Dareechah-e-Nigaarish

It has become a trend in Sohnee Dhartee for retired Pakistan Army Generals safely settled in their farm houses in USA or elsewhere in the Developed World to write distorted apologies about the role of Pakistan Army Generals in the 70 odd years of Pakistan's history . . . More recently, a Pakistani General has co-authored a book on Pakistan's military adventures by collaborating with an Indian Army General . . . The obvious conflict of interest in such attempts to defend the numerous war crimes, genocide and human rights violations of Pakistan's Army Generals is like an elephant in the room which no one in general in Pakistan's Intelligencia talks about . . . 
Great writers like George Orwell warned us about such attempts to re-write history in Dystopian novels like "Nineteen Eighty-Four" . . .

However, when a beloved Urdu short story writer and novelist like Abdullah Hussein created Punjabi rural middle class characters like Ejaz who is a Labor leader and Pakistan Peoples Party worker as well as Major Sarfraz who is deputed to Balochistan to curb the ongoing insurgency there in the 1980s in his Urdu novel "Naadaar Loag Part-I" (Sang e Meel Publications, Lahore, 2014) he researched extensively with help from well respected people like poet and novelist Senator Fakhar Zaman (Pakistan Peoples Party),  Pakistani historian K. K. Aziz, historian Ahmad Saleem, historian Yahya Amjad, novelist Muzaffar Iqbal, Colonel Mehmood Ahmad, Colonel Faiz Naqvi, Captain Aurangzeb, human rights lawyer Mohammad Rasheed, politician Ghulam Nabi Kulloo (President, Mazdoor Kissan Party), labor leader Aslam Shaad (Bhatta Mazdoor Ittehaad).

Also, Abdullah Hussein's previous novels Udaas Naslein and Baagh have already earned him a following of large numbers of thinking Pakistanis and the Pakistani civil society and given him an unassailable credibility. Here are photographic excerpts from his unfinished novel Naadaar Loag Part-I where the character Ejaz is visited by a man who entrusts him with some top secret documents relating to the role of Pakistan Army Generals in the genocide of East Pakistan's bengali speaking population and the consequent Fall of Dhaka in December, 1971 which led to the break up of Pakistan. This genocide of East Pakistani citizens ordered by Pakistan's Army Generals has been documented in various books by independent authors including anthropologist Jared Diamond in his book The Third Chimpanzee.  . . .

Was Symbolism a major tool in the narrative of the novel "Baagh":

Upon reading my extended excerpt from Abdullah Hussein's novel "Baagh" Mohtarama Fahmida Riaz commented thus:
ویسے مصنف نے اس ناول میں کہنا کیا چاہا ہے ، آپ کو کچھ اندازہ ہوا ؟۔۔سانس کی بیماری اورجنل سمبل نہیں ہے یہ ٹامس ماں کی میجک ماونٹین سے لیا معلوم ہوتا ہے ویسے میجک ماونٹین کا ہیرو بھی ایک پہاڑ پر علاج کرانے جاتا ہے ۔۔
Translation: What did Abdullah Hussein want to say in this novel... do you know? The protagonist in this novel has trouble breathing but this is not an original symbol... it seems to be borrowed from Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain" where that novel's hero also goes to a mountain resort to cure his ailment.... Fahmida Riaz.

In Reply to Fahmida Riaz :
Mohtaram Fahmida Apa: Many thanks for your comment... my personal opinion after reading ALL of Abdullah Hussein's writings as well as those of Quratulain Haider is that Abdullah Hussein did NOT use symbolism as his dominant story telling method... his writings may have symbols (such as the penniless vendor who stops his bicycle at every road crossing and yells out "Chor Ucchakka Chaudhry tay Ghundee Run Pardhaan!")  but they are secondary in his style of story telling... so whether a reader like you is reminded of Thomas Mann's symbols when reading Abdullah Hussein's "Baagh" is immaterial.

Abdullah Hussein may have read Thomas Mann's creation which you refer to (Magic Mountain) and it may have resonated within him to such an extent that he ended up using it in his own work... speculative but possible. However, it has no relevance to the main thrust or main message of Baagh... Abdullah Hussein meant Baagh to be read as a Love Story (that was the sub-title he typed out below the main title "Baagh"; he wanted Udaas Naslein to be read as a love story too).

Personal, palpable, soul fulfilling love between man and woman is the theme of "Baagh" and he wants to show us a very "up close and personal" portrait of such love and how it is thwarted by the Evil (hence the Tiger or Baagh) lurking within human society. In Baagh, the evil is in the shape of the scheming Pakistan Army ISI official who recruits Asad for espionage in Indian Occupied Kashmir and who is the ultimate assassin of Asad at the end of the story. If you do want to drag symbolism into this then the Tiger or Baagh is the Pakistani Establishment and the prey or "shikaar" are the Pakistani people!!

Abdullah Hussein shows a radiant and living, breathing portrait of human love to us at many places in Baagh and especially in its last scene where Yasmeen clings desperately to Asad during their last night together !! The same can be said of many scenes in Udaas Naslein between Naeem and Azra and also for many scenes depicted in his last novel, Naadaar Loag. Abdullah Hussein's style is humanistic, warm, palpable and direct (you won't find too many cold, calculated "symbols" in his writings) ... this sort of story telling is what Nobel Laureate Chinese novelist Gao Xinjiang called "the actualization of Language!!"

Symbols may be present in Abdullah Hussein's works but they play a secondary role (in my humble opinion) in the story telling art of Abdullah Hussein. Otherwise, his writings would have remained obscure and would be read by only a few critics who focused on Symbolism in Art. However, the general Pakistani reading public immediately welcomed and embraced Abdullah Hussein's writings (they couldn't have cared less if he used symbols or not) and he became an overnight success in 1963 after publication of Udaas Naslein .... he won the prestigious Adam Jee Award for it and his fame has been spreading within Pakistan, across the border to India and to the world beyond Pakistan ever since . . . especially the Pakistani and Indian diaspora now settled in countries of the developed world !!