This November, Syed Masood published his third novel, a heart-felt young adult novel titled Sway With Me. The quirky desi rom-com follows the story of Arsalan, a high school student who lives with his great-grandfather Nana. Arsalan’s life with Nana has been isolated, filled with chess games and word play. But when Arsalan sets out to find love, his path leads down unexpected roads.
Hayat spoke to Masood about his latest novel, which tackles family, culture, faith, and the age-old question: just why is the world round?
What were some highlights while writing this book? Moments you just really loved to write or things that surprised you?
This book came about from one of my favorite quotes: Mohsin Hamid wrote, “We are all migrants in time and space.”
I felt like I had already written a book, The Bad Muslim Discount, about a migrant in space. Because he physically moves, the protagonist moves from one country to another. So then I wanted to write about a migrant in time. The idea is: even if you live in your little small town for your entire life, the world goes on without you. Technology goes on, ideas change, and if you don’t move along with it you’ll get left behind. So you’re moving through time as well.
I thought it would be funnier if it was a young person who’s a migrant in time, because I feel like the isolated, older character has already been done. That’s how I came up with my current protagonist, Arsalan.
So then it becomes a question of: how is he a migrant in time? So I came up with the character of Nana, Arsalan’s great-grandfather, who is this grumpy sort of guy who has lived through many generations in his own family, seen a lot of tragedy in his own family, and cares about nothing but books but yet has to take care of this teenager. He doesn’t really know how. He tries to protect Arsalan by isolating him from society and technology. Then when Arsalan has to go back to public high school for the first time, he’s completely unprepared. And that’s when the hijinks start.
Sway With Me has a very rich cast of dynamic characters in addition to Arsalan and Nana, like Beens and Diamond. What would you say are the things your characters all share, and what are some of the things that set them apart?
Arsalan and Diamond are so different—Diamond’s a bro, and Arsalan is this bookish guy who has barely left home. The first scene they have together, Diamond kind of assumes, ‘hey you’re Muslim, I’m Muslim, so we’re gonna get along’. But Arsalan thinks, ‘you know, I’m not really practicing’, you know? And Diamond definitely is, so they’re in very different places with their faith.
So this initial assumption that they would get along…I thought that they would actually be antagonists. That was my plan for them. But it just didn’t work out that way. Arsalan’s lens of the world is contoured by his beliefs. And that’s the case with all my books. There’s another quote in this book that about how the beliefs that we inherit stay with us in some shape or form, whether we realize it or not we can never really be rid of that. They shape our view of the world, and that’s the case in all the books I’ve written, all of which have Muslim characters of various sorts.
So Arsalan is not practicing and he views religion with some skepticism, while Diamond’s all in. When I started writing, I thought it would be an interesting clash, but in the end it wasn’t a clash at all. And the reason it wasn’t is that even though they discuss religion, and even don’t necessarily understand the other’s point of view, they still don’t denigrate each other. They have a common respect for each other that lets a friendship blossom despite their differences. But it was completely organic, I didn’t plan it that way. I thought they were going to be opponents, but that’s not how it went. I’m glad it turned out this way though, I think it’s a very important message for young people.
Sway With Me revolves around both dancing and science in interesting ways. Are you a dancer or a dance fan? A science person?
I do not dance, but I enjoy the choreography and the mastery that Lollywood (the Pakistani Bollywood) has. I enjoy the art that goes into it, I enjoy the music. But Sway is also about this physics idea, I wanted to go with “Sway” because of the dance and Beenish, but also because of how Arsalan is thinking about the planets and gravity. So it works on both levels.
I’m not exactly a science person. I enjoy science in the way that I enjoy dance—from a distance. When new, cool stuff happens I like to know why it’s happening, but theme of the planets and gravity that runs through the book, how relationships and science have a lot of overlap, all that came from my own experience.
I was in the 9th grade, in Pakistan, and there was a physics lecture, and I was…not paying attention. And I made a joke to a friend of mine, saying ‘you know, all these scientists are always going on about stuff, but no one can even tell me why the world is round.’ And she starts laughing, so the teacher stops the class and asks what she’s laughing about. And she goes, ‘he’s asking why the world is round.’ And so this teacher, who was a PhD by the way I don’t know why he was working in our high school, he walks over, grabs my arm, drags me out of my chair…I’m thinking ‘oh man, I’m in so much trouble’…but he drags me to the front of the class and points at me and says ‘this is my best student!’
My grades weren’t super high, there are plenty of people who were smarter than I was going by grades, but he told us that those are the questions you have to ask if you’re going to have an inquiring mind. And then he explained it to me—he explained why the world was round.
Everything has gravity, and the closest particles can get to each other in a vacuum is a sphere. And that’s why in a vacuum, raindrops would be round, and that’s why planets are round. So while I was writing this, I was thinking about that concept, and it just spiraled from there. I went back to my old teacher and said ‘ok, so if everything has gravity, does that mean human beings have gravity? Does that extend to relationships, and if so, what kind of gravity is good and what kind of gravity is bad?’ I just ran with it.
Finally, if you could hang out with one character for a day, who would it be?
Oh that’s an easy one, Nana. For sure. Nana is the character I’ve been getting the most feedback on, people really like him. What’s cool about Nana is that he’s not perfect by any means, he’s actually a very flawed character. But he’s well-intentioned and he represents this idea that yes, tradition is important, but it can also become toxic. And when it becomes toxic you have to learn to move beyond it and let go of certain things, while preserving what works. That’s what Nana is all about.
I’ve been surprised by how positively people react to him, because he really messes up Arsalan in a way. It’s his desire to keep him safe, and his own baggage that he projects onto his great-grandson. But I think everyone realizes, and as he himself says, it came from a good place. I think that’s part of the human condition, one of the reasons people appreciate him, is that we’ve all tried to do good things in life and had the results be disastrous. I think that’s part of what people relate to and what I love about Nana.
Order Sway With Me by Syed Masood on Amazon today.
