Raza Rumi relives the enchantment of the dastans (published in The Friday Times)

Musharraf Ali Farooqi and the Urdu Project have revived a tradition that was fading in the age of instant communication, sms lingo and a dying reading culture. When I started reading the book, I could not help remember the day when my Uncle, Zaheer Ahmad Bhutta, a man of letters and book-lover handed over a set of Tilism-e-Hoshruba to me in my early childhood. I distinctly remember the summer when I devoured all the abridged versions, feeling thirsty for more. So I read them again. As a young man I dared to read the originals and could not help being pleased with myself. Tilism and its magical kingdom remains a part of me, and of many others of my generation who grew up on its diet of bravery, magic, lust and a peculiar aesthetic.

Tilism is a wonderful product of our composite Indo-Muslim culture that took centuries to evolve. This is why it defies the clergy’s diktat and religious bigotry, and its characters are a mix of all that the Indian context offered to outsiders such as Arabs and Central Asians. It is a larger than life metaphor for our past that has been lost now. Perhaps forever.

Hoshruba, Book One: The Land and the Tilism begins by telling us how Amir Hamza and his armies have chased the giant Laqa to the dominions of King Suleiman Amber-Hair on Mount Agate. While out hunting nearby, Hamza’s son, Prince Badiuz Zaman, follows a unique fawn and enters the land of Hoshruba. (more…)

Published in The Friday Times last week:

A new collection of translated short stories reminds us how Urdu literature needs to connect with a global audience, says Raza Rumi

As I hold the recently published “The Oxford Book of short stories” in my hands, I cannot help bemoan the fact that Urdu literature has been almost invisible from the arena of global literature. Admittedly, translation is difficult; the tediousness of translation daunts many a brave heart. Having said that, there have been a handful of remarkable translators such as Khalid Hassan, Alamgir Hashmi, CM Naim, Aamer Hussain, Umer Memon and Rakhshanda Jalil, to name a few. But a wide corpus of Urdu literature lies forlorn and hidden from global readership, which alas is dominated by English language readers. For this very reason, Amina Azfar has done a remarkable job of compiling a collection of Urdu short stories. Her earlier translations have been competent and quite often lyrical. For instance, Akhtar Hussain Raipuri’s Gard-e-Rahh (the dust of the road) and Sajjad Zaheer’s Roshnai ( the Light ) are noteworthy for their tone.

The book has a nice little foreword by Aamer Hussain, who is correct in stating that Azfar’s collection provides a fine introduction to the genre of the Urdu short story. The stories selected encompass a range of various experiments undertaken by the great Urdu writers. The stark realism of Munshi Premchand is counterpoised by Khaleda Hussain’s two short stories that are allegorical and somewhat postmodern in their sensibility. Iftikhar Arif, the renowned poet-bureaucrat, in his formal introduction quotes Dr Jamil Jalibi, terming the selected short stories “in the category of the very best”. (more…)

	Parveen Shakir with her mentor Qasimi whom she called Ammu
	Young Shakir at a mushaira
	Fifteen years later Shakir remains intensely popular. Her poetry has been reinterpreted and critics who dismissed her as a poetic lightweight have realized that there was much more to Parveen’s poetic vision than just henna-dyed hands

Parveen Shakir (1952-1994) has defined the sensibilities of several generations and beyond. At the relatively young age of 42 years, Parveen Shakir died on an empty Islamabad boulevard, as if this was an essential part of her romantic persona. But she had lived a full life where poetry and tragedy intersected each other and became inseparable from her being.

As a young student in high school, I was introduced to Shakir’s romantic poetry, which was best represented by her first collection of poetry ‘Khushbu’. I had won an essay writing competition in Urdu and a delightful award came in the form of this tender volume of poetry. Since then I have always returned to bits and pieces of Khushbu. It may not be according to the cannons of literary theory, but it is spontaneous, fresh and almost dreamlike. Shakir was bearly 24 years old when Khushbu was published and since its first edition, this book has been a best seller wherever Urdu poetry is read or appreciated.

Khushbu turned Shakir into a celebrity. Aside from mushairas, newspapers and public fora, she was ever-present on the Pakistan television, perhaps as its only saving grace during the rigid years of Zia-ul-Haq’s Martial Law. Shakir had a natural talent for public speaking, reciting poetry and just being herself. I remember one monsoon evening in Murree when we were hooked to her presentation on Pakistan’s Independence Day. There was a distinct tenderness in her voice that was in sharp contrast to the platitudes being churned out. Above all she was beautiful. I remember she would read verses from her own work and from the great masters of Urdu poetry with complete ease and immense refinement. In the short period of time that she lived as a poet, Parveen did rather well and was quite prolific. Her later collections comprised Sad Barg (marsh merrygold), Khud Kalami (conversing with one’self), Inkaar (refusal), Maah-e-Tamaam (full moon) and Kaf-e-Aaina (edge of the mirror).

