Ghungroo

by Musa Javed Chohan

Ghungroo is both a nostalgic portrayal and a morose critique of a thriving city, through the eyes of a proud and spirited woman who once gazed at the city's panorama from a high station in life, but who through a tryst of fate finds herself barricaded in its underbelly. Lahore, the City of Gardens, is depicted through three generations, through the rise and fall, of a tragic figure longing for a place in a fluid and mercurial world. Ghungroo is a guide to a city of splendour from a voice that in the same breath articulates boasts of vanity, and yet speaks in hushed tones of melancholy and regret. The book has been praised for recounting three generations of modern Pakistan as a continuous narrative, and for the rich melding of its beauty, and its disfigured beauty, through a single life.

Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

Musa Javed Chohan, a poet and writer, is an Ambassador of Pakistan, having joined the Foreign Service of Pakistan through the competitive civil service examination in 1971. He has devoted nearly four decades to the service of his country, living in six continents, and having served in France, U.K., Guinea, Iran, Malaysia, Canada and New York at the United Nations. Musa started his schooling in Lahore and finished his university education there. He started his diplomatic career from that city. He holds four Masters’ degrees in English Literature; History; International Relations and Diplomacy; and Strategic Studies.

Musa has lived in every continent and presently resides in Canberra where his wife is Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Australia. To him, diplomacy is not
only about promoting peace, security and progress but also about identifying and promoting the essential humanity in people, irrespective of their race, faith,
culture or language. From this variegated perspective he has sought that human essence - of love - the driving force of individuals, which he has endeavoured to capture in his novel “Ghungroo”.

He is also the father of author Usman W. Chohan.