| November 6, 2002 | Wednesday | Sha’aban 30,1423 |
The world turns to Rumi
Pakistan won World Cup without army of assistants and analysts
THE graph of heinous crime in Sialkot district has gone up rapidly after the October 10 general election. No one, including the police, has tried to know the root causes of this problem.
Sialkot police have not yet evolved any effective strategy to curb the menace. Years ago, the Sialkot police had announced that it would establish Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) for purging the district of outlaws. No progress has yet been made.
Sialkot city, Daska, Satrah, Lorhiky, Motra, Sambrial, Bhopalwala, Begowala, Badiana, Bambanwala, Chowinda, Pasrur and adjoining rural areas are the worst hit by crime.
Proclaimed offenders (POs) are still at large and have become a terror. The snatching of cars, motorcycles, kidnapping for ransom, dacoities and murders are rising. Owing to poor police patrol on the highways and city areas, bus dacoities and robberies are at their peak.
The people are of the view that the police have failed in tracing the POs and other criminals. The brutal killing of Begowala police station SHO, Inspector Rahat Ali, by dacoits, four major bus dacoities and release of three dacoits at gunpoint from Daska police custody are an eye opener for the police.
Some experts are of the view that most SHOs of Sialkot district’s 26 police stations are involved in criminal cases and they have been posted in violation of the merit policy. These SHOs are unable to combat crime.
Experts have suggested a reshuffling and appointment of competent SHOs. The DPO’s attention is also needed in this regard. Whenever the SHOs and their staff are transferred, the authorities provide them a shelter.
THE Pakistan Railway has withheld the imple-mentation of the decision to restore the train service between Sialkot and Rawalpindi.
According to details, during his visit to Sialkot on July 23 last, Minister for Railways Lt-Gen Javaid Ashraf (retired) had ordered the authorities to restore the train service between Sialkot and Rawalpindi from October 05, 2002. No implementation of the minister’s orders has been made so far.
Lawyers, doctors and teachers have locked horns with the government over different issues. The ultimate sufferers are the general public.
The token strike of Sialkot lawyers entered the ninth day on Tuesday.
They are protesting against the alleged illegal arrest of bar member Ch Tahir Mehmood Hundali and his implication in a case by the Sialkot police.
In a resolution, bar president Ch M Azhar advocate strongly criticized the ‘highhandedness’ and ‘rising atrocities’ of Sialkot police.
Doctors have struck work to protest Dr Amir Aziz’s arrest. Along with teachers, they also want the government to wind up BoGs.
MAULANA Rumi is having an unusually good time in the West. The latest issue of Time magazine has run an interesting story on the great poet of the East, saying that even 9/11 could not effect any slide in Rumi’s popularity.
One wonders at the suggestion that the September 11 tragedy could arrest the popularity of Maulana Rumi as if he could have a hand in the collapse of the Twin Towers. Isn’t it a joke of the year? Rumi and terrorism! This only shows to what extent the media manipulators in the West could go. They did not think twice what they were suggesting at.
Anyhow one could not do anything when the West was out to demonstrate the poverty of its imagination - or the sheer illogicality of its approach. Coming back to Rumi the different versions of Rumi’s ghazals - or songs as Western readers would like to have a ready synonym for this specific metrical composition inducing its fans to opt for a state of mind tilting towards world-weariness and hence seeking in love the panacea for worldly evils. One could go through the catalogues of Western publishers to believe that Rumi is one poet they would go for - notwithstanding the September 11 tragedy.
In Pakistan there is a sudden spurt of interest in Rumi as well and the moment one ruminates over him, Allama Iqbal comes also in focus. One of the most interesting efforts of a Pakistani writer on Rumi, titled Rumi Ke Naghme, published by Liberty Books, suggests that Rumi was considered a good enough proposition by the country’s biggest importer of books. The importers of foreign books, influenced most probably by the popularity of Rumi’s English translations, may have thought that a book coming closer to the Western-oriented young reader’s idea of a mystic poet should render standard Urdu books on Rumi even more popular. This is where Zafar Azim’s intellectually satisfying commentary on Rumi’s poetry - and his place in Islamic mysticism - backed by translations of select ‘Songs’ in an Urdu that is closer to Hindi than Persian.
