan’s wife
ALI HAIDER

2. SOME MAJOR REFLECTIONS
Exile and displacement.
Alienation.
Love and youthful exuberance.
Post world-war Europe.
Migrants and refugees settlement issues.
London as a multi-ethnic hub and city of connection.
Restriction, posed by social norms, for women, in their
choice of lifestyle during 7o’s.

3. SOME MAJOR REFLECTIONS
Females connection with nature and innocence.
Males exploitation of women and their indifferent
attitude towards nature.
Mixing of traditional Indian myth culture with story,
reinforces the concept of Pluralism.

4. Characters introductions
Maia :
A Serb (Yugoslavian) refugee girl came to Britain during
the post-world war II era. (Josip Broz Tito’s revolution
spread during the cold war era. Tito’s was a communist
revolutionary and political leader. During his regime many
Serbian Christian orthodox believers preferred to left the
country and took refuge in Britain)
Maia is beautiful and charming damsel, Searching for her
real self and for the love in a society whose norms are
directly in clash with her bold manners. Unrequited , she
is bound to find escape in Nature and Birds , In alcohol
and romantic reveries.

5. Characters Introductions
UNKNOWN NARRATOR:
The unknown narrator was a migrant from
Pakistan. He is obliquely compared with the
swan, a bird , named “satin” in the story.
He is student of arts and enjoy the company of
Maia. Deeply, he loves Maia but never shows his
feeling to him because he feels, Maia is bit more
sophisticated by his standard, she has many rich
lovers and he is only a student .

6. Characters Introductions
Maximilian:
Maximilian is black, hair long nose guy. He pretends
to be rich in his life . He was basically a trickster who
finds resemblance with crows of the traditional myth of
Punjabi Raja Rasalu.
Max keeps Maia waiting for getting rid of her first wife.
He never gets divorce from her. He wants to keep Maia
as his “keep”.
Maia’s Mother: The women who is introduced in the
start of the story with reference to Maia’s up bringing.
She is the lady who was responsible for their safe
escape from Paris. She allows Maia to enter the
fashion world.

7. Characters Introductions
Fabi :
Fabi was narrator’s class fellow. He is a
play boy and has a very calculated approach
towards the life. Being a science student he
loves numbers. He rightly guides narrator to
get rid of Maia. As Maia was a complete hoax,
who according to him can not be the right
choice as she always remains on the run for
other guys. Specially for those who are rich.

8. Central Theme
The theme of love and youthful exuberance
is the central theme upon which the whole
story is constructed. Another allied theme
associated with it is the theme of treachery
and deceit.

9. Plot Summary:
Exile and displacement:
“Maia parents were from a Balkan province
that had changed hands and name after
world war II…He defected with his wife and
his two children….They moved to London via
Paris, as refugees.”
“You’ll be twenty five in spring; you have your
studies to finish next year. And weren’t you
planning to go back to Karachi with Dad next
year?”

10. Love and youthful exuberance.
 “She took a photo graph of me and embracing
the tiger and giggled because it actually wasn’t
stuffed at all; it was a mere fake …she loved
taking photographs and she loved her polaroid
camera. She took pictures of me: singing ,
dancing , and posing in every angle one evening
when the rain coming hard outside….the she
disappeared into her bedroom, and emerged
dressed up as some long-gone Hollywood diva:
Ava Gardner, perhaps, her favourite…”

11. Alienation.
 “She seemed restless; I felt her loneliness. Max
had stopped talking about divorcing his wife;
she was completely opposed to the idea of being
the ‘mistress’, as she put it , of a married man.”
 “I’m sick of it all, I said. ‘I miss her when she
leaves. Then just as I get used to her being
away, she turns up, and if I can’t see her , she
sounds offended, she regularly breaks promises
she makes.”
I was alone and had almost no friend in
London.

12. Restriction, posed by social norms, for women, in
their choice of lifestyle during 7o’s.
 Now others names were appearing on her list of
suitors. An ageing MP.A Saudi princeling. But all of
them seemed to be spoken for…..
At seventeen she joined a troupe of dancers and played
some minor roles on television, and even a bit part in a
bond movie, but she wasn’t suited to that life, she said “
too many foul old men with sweaty hands”.
Maia was on and off planes every few days . i was never
very clear what sort of business took her away-she said
she was attending fashion shows and buying new
design…she was happiest at airports and in hotels.

