YASIR SHAH
Writing Home

By Julia Steinberger
This article was printed in Abroad View magazine fall 2004

When Yasir Shah returned to school for his senior year two days after the release of his first novel in his hometown of Lahore, Pakistan, his friends barely noticed a change. That’s the way he wanted it.

Most comfortable when surrounded by friends, whether pulling an all-nighter in the computer lab or sharing laughs over nachos and beer, this 2004 graduate of Allegheny College in Pennsylvania melts easily into any crowd. It was the camaraderie that he found in his small college town, such a far cry from his big-city upbringing, that led Shah to look more deeply into his own culture and produce the story that became Shrine. The novel, a narrative that explores the bonds of friendship that transform the lives of three outcasts of Pakistani culture—a prostitute, an eunuch and a young masseuse—has earned international acclaim from reviewers.

“I was taking a walk on the beach with my father one afternoon while I was still in high school, and I came across the people who became my main characters—a female out with two strange men,” said Shah, speaking from his apartment in Washington, D.C.

He held the idea in the back of his mind for years, not sure how it would develop. Finally, after spending time with his friends at Allegheny, sharing the highs and lows that accompany the transitional years of school and newfound independence, he understood what he wanted to write about. “There are just people who we term outcasts; we think they have downtrodden lives, but they have each other. I thought to myself, ‘Wow, everyone’s human…why don’t you go talk to these people and see what their lives are about?”

When Shah returned to Pakistan the summer after his junior year to research his book, he had the opportunity to explore his own culture with the fresh eyes that he had taken to the U.S. “Research was fun. I’ve lived there, but I didn’t know what goes on in the city late at night. I went to a lot of places where I wouldn’t normally have gone. I asked questions that I never would have asked. I went to the mountains with my friends, to the shrine and to the red light district. I relived my story and filled in all of the blanks.”

In much of his writing, Shah uses dialogue to explore his own encounters as a foreigner in the U.S. “Basically, I’m speaking to people from my background,” Shah said. “I want to let people know that Americans aren’t harmful when they ask questions. They’re just uninformed. They just don’t have opportunity to find everything out.”

Additionally, he thought that most of the Americans he became friends with were quick to dismiss their own culture, because they felt it was so undefined. “They complain that there is no culture, but coming from a different part of the world, [foreigners] know that there is one. I love pancakes for breakfast, I love eating popcorn at the movies. It’s good, it’s fun, and you have to enjoy it. American culture today is a mix of all different cultures. You can go to New York City and eat in Little Italy and then walk a few blocks over and the streets are lined with Chinese shops and restaurants. That, to me, is American culture.”

He added, however, that one of the things that struck him most about the U.S. was how accepting his peers were of different cultures and how eager they were to ask questions when he talked about home. “A lot of Americans I’ve talked to, if given the chance to learn things, will, but no one knows where to begin the effort. It’s hard for them to realize that there is another side of the world. If they did have more cross-cultural learning opportunities, the world would be a better place.”

In D.C., Shah currently works as a counselor in an AIDS administration and testing facility. He plans to return to Pakistan to continue working with HIV/AIDS awareness programs after he has trained in the U.S., where he can access the most developed methods and technology for testing and controlling the disease.AV

Julia Steinberger worked for Abroad View after returning from Brazil in 2002. At the time this article was written, she had just graduated from Northwestern University and was working for both the Steppenwolf Theatre and the Medill Innocence Project in Chicago.