ANNIVERSARIES come handy when there is little else to do. The dead are ever there to be remembered. They never fail to oblige. Sobs and lamentations for the dear departed — Hafeez, Daman and Josh — rose high to intersect the gaudy kites flying in celebration of a bawdy Basant. Three meetings in tandem at the Academy of Letters, oddly, in the vernal season of Nature’s rebirth, resurrected the dead from their eternal sleep. Their blessed memory, or shall we say faizan, provided needed work to literary busy bodies who without living friends to promote, new books to launch or some controversy to raise were feeling adrift like proverbial lost cows.

It sort of started with Faiz. But that was a celebration in keeping with his upper class status, as some like to say, with cautious official involvement and a musical show on the side, his handsome son-in-law cracking jokes with a Kashmiri shawl hanging jauntily from his shoulder. The functions held later in memory of Hafeez and Ustad Daman were gatherings of a different kind, listless with the heart elsewhere, perfunctory.

The languages issue is a perennial favourite with literary people who also dabble in politics. One could discuss Ustad Daman, the peoples poet, without bringing in this hackneyed topic that Dr Tariq Rahman has pulverized to irreducible proportions. The poor acoustics of the hall of the academy of letters reverberated with the fresh emotion that Mr Fakhar Zaman brought to advance the cause of regional languages. He seemed to aver that Punjabi like other languages of the soil was being subjected to neglect in a deliberate fashion. This view cannot be taken to be absolutely correct, since deliberation in any matter refers to policy directions that one fails to find clearly stated on paper.

The non-implementation of stated objectives with regard to Urdu has been a regular subject of discussion at policy-making levels but the upshot has always been the same. It is not the suppression of Urdu or Punjabi that is intended but the perpetuation of the elevated status that English enjoys in society. In compensation for this there have been sops galore for writers and poets in terms of national awards and cash handouts. The literary community by and large has remained acquiesced with such recognition as a price for subordination of national and regional languages. This is one way to understand the situation. The other more evident aspect is the failure of the language issue to gather the kind of popular momentum that it did in the former Eastern Pakistan. This means that language as politics in Pakistan is not going to get you anywhere.

JOSH MALIHABADI: After Hafeez and Ustad Daman, the last to tread down memory lane was the irrepressible Josh whose considerable output, both verse and prose, lies scattered with no one to gather it together. That, indeed, is so but it is not true that he is suffering from neglect. He cannot be counted among the forgotten tribe of have-beens, nor is this possible as long as Urdu survives as a living language. Only last year or probably in 2000, Irtiqa, Karachi’s progressive periodical, published its voluminous special edition to honour his centenary. It is a very useful document comprising dissertations and critiques analyzing his thought, craft and facets of his dynamic personality. Seminars attended by prominent scholars from Pakistan and India were organized at Karachi, Lahore and Hyderabad. Detailed reports on these gatherings are recorded in this issue. All is not lost. As many as 15 books of verse, eight books of prose, four collections of letters, 15 basic books of criticism on his art and personality, 22 special issues of periodicals devoted to his study are listed. It is noteworthy that books on Josh have appeared with regularity all through the period since his death. Dr Ali Ahmad Fatmi’s Mutala-i- Josh and Ikram Barelvi’s Josh Malihabadi — shakhs aur shair, were published as recently as 1999 and 1998 from Allahbad and Karachi respectively.

As for research that speakers at PAL said was not being done, I would refer to Prof Sehr Ansari’s article in this issue of Irtiqa which suggests 126 topics under which Josh studies can be conducted. Under these areas, I am so pleased to mention, he has also suggested the poet’s film songs that he wrote for Bombay movies. Among them, my friend Hassan Rabay remembers the one that the British banned: Meray jubna ka dekho ubhar, dekho jubna ka dekho ubhar from the 1945 popular movie Mun ki Jeet that W.Z. Ahmad directed with his wife Nina in the lead against debonair Shayam, old Gordonian. Its title song Dunya yehi dunya hey to kya yad rahegi is a memorable geet among the many Josh wrote for successful films of that period. He also wrote the songs for a Pakistani movie, Aag ka darya. Hassan Rabay is trying to collect all of Josh’s film songs in a single set of recordings.

As for controversies, they will continue to rage. They must. The vital is controversial, as Oscar Wilde said. Yadon ki Barat may not be a true story but it is a story well told. There is much instruction for writers in that rich, exuberant, masculine prose.

MANSOOR MOJIZ: Some still do like poet Mansoor Mojiz but casual get togethers to unwind in good company, listen to poetry or music, talk, eat are becoming rarer, thanks to the drudgery of our purposeful lives. This jolly old timer who lives in London keeps returning to Islamabad every now and then for refueling. Weekly sittings of his bunch are hosted at his son’s, Gulrez, while Mr Mojiz is around. Last week’s was a mini Mushaera. Iftikhar Arif, Aqil Abbas, and Tariq Naeem recited their well-known verses. Iftikhar Arif was in his elements. Poetry poured forth like the bursting of Etna. Hamain khabar hai keh yeh dard ab thamay ga nahin was his latest. Tariq Naeem’s sari umr thani rehti hai diaiy mein aur havaon mein, phir yeh havaiain bujh jati hain aur diya rehjata hai and Aqil Abbas’ kisi dil tak pohanchna ho to yaro, mohabbat sab se seedha raasta hai were, to my mind, the verses of the sitting.

Mojiz read selections from his collection Janey Mojiz kahan kahan tum ho.