13. Female connection with nature and innocence:
But most of all she loved a swan she called
Satin. On Sundays we went to the park to feed
the birds….She would feed him pellets of bread
she’d moistened in her mouth…..
He’s wounded,’ she said, I know. He’s hurt his
wing or a foot.’
For a woman who loved birds so much and
couldn’t bear to see a stray dog or cat on a street
corner in some southern city …..

14. Males exploitation of women:
She’d met many , many men who only wanted a
brief fling….
He walked into the store one day and my
manager told me to help him, ‘she said’. ‘He
bought the most expensive dresses in the store –
for her sister, he said …and the day after I
received, gift-wrapped, the one I liked the best,
with a bunch of roses and an invitation for a
glass of champagne.’

15. Mixing of traditional Indian myth culture with
story, reinforces the concept of Pluralism.
Writer very skilfully mixes up both mythological
stories and narrative fiction, giving rise to a technique
which is known as “Magic Realism.”
Both mythological story and general narrative give rise
to a compact story.
Mythology comes from the Punjabi folk lore tradition.
The story is about Punjabi Raja Rasaul, who is out on
an adventurous journey. But on his journey he passes
through many ups and downs.
Swans’ stories within the real story work as
forerunner to what comes in the general story.

16. Mythology:
Narrator recognise himself with the male swan
which doesn’t save Maia from the crow (Max) ,
who is trickster like crow. And finds his facial
resemblance in a crow when he is introduced in
story with the demeanour of crow like nose.
“In the coach , on my way back home in the
winter darkness, I remembered a picture of a pair
of swans in the book I’d lost. One was skimming
the deep blue water, looking at the sky; the other
raised her head from what seemed at first glance
to be a tangled nest of thorns in the river.

17. Mythology:
But if you looked again, you could see that she
was in the embrace of a giant black bird, his grey
beak at her throat, one black talon on her wing
and the other on her white and bleeding breast.
But why in the picture swan looking away from
the crow and from his bleeding wife?
“Between you and me there is no kinship: those
were the words swan said to the crow when he
offered him refuge.

18. Mythology:
King Karan story in the beginning is also mythology
based , lake Manasa in real is lake Manasarovar ;
which is the highest body of freshwater lake in the
world fed by the Kailash Glaciers.
 The lake is revered a sacred place in four religions:
Bön, Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism.
According to Hinduism, the lake was first created in
the mind of the Lord Brahma after which it manifested
on Earth.
In Hinduism, Lake Manasarovar is a personification of
purity, and one who drinks water from the lake will go
to the abode of Shiva after death.

19. TREACHERY AND DECEIT:
“But you said you were going to see the Nile in
the winter with Max”… “ Changed my mind.
That bastard hasn’t done a thing about his
divorce.”
But Maia, I’m not going to be here. I’m going to
Rome over the Christmas break. I’ll be gone by
then , before the rush begins.’
Then she looked up and said , “But you’ll come
back for the New Year, won’t you?”

20. TREACHERY AND DECEIT:
Yes , I said, I’ll be back to spend it with you,
Maia.’
A few months ago I’d have told her she had
dreamed it all…..that I didn’t know a thing about
the comings and goings of swans or their
seasonal habits and even if I’d ever cared I didn’t
any more …..
 But tonight I thought I’d leave her with her
fancies of a big white bird preening his feathers
and spreading his wings on the frozen winter
lake ..

21. TREACHERY AND DECEIT:
I leaned over the debris of dinner to kiss her cheek
, but it was her mouth that met mine…Let me order
us a Cognac for the road, I said, ‘ Then I should
walk you home.’
But no one knows that if the narrator is going to
use Maya like other men , then leave her?
Or will she seduce him to stay with her because
she’s afraid he will walk out otherwise?
Or will he just drop her home?
Why did she kiss him.

22. THANK YOU