Mirza Waheed Explores Family, Loss, And The Digital Abyss

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Q: What was the genesis of ‘Maryam& Son’?

A: I began to think about a person like Maryam many years ago. You know, 2016-17... you had the emergence of ISIS and the destruction of Iraq. In those times, you always heard of these people in the news... ‘so and so has fled to Iraq, to Syria to fight’. But that's all you were given, there's no other way of finding out anything else about these people... So I began to think more and more of their families... I began to think, who are those people? What are they like? And then I began to think of a middle-aged woman, has a personality, is a perfectly ordinary lower middle class working woman, of British Indian origin, has a decent life in that she's made something of her life despite having had a setback. She's raised her son, who she dotes on and loves, and then he goes missing...
One of the things I was trying to do in the novel is that this is not the son's story, this is Maryam's story. This is not a story about radicalisation or indoctrination... I wanted to stay with Maryam and also explore aspects of her personality which have to do with her being a woman in London who has a life, has a mind, has her aspirations and longings and losses.

Q: There were so many things you brought out about a young widow suddenly putin the spotlight.
A: She's also under a spotlight of her own making because now she's beginning to see herself slightly suspiciously. So I wanted to explore that idea. What does surveillance do, but also what does being watched do? Who is the watcher in this dynamic? So ostensibly this person is watching her, but at some point she begins to watch herself... ‘Okay, what have I done all these years? Is that what I should have done, really? Is this who I am?’ And there is a bit of a slippery slope.

Q: The character ofJulian becomes that voice in many people's heads today questioning the magic of the digital world.

A: The world of tech is so immense and so enormous and so overarching that often... we take things as they're given to us. There's very little room left for us to examine and question and scrutinise those things. How is it determined that all these things are good and correct and true?... What happens in our world is we are asked to consume these things as they are packaged somewhere else. Whether it's an algorithm, whether it's AI, whether it's a tech boss, whether it's a bunch of capitalists, whether it's a few extremely hideously rich people, it’s all coming down to us from the top...
In my generation or even subsequent generations, the danger was outside... Don't mix with that kind of person, avoid those people... Now, we may keep our children safe indoors, but that danger has walked in, it's behind the screen in so many various ways that there is no way we can keep an eye on it all the time. And it's so deep, it's a labyrinth. This has been on my mind as a parent, but also as person who lives in this time... How are children influenced, what are they turning into, because you cannot control it...
There is a lot of influencing that happens on the internet. And when I say influencing, entire lives are shaped. So I did want to spend time on it in the novel and I did try to explore it. Okay, what if this person spent all his time online... She may have kept him safe... He's not mixing with the bad boys, but the question in the novel is: what if I don’t close all those loops?...
And we have seen it happen in our lives, in real time. Masses, large groups of people, influenced, transformed, radicalised, turned into something else or used for certain ends... We have seen it happen again and again, whether it's India or South Asia or Pakistan or Britain or the West...
Somebody is benefiting, whether it's the corporate tech bro, somebody selling cars or miracle drugs, or somebody selling hate or prejudice or bigotry...

Q: In today's world, you're not even considered to be an individual in existence unless you have a digital presence. And it's such a strange space, especially for all of us who've known a life before this.

A: It was simpler, but it was a nicer, softer, kinder world... I did want to look at the dark underbelly of the internet, but then I also don't want to make the novel about that... I wanted to stay with Maryam, and I think I have stayed with Maryam. But I did want to look at this dark underside, which is dark but it's not really underside. It's everywhere.