Strange Strenuous Suffocation

Like his other two essay collections, Shahan has come up with some very serious topics in this book. This book is a collection of thought-provoking personal essays.

The author presents Pakistani culture as repressive. "A Cultural Value or A Nuisance" is a criticism of culture. The joint family system as peaceful is a sham. Pakistani houses that look peaceful to outsiders are furnished graves that look beautiful from the outside but are filthy from the inside. Women living in a joint family system suffer, and that's how most Pakistani women live miserable lives. The joint family system suffocates the youth. However, people continue to live in suffocation, breathing the foul air of their homes to maintain the pretense that we Pakistanis are people with values and morals who continue to live with our elders after getting married. So one of the major themes of this book is family and culture being suffocating and suppressive.

The author also expresses that a person may be wronged by his own for decades but still has the potential to become a loving and caring human being, and he has witnessed this miracle happening in his own family. The second half of the book will also amuse the readers. Essays like "My Psychologist Brother," "Corona Epidemic and Pakistanis," and " I Still Wonder How It Happened" will amuse the readers along with making them reflect and wonder how one sustaining relationship in life can make you feel you are blessed, and life is meaningful despite all the undeserved pain and suffering.