Her raw romanticism runs through her poetry. For instance, yay haseen shaam apni is a love poem of rare beauty; and has always been a favourite of mine. It is composite, taut and melodic; and here is my translation.

This melting evening of ours

Where everything dissolves

The scent of your clothes

The blossoming sprouts of my dreams

A deferred vision, this is

In a little while,

A star will emerge on the horizon

To gaze at you meaningfully…!

Your heart shall then reminisce

The echo of a memory

The tale of a separation,

Of an unfinished moment

Of un-blossomed dreams, things unsaid

We ought to have met

In times, considerate

In pursuit of attainable dreams

On a different sky

On a different earth

We ought to have met (more…)

Dr. Visho Sharma has been kind enough to send me this guest post that pays tribute to a legendary poet of the subcontinent who was committed to his principles and ideology throughout his life. RR

Jo bejaan khilonon se bahel jaati haiy

Tapti saanson ki haraarat se pighul jaati haiy
Paaon jis raah mein rakhti hai phisul jaati haiy
Bunkey seemaab hur ek zurf mein dhul jaati haiy
Zindagi jihad main hay sabar kay qabu main nahin.
Jannat ek aur hay jo murd kay pahloo main naheen.
Uski azaad ravish pur bhi machalna hay tujhey
Zeest key aahni saanchey main dhulna hai tujhey
Uth meri jaan mere saath hi chalna hai tujhey.”

These verses are from the Urdu poem “Aurat” (Woman) written by the famous Urdu poet from India , Kaifi Azmi. What is remarkable is that Kaifi wrote this poem in the 1940s before the independence of India . In that era when the Indian society was very traditional and very much a man’s world, such thoughts were almost unheard of. But then Kaifi was always decades ahead of his time. (more…)

As I was commenting on the Pak Tea House, I just recalled Faiz’s wonderful poem Subh-e-Aazaadii, a masterpiece of our times.

I am posting the Urdu version with translations here:

Ye daagh daagh ujaalaa, ye shab-gaziida sahar,

Vo intizaar thaa jis-kaa, ye vo sahar to nahiiN,

Ye vo sahar to nahiiN jis-kii aarzu lekar

Chale the yaar ke mil-ja`egi kahiiN na kahiN

(more…)

A reader – Joe 31 – has rendered a great translation of Faiz’s poem – “Intesab”. I am posting it as a separate blog entry for all those who read and enjoy Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Pakistan’s eminent poet. This poem appears as an introduction to one of his early collections of verse. This timeless poem is relevant even today as it celebrates the resilience and courage of Pakistani proletariat.

Dedicated to these times, and the sorrow of these times.
The pain of today, that is set against the plentiful garden of life.
The forest of dead leaves, that is my land.
The collection of pain that is my land.

Dedicated to the gloomy lives of clerks
Moth eaten hearts and words.
Dedicated to the postmen
Dedicated to the coachmen
Dedicated to the railway workers
Dedicated to the innocent beings in the factories. (more…)

Syed Naveed Abbas has sent this contribution for Jahane Rumi. Shahab was an outstanding writer though his politics remains controversial and his extraordinary claims of piety and sainthood are deeply contested. However, he has inspired generations of writers and readers. RR

MAQDOOR HO TUO KHAK SAY POCHOO KEH AIE LAYEM

TUO NAY WO GANJ HAAE GERA MAYA KYA KEA

(If I was fortunate enough, I would ask the earth, Oh! Miser,

What did you do with those priceless treasures?)  – Ghalib

A careful study of the biographies of great men reveals that they lived for a central idea and their life’s work consisted of delivering that message to humanity. History tells us that when such men met with obstacles in their path, they further intensified their efforts to achieve their objectives. The greater the challenges great men had faced, the more determinedly they held (more…)

In response to my article on Lahore’s vanishing trees, a reader reminded me of one of my favourite poems in Urdu composed by the lesser known genius, Majeed Amjad. I am posting this poem though I am not sure if everyone will be able to read the Urdu script. I am taking a chance at translating the opening lines:

