| January 16, 2002 | Wednesday | Ziqa’ad 1, 1422 |
CBFS should have been more accommodating
THE award-giving ceremony of the Majlis-i-Farogh-i-Urdu Adab, Dubai and Doha, for two well-known writers from Pakistan and India — Mohammed Khalid Akhtar and Surendra Prakash — was a grand event, followed by mushairas in the two cities in which poets from all over the Urdu-speaking world participated.
In the background of continuing tension in South Asia, the atmosphere permeating the events was exemplary. The poets, scholars and fans, belonging to the subcontinent, as a whole, were oblivious to the eye-ball-to-eye-ball confrontation of the soldiers of the two countries on the borders. Some of the poets — Ahmad Nadim Qasmi, Jamiluddin Aali, Amjad Islam Amjad of Pakistan and Mairaj Faizabadi, Mauj Rampuri and Zafar Gorakhpuri of India — were exchanging pleasantries with each other as if they belonged to one family.
The two recipients of the annual awards for their overall service to Urdu had one point in common — none was awarded on this scale previously in spite of being very prominent in their fields.
Octogenarian Khalid Akhtar’s novel Chakiwara Mein Wisal has already been much praised by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Qurratulain Haider and the like. His book Khoya Hua Ufaq, which got the Writers’ Guild award in 1969 (Faiz was one of the judges), created history. About his style, Khalid writes in the preface to this book that he is greatly influenced by R. L. Stevenson. This had led writer Husn Zamani Alamgir to challenge the Guild award in a court of law on the plea that only an original writing could be considered for award, and got a stay order.
Faiz was also implicated as a member of the jury and had to attend the court regularly until the exemption from attendance was granted by the court. Jamiluddin Aali narrated this episode in the context of the Majlis awards which, he thought, were transparent.
Khalid Akhtar is highly witty. Be it fiction or travelogue or letters, he has emerged as a wonderful prose writer.
As for 73-year-old Surendra Prakash, born in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad), he is known for his short stories — Doosre Aadmi Ka Drawingroom and Bajooka (the latter being a modern classic). Three collections of short stories — Doosre Aadmi Ka Drawingroom, Barf Per Makalma and Bazgoi — have been published and the fourth one is in the press. He could not come to Dubai because he had missed the plane.
The awards and mushaira festival had two other events worth mentioning. The first was the launching of Duniya-i-Adab’s Jamiluddin Aali Number at Doha Club on Jan 8. It was quite an event. On the dais were, among others, Arif Kamal, Pakistan’s ambassador to Qatar, Dr Gopi Chand Narang, Mohammed Atiq, Ataul Haq Qasimi and Jamiluddin Aali himself. Amjad Islam Amjad and this scribe spoke on the occasion apart from the editor of the Duniya-i-Adab, Auj-i-Kamal.
There is no doubt that it is the most-voluminous Number (1,140 pages) brought so far on any poet. Auj-i-Kamal announced that his next project was to bring out a Number on Ahmad Nadeem Qasimi in 2003.
The second big event was Jashn-i-Amjad Islam Amjad, the poet-playwright who has joined the ranks of celebrities with this honour. Amjad is well-known for his dramas and TV compering. He has many awards and honours in his bag.
ENGLAND has already arrived in India and Australia has announced that it will go ahead with its tour of strife-torn Zimbabwe. Only the West Indies Cricket Board, sitting thousands of miles away and without any first-hand knowledge, is convinced that the security environment is not conducive to playing cricket in Pakistan. They are not even prepared to take the word of their own Clive Lloyd.
One can only conclude that the West Indies, for whatever reason, did not want to play in Pakistan and security concerns were mere eyewash. The series has now been shifted to Sharjah.
Frankly, I am not happy about it and I would imagine neither is the PCB, the only difference is that I would have reported the matter to the ICC and cancelled the tour. The reasons for not playing in Pakistan are patently bogus and the West Indies Cricket Board should be told that.
I think that the CBFS should have been more accommodating to Pakistan’s request to re-adjust the dates of its tournament so that New Zealand’s tour of Pakistan could have been fitted in.
The CBFS owes a lot to Pakistan and Pakistan has stood by it all these years. I know it was difficult but unless I am wrong, I have a feeling that no serious effort was made. With Sharjah being awarded the West Indies tour, all the more reason for the effort to be made anew.
It is important to Pakistan that New Zealand tour Pakistan, not only financially but because New Zealand has emerged as one of the most exciting teams in cricket and a series between them and Pakistan will be a terrific one.
New Zealand’s win against Australia in the opening match of the triangular was not the stunning upset that everybody says it was. New Zealand had earlier drawn the Test series and had it not been for the weather and a couple of poor umpiring decisions, would have won the series. New Zealand won the ICC Trophy at Nairobi.
Subsequent events show that it was no fluke. Australia may be placed as favourites for the World Cup 2003 but New Zealand is the dark horse, as Pakistan was in 1992 and it would not surprise me, at all, if the result was the same, the dark horse first past the post. New Zealand plays attractive cricket, whether batting, bowling or fielding. I would certainly like to see them play in Pakistan.
There were no glorious uncertainties of cricket at Dhaka and Pakistan won the test match against Bangladesh the way everyone thought it would, with facile ease, without hiccups and no resistance from Bangladesh, this, despite the fact that Pakistan looked laid back in the field. This is despite the fact that Wasim Akram broke down after bowling two overs and Shoaib Akhtar was either not picked or had some niggle.
The question has once again been raised whether Bangladesh was given Test status too early. I don’t really think so. After all someone has to be at the bottom rung of the ladder and provided Bangladesh does not lose heart, it can only improve. Indeed take away Brian Lara from the West Indies team and it would be only marginally better than Bangladesh.
Younis Khan must be kicking himself for missing out and he dropped a catch in the bargain but Pakistan’s main batsmen flourished, the pity is that only Abdur Razzaq went on to make a hundred and Rashid Latif was desperately unlucky not to do so but he played a loose shot and had shown signs that he was cramping up.
But the nature of the wicket was such that it provided no challenge and we will have to wait and see how the younger players will do when the ball is doing something on a track that is not a feather-bed.
The same applies to Danish Kaneria. He has yet to bowl against batsmen of Test class who are not afraid to use their feet. He shows great promise and is mixing them up, leg-spin, googly and topspin. But, obviously, has much to learn and I think time spent with someone like Abdul Qadir will be time well spent.
There is disappointment that Wasim Akram pulled up with a hamstring and he is getting injury-prone. There seems to be no point in being the world’s best bowler if you keep breaking down. If we are looking to Wasim for the World Cup, then we have to ensure that he remains fully fit.
One way would be to get him play only a limited number of matches. The other way would be is to get some clued-up trainer to work with him and monitor his fitness. There is no doubt that he is our most valuable player but we wouldn’t want him to limp off the field in a World Cup match.
The ICC has snubbed Jagmohan Dalmiya and gone ahead and appointed Mike Denness as the match-referee for the West Indies and Pakistan Test series at Sharjah. After what had transpired at Port Elizabeth in South Africa, one would have thought that the days of Denness as match referee were over.
The ICC has also gone ahead and chosen its own Referees Commission despite Dalmiya’s recommendations. I think what happened at Port Elizabeth is dead and buried by now. I had backed the Indian position then because Denness had not been even-handed.
There was also the perception that white match referees tended to target players from the subcontinent. But what happened at Port Elizabeth was a wake-up call for the ICC. I don’t think there was any danger that the cricket world was on the verge of splitting up on racial lines. This something that has been propagated by the white countries, an imaginary fear, or, hope, as some would want it. It won’t happen.