| July 16, 2003 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 15, 1424 |
How do we go about great poets?
Hookes makes Australians look bad, ungracious hosts
A chapter of bloodshed and violence between two rival groups over an old enmity in village Sherpur, Ahmadnager, was closed last week after mediation by DIG Malik Muhammad Iqbal and notables of the area.
It is stated that a young girl of village ‘F’ was abducted and humiliated by a notorious landlord of the same village, Basharat alias Basharati, at his outhouse in 1997. He not only assaulted the girl criminally but also shaved her head to disgrace her in the village. However, she refused to bow before him and exposed his evil deeds through the print media. The then Punjab chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, on receiving information, reached the village and held an open ‘kutchery’ there. He assured the victim that she would be provided prompt justice. The next day Basharat alias Basharati was killed in an encounter with Ahmadnager police.
This was the start of bloodshed and killing between the two rival groups. Imdadullah, the brother of deceased Basharati, killed two men of ‘F’ group, taking revenge of his brother’s killing. On the other hand ‘F’ group’s brothers killed Basharati’s brother, Irshad, and his associate in Wazirabad. Later, Nazir Ahmad, father of Basharati, and his bodyguard were gunned down by their rivals.
The victim’s brother was killed in Sheikhupura by his rivals some months ago. Her father, Irshadullah, and a relative, Muhammad Nawaz, were also shot dead by the rival party. Hence, at least 14 people of both groups have been killed and murder cases against each other were going on in courts.
According to a report, Imdadullah, the brother of Basharat, and some members of the rival group are still at large. The village notables tried to mediate between the two but their efforts could not succeed. At last, range police DIG Malik Muhammad Iqbal got consent of the elders of both groups for mediation and held a meeting in the village where both groups were mediated, and they embraced each other and pledged to end the old enmity for ever for the sake of peace and harmony.
The DIG thanked and praised both groups and assured that the police would cooperate with them in withdrawing cases against each other.
District police officer Saud Aziz, Wazirabad ASP Waqar Ahmad Chohan and other seniors officers, besides members of parliament and elite of the area, were present on the occasion.
AS many 195 villages of 37 Union Councils of the district could be declared sensitive in view of the flood threat. The health ministry and district government have directed all government functionaries to remain alert.
The health minister had a crucial meeting with senior health officers of Gujranwala in his office in Lahore a few days ago and directed them to complete all necessary arrangements for rescue and provision of health facilities to people in affected areas. The district government has also adopted a strategy to meet any flood contingency during monsoon.
The meeting was told that at least 14 union councils of tehsil Wazirabad could be affected in case of flood. Deputy district officers and other government functionaries have been directed to be alert round-the-clock as monsoon rain has started. The executive health officer said that about 100 mobile and permanent teams have been constituted for the provision of relief to affectees.
A two-day training workshop on agricultural credit, organized by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) with the collaboration of the Gujranwala Bankers Club, emphasized upon the agriculturists to be more interactive for finding new areas of lending so that the agriculture sector could grow with sustainability.
The workshop was inaugurated by SBP chief manager Saeed Hassan here on Friday. Representatives of Kissan Board and agriculture bodies participated in it.
The SBP official urged the participants to be more creative and take initiatives in understanding the problems of the farmers and develop products to cater to the needs of farmers.
He said that in the new era of financial liberalization the role of SBP is going to be minimized and it would be the banks who have to take care of the needs of market.
The agricultural credit department director Syed Ishtiaq Ali and other senior officers of SBP also spoke and informed the participants about the policies of the bank towards the agriculture sector.
Someone posed a funny question to the organizer of a seminar on Shakespeare: What do you intend to achieve through this seminar? The reply was also as funny: “clearing a few cobwebs about the great man and spotting a few more moles, if possible.”
Nothing more could be said about Raghupati Sahaey Firaq Gorakhpuri seminar. One could discover to his disappointment and anguish that Firaq was almost a neglected poet. Quite a good number of young students are not well-conversant with Firaq’s status as a poet or critic. They only know that he must be somebody to deserve a three-day long programme on multifarious aspects of his literary achievements.
I believe that only one or two Urdu departments of our universities prescribe his works in their course work. Well, this is not something peculiar to Firaq. We are quite good at forgetting the achievements of some great poets and writers. There was a time, when in Britain one’s grounding in Greek philosophy and classics was considered adequate for governing the world. After all more than 90 per cent of the high officials of the East India Company and of the British Indian government didn’t know a whiff of science and technology. The Governor Generals of the pre-1857 era like Bentick, Auckland, Ellenborough, Dalhousie and Canning knew more of Latin and Greek classics than the creations of their native minds.
Perhaps it was the time, when the emphasis was on the understanding of human mind and faculty of Reason. Now is the era of specialists. Each one is furrowing one’s field, proudly disengaging oneself from other areas of inter-linked interests.