For twenty years, these trees stood at the doorstep of a singing canal

Gallant guards at the borders of swaying fields

Shady, enticing, blossoming chatnars

All were sold for a mere twenty thousand rupees

In the last stanza, after all the trees have been chopped, the poet cries

Now I stand by the singing canal and muse

In this murderous environment, only my thought sways

Adam’s descendants ought to chop me, why not? (more…)

 It is not a coincidence that Qurratulain Hyder, grand dame of Urdu literature, is remembered whenever we are faced with crises of state and society. Hyder was not just a fiction writer but a chronicler, for her sense of history remains unparalleled in the annals of South Asian vernacular literature. Her magnum opus “Aag Ka Darya” (AKD) was written and published in the highly contested milieu of the post-partition Indian subcontinent, when the new nation states were re-writing their historical discourses. In Pakistan, AKD was a sensation right from the time when it was published in the late 1950s. The controversy it created remains pertinent despite the passage of five decades.

Hyder’s nuanced and highly sophisticated vision was not easily apparent to officialdom or to state-sponsored literary critics in Pakistan. (more…)

My Nation, Listen to My Entreaty / Aey Meri Qom! Meri Binti Sun!

My country came into being through a law,
the law of the British
British – whichever line they drew
and gave it the name of two countries,
we just accepted it.

Our nation accepts every thing and every person
This nation accepted tyrants
it accepted lackeys, accepted impostors
If it did not accept,
it did not accept maulvis
it did not accept vampires and wolves,
did not accept declarations and fatwas.
O my nation
Your ancestors also had not accepted them
Your courts also had not defended them
Your flag also had not worn their amulets.
O my nation,
beware of those people
saluting them
defending them
wearing their amulets.
They hate woman,
as if they hate their own mother and their own daughter
In every shape of woman they see lust
and decorate their dreams as such
May any disaster fall upon the world,
they will not speak
May all the officers of all the country
become corrupt, drunk, venal,
they will not speak
On each and every step throats are slit,
people are bought and sold,
they will not speak.
Yes, but if any woman emerges with a banner in hand –
instantly they will speak
instantly delete her from the sphere of Islam,
from every reward of life.
O my nation!
Seek shelter from these merchants of Islam
Else in the harems of tribal leaders and landlords
our futures will be nurtured
These people will not issue fatwas against them
And when our future children
won’t be able to tell the names of their father
then even flocks of swallows will not come to their help.

A Solemn Conversation with the Taliban / Taliban se Qibla-ru Guftagu

Those who were frightened even of girls
Those even averse to knowledge,
they speak of the great Lord
He who commands of knowledge
Unrelated to His command,
they announce these declarations:
That no book be in any hand
Nor a pen between fingers
No place remain for writing a name
That women become nameless
Those who were even frightened of girls
announce in every city:
That the budding contours of a young girl
be veiled
That to the query of every heart
answer this –
There is no need
that these girls
soar like birds
There’s also no need
that these girls
head to any schools, any offices
If there be some blazing beauty, some one pious
then only within the walls
is her place
This is the Decree
This Written.
Those who were frightened even of girls
they are here, somewhere nearby –
See them, know them
Expect anything from them
in the fallen city
Keep courage, believe this
that those who were frightened even of girls
what pygmies they are
Announce in every city:
Keep courage, believe this
That those who were frightened even by girls
they are such pygmies.

Ghalib: Heart is a Mirror and Mirror a Heart

az mihr taa bah-;zarrah dil-o-dil hai aa))inah
:tuu:tii ko shash jihat se muqaabil hai aa))inah

1) from sun to sand-grain– heart; and heart is a mirror
2) {from / by means of} the six directions, a mirror confronts the parrot

Translation and commentary on Desertful of Roses. Parallel commentary on The South Asian Idea. (more…)

Courtesy mehr-i-niimroz, I found one of my favourite verses from Ghalib

taa((at me;N taa rahe nah mai-o-angabii;N kii laag
doza;x me;N ;Daal do ko))ii le kar bihisht ko

1) so that, in obedience/worship, the attachment/desire of wine and honey does not remain
2) take Paradise, and cast it into Hell

Commentary here

Tha woh to rashke hoor-e-behesti hameen mein Mir!
Samjhe na hum to fahm ka apne qusoor tha

(That hoor from paradise was part of my being.
I blame it on my utter lack of comprehension of the Ultimate Truth).

Mir, like other great Urdu poets, has seen Simurgh.

Excerpted from here