The new generation of Pakistanis, preparing for ‘O’ and ‘A’ Levels, was thought to be no more capable of enjoying Persianized or Arabicized Urdu, so came this clever move to come out with a book on a great mystic of the world of Islam in easy Urdu.
Zafar is cut out for this kind of language. At a recent meeting of city intellectuals he told the audience as to what drove him to go for the Geet tradition. He said that he fervently thought that the appropriate language for the generation not well conversant with classical Urdu was the Geet tradition which, if brought in the Devnagri script, could have a far bigger audience in the subcontinent. Maybe, this logic impressed the publishers all the more.
Going through Zafar’s well-produced work Rumi Ke Naghme I thought that how readers determined the content and language of a work. Uptill now we were used to study Rumi in the language of religious divines or mystics and they knew that they were catering to readers who were equally at home in the original as well as Persianized Urdu. This was also meeting the requirements of the targeted audience. Readers dictated the language then, and they also dictate today the joint strategy on the part of Zafar and the publishers - who didn’t have any tradition of publishing books in Urdu. This shows that a wind of change is blowing; and now readers deficient in the classical tradition will have books in a language that should come up to their level of competence.
The speakers at the informal meeting assembled to discuss the book in a city hotel had the new generation of Pakistanis in mind while talking about this highly unusual effort of a scholar-cum- civil servant who has had a praiseworthy interest in religion, mysticism, philosophy and modern literature. Everything which deserves attention comes Zafar’s way and it is the realization on his part that Rumi is getting popular with the Westernized young readers that prompted him to prepare a cuisine appropriate to the minds of the interested young men and women. It does not mean that the book is not for serious readers having a good grounding in the classics. This section of the readers should appreciate for the ease and comfort with which he has written the first book of its kind on Rumi - leaving nothing unnoticed in the Oriental and Occidental traditions of learning - in a manner that does not make it a work meant for scholars alone. He has made it a work that will appeal to all.
Karachi is fortunate in having seen a turnaround in Rumi scholarship. No other intellectual centre has tried to present Rumi in a language that can be comprehended by the new generation not familiar with the classical tradition. I wish that Zafar brings out works of the Bhakti poets in the same manner - slicing off that portion of vocabulary which the modern generation is not capable of appreciating. Some idioms of the Hindi language need to be replaced by modern alternatives. What holds good for Persian or Arabic idioms is also true for Hindi.
Rumi Ke Naghme comprises eight chapters - Background of Rumi’s Political and Philosophical Views; the sources of Rumi’s Thought; Shams Tabrizi; Rumi’s Times; Rumi’s Teachings and Thought; Rumi’s Peculiar Style; and Rumi’s Relevance to Modern Times; and the second part of the translations from Kulliat-i-Shams Tabrizi.
The 13th-century mystic Rumi was witness to the Mongols’ destruction of Muslim dynasties of Central and West Asia.
The Mongol pillage and plunder of the world of Islam had created a state of despair and pessimism; and Rumi, influenced by Islamic and Christian mysticism of St John of the Cross, longed for a world exuding immense affection for the humankind. This alone could turn this world into a paradise. His verses spread the message of Love. Love for its own sake, not in consideration of a good turn. The West saw in his poetry reflections of the concept of Selfless Love as preached by some Christian mystics.
A world full of contempt and hatred for all who dare to disagree with one party’s views needs Rumi all the more because he is surely one who would help the West, particularly the USA to put the tragedy of September 11 on the backburner and return to Saint John of the Cross and Rumi, a great end in itself.
Rumi Ke Naghme comes at a time when the Love of Humanity has to be in the ascendance once again after seeing so much of adrenalin having been pumped into our system that there is no other way but to fight hatred with Love for All.
