Joker

Reading Ashar Najmi's novel 'Joker' made me feel like I was sitting in a theatre. Ashar Najmi has visualized his characters as if through a pen. Secondly, I have always felt that every piece of Ashar's writing contains a subtle edge of humor. This stream tears our self to pieces and we don't even know it. This streak is present not only in his last two masterpiece novels but also in his editorials, his essays and his reviews. In 'Joker', this streak is further enhanced. A novel cannot be written without a sense of humor. Ashar's sense of humor gives 'Joker' depth and poignancy. The entire novel is a parody of human vanity in which not a single character but every character wears a 'Joker' mask on their face, although the masks are of different colors. 'Joker' is a merciless carnival whose spectacle we can neither laugh nor cry. (KHALID JAWED, eminent fiction writer)