Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Kahani—a word that translate as “story”—is the second moon of earth. It moves so quickly that astronomical instruments cannot detect it. Kahani is a land of imagination, much of which is covered by the Ocean of the Streams of Story. Kahani is split into two divisions: the land of Gup is bright, and the land of Chup is totally dark. Many of the characters in Kahani have counterpoints back on earth. For instance, Mr. Butt, who drives the mail coach, has much in common with the mechanical bird, Butt the Hoopoe. Khattam-Shud is a parallel of Mr. Sengupta, who has an affair with Haroun’s mother. Kahani is a symbol of fiction and the fantastical.

This acronym is a recurring motif that adds levity and emphasizes the unexplainable quality of fiction and stories. It is originally used to describe how Kahani orbits the earth—it traverses every point of the globe, like a programmed satellite. P2C2E is also shorthand for any process whose origins or methods are unclear. It could be applied, for instance, for the question family to any author: where do you get your ideas?

Haroun comes from a city that is so sad that it has forgotten its own name. As such, the town has no identity. It is simply a place that is wet, drab, and filled with hopeless people. The sad city is a symbol of Haroun and Rashid’s past and demonstrates what a place that lacks a name and doesn’t value stories might look like. Near the end of the book, a policeman tells Haroun that they remembered the city’s name: It is Kahani.