There has been a spate of statements, from Waqar Younis, Mudassar Nazar, Yawar Saeed and Saeed Anwar which merely confirm, what we had suspected, that something was not right with the team, that there was trouble in paradise, as it were.
Waqar blasted his critics and complained that they were being unfair to him. A losing captain has to accept responsibility. This comes with the territory. After all, the captain gets the praise when the team wins.
There is a down-side to the job and it is the captain’s head on the block when the results are disastrous. That’s the way it has always been and why should Waqar be an exception? More so, since the teams that are selected are done so with his advice and consent. He has the final say in the playing eleven. The buck stops with the captain. It isn’t even that he was performing outstandingly and all the others were failing.
Imran Khan won the World Cup in 1992 with a team that had three specialist bowlers, Wasim Akram, Aqib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmed. Imran himself was not fit enough to bowl his full quota of overs and he had to make do with Ijaz Ahmed and Aamir Sohail. Incidentally, in that team, Intikhab Alam was not only the manager, he was coach and physio as well. There was no army of assistants and analysts.
Mudassar betrays a hurt rather than anger. He complains of being accorded a ‘step-motherly’ treatment. I think the fault here is that the duties and responsibilities of the coach have not been clearly defined. We may be making the same mistake with Richard Pybus.
A coach should be a part of the think-tank but not the team management. His job is to hone the skills of the players. He should not be seen as one of the ‘boys’.
The coach of the Indian team, John Wright seems to have got it exactly right. He is not pro-active and he certainly does not throw down the gauntlet to the opposition by issuing ill-advised statements.
Yawar sought only to set the record right. He did not interfere in the coach’s duties, according to him. But the upshot of all this public airing of grievances is the impression of too many cooks spoiling the chicken curry.
Saeed Anwar’s case is different. To start with, he did not opt out of the Test series against Australia. He says he notified his availability to the manager and captain. This, apparently, was not passed on to the cricket board. This lapse proved costly to his career.
Considering that Pakistan is in desperate search of openers, I personally feel that Saeed could have been persevered with. He was struggling with form but might have found it against Zimbabwe. But there is no doubt that he is now in the twilight of his career and the authority with which he used to bat has been missing, so too the fluency.
The decision of when a player should call it a day is a tough one for the player. The case of Mark Waugh is a good example. He was too great a player to have hung around until he was dropped by the selectors. He should have read the writing on the wall. Many great players leave it too late and then they get the sack and their greatness is diminished. He then gets remembered for his failure. His team-mates, including his brother Steve lobbied for him but to no avail.
Starting later this week, we are going to see an awful lot of cricket. There is the one day series in India against the West Indies, Pakistan take on Zimbabwe, South Africa take on Sri Lanka and, of course, there is the Ashes Test series. This will mean that only will the players be busy, so too will be elite panel of umpires.
The umpires more than the players, need rest. They are, in any case, not young bucks and David Shepherd and Asoka de Silva who supervised the India-West Indies series looked visibly tired and that is why they made so many mistakes. Umpires are human beings and they can lose concentration.
I was not particularly impressed with the idea of having an elite panel of umpires. The work-load was too heavy and their numbers should have been doubled and their scheduling should not have had them spinning around the globe. Cricket used to be a simple game and the ICC used to be a relatively harmless body that met once a year at Lords.
Confronted with some contentious issue, it would form a committee, which is the best way of doing nothing. Now the ICC has become very active and has become an employment bureau and is in danger of becoming a faceless bureaucracy. It has even gone into marketing and who knows it may start manufacturing cricket equipment?
I think that the standard of umpiring has gone down and this should be a matter of concern. More use of technology may only be a partial solution. But the umpires have to be physically fit. They can’t be globe-trotting. They are ones who have to be on the field the whole time and they are the ones who have to watch every ball bowled in a match.
The panel of umpires needs to be expanded with immediate effect. We must not wait till one of them collapses from fatigue.