KARACHI: Prolific writer Shamshad Ahmed’s collection of short stories Shaher jungle huay (Towns turned jungle) was reviewed by known city writers assembled at Irteqa on Sunday.

Four full-length papers were presented analyzing the stories, twenty-five in all focusing on their prose and the study of human mind.

The first paper came from Jamal Naqvi (Alig) who also did the compering. Author of four short-story collections published earlier, another couple of collections were to appear soon, he informed the audience and admired the writer for coining new idioms in his prose.

Shamim Manzer, in his paper, pointed out the inhuman behaviour women in our society are subjected to, the uncertainty in their lives and the problems pertaining to sex. Those stories, he said, present different characters, as per their natural self and not of another’s imagination.

Shafiq Ahmed Shafiq agreed that the collection carried some good stories but being just prolific should not be taken as the criterion of good authorship. He closely studied a number of stories in his paper. Noor Mohammed Shaikh admired SA for the social realism in those stories, their fascinating titles and the respect, love and dignity he showed towards all humans, especially the women. Khursheed Ahmer praised the prose-poetry in the stories, and a distinct style of narration.

“It’s not a mediocre fiction,” he said.

Saba Ikram, whose critical study on modern fiction has been published only recently, termed those stories ‘multi-layered.’ The narrative impregnated with abstraction and occasionally with symbols.

“One feels the atmosphere of mashriqi jadeediat (the eastern modernism) in Shamshad’s stories,” he said.

Some of the stories in the collection were landmarks in Urdu fiction, A. Khayyam said and noticed the gradual development in his art which was quite encouraging. While Shahnaz Shoro was all praise for the book, Shabnam Siddiqui and Afaq Siddiqui praised the writer Shamshad Ahmed for his craftsmanship, each sentence carrying a story in it.

At one point Rahat Saeed expressed the opinion that during the discussion social realism was termed a quality different from ‘Progressive’ writings which to him was not correct. Was it an effort to denigrate the Progressive, he questioned? It was not like that, came several voices, and it was agreed that literary pieces should not be labelled and dubbed on ideological basis. The last speech came from the chair. Ali Haider Malik praised SA for his commitment to fiction, having authored four or five collections within a decade or so and writing regularly with a missionary zeal. He lamented the indifference of the literary critics to modern writings and the ignorance shown to Shamshad Ahmed.—Hasan Abidi