The three-day seminar on Firaq succeeded in focusing on him as a poet and critic, but Firaq’s interest in painting, music and drama, couldn’t get due attention! It was really heart-warming to have an exhibition of paintings of a selection of his verses. Firaq believed in three-dimensional poetry and so the exhibition of illustrations, supervised by well-known painter Ms Nahid Raza, proved to be an eye-catching idea. It was a happy sight indeed to see the old and young fans feasting their eyes on some nice works. Some of Firaq Gorakhpuri’s ghazals were sung by well-known singer, Teena Saani.
The first day’s main session was followed by other sessions in which some 35 academics talked about Firaq’s poetry and criticism. Perhaps the organizers didn’t take into consideration that an overdose of Firaq Gorakhpuri could be tiresome for the audience and unsatisfactory for the participants. No speaker could read out his or her paper in full; only the condensed version could be shared.
However, all the kudos for the marvellous Firaq season in Karachi. One can understand lack of attention to Firaq in Pakistan, but it is more tragic that in India too, Firaq Gorakhpuri is not enjoying due attention. After all, he was an Urdu poet and had to share the blame for serving a language that came under ‘fire’ at the hands of communalists.
Another stigma that he suffered was his violent attack on ‘Devnagri’ script, which he regarded as phonetically deficient. In that it suppressed some sounds like ‘Fe’ and ‘Ze’ only because they were also present in Persian or Arabic scripts. His presidential address at the “Non-Muslim Writers of Urdu Conference” held in ‘80s in Lucknow recounted the blessings of the Muslims contribution to Indian culture. He thought that the concepts of garden, gardening, courtyards, stitched garments, perfumes, crockery, minaret and dome - apart from Muslim rulers’ contribution to the promotion of all the regional languages of India - could not be ignored. Once, he said that a great deal of Muslims contribution to Indian languages was responsible for success of the Bhakti Movement. It also resulted in the decline of Brahmans’ opposition to the native languages.
In a way what Luther did to bring God to the native tongues of Europe was done much earlier by the Muslim rulers’ patronage of regional languages. Had it not been done, only Sanskrit would have been the medium of Indian literature, which it is not today. Tulsi Das, Sur Das, Bhagat Kabir, Mira Bai, Jaisi and all popular poets owe their rise to fame to the intellectual atmosphere that promoted regional literature and culture to the detriment of Sanskrit and Brahmanism.
Firaq Gorakhpuri was a Kaisth, a sect which didn’t regard itself typically Hindu uptil 19th century. This sect believes in a succession of Apostles - a different concept altogether from the mainstream Hinduism. Once the Jains also regarded themselves as non-Hindus, but the situation is altogether different today. The monolith of Brahmanism has effectively succeeded in bringing all such groups into the fold of Hinduism.
May be what marked off so different from Brahmanism was his Kaisth background. He believed that an act of virtue should not be committed in the temptation of paradise or in fear of hell. It should be done for its own sake. This was something that brought him closer to the 18th century European trend of doing ‘good for the sake of goodness’. Immanuel Kant, influenced by Schopenhauer, also believed in it and so did most of the German romantics. It was a mysticism having ‘Nature’ in place of God.
Firaq Gorakhpuri was a progressive. His poem on ‘Marx’ shows how close Marxian thought was to his brand of humanism but he never forgave any progressive poet for his or her errors in language or hurting Urdu ‘Rozmarra’ and ‘Mahawarra’. He was a perfectionist. No one could defy the rules of the language.
In the seminar, academics from all over the country participated. Five sessions on different themes on Firaq’s poetry, criticism and socio-cultural thought were held and the general standard of the papers was high, according to many eminent scholars, who presided over the different sessions of the seminar.
However, it was strange that a well-known writer contended that Firaq was hostile to Iqbal as a whole. This is not correct. Though Firaq lamented that Iqbal should not have tilted towards the Islamic concept of literature in his poetry, as it impinged on his status as a universal poet. However, in his books Man Aanam (1962; Pages: 19, 43 & 83) and Urdu Ghazal Goi (1955; Pages: 57 & 65), Firaq has acknowledged rather praised Iqbal’s status as the harbinger of the new trends in Ghazal and Nazm poetry. An egotist that Firaq was, this admission on his part amounted to complimenting Iqbal. It is strange that a senior writer overlooked Firaq’s acknowledgement of Iqbal’s commendable contribution to Urdu poetry in his paper. It’s true that Firaq differed with Iqbal’s concept of Islamic literature alongwith many other progressive writers, but that is a separate chapter.
Anyhow, the Irteqa and WADAH deserve Karachiites’ gratitude to provide them a grand fare.
I BELIEVE in freedom of speech and, therefore, concede the right of David Hookes, former Australian Test batsman and now turned a media pundit to slam Bangladesh in language that went beyond being harsh. It was insulting as it was boorish. He raised the possibility of the Test match finishing in a day, of Australia scoring 1,000 runs and Brian Lara’s record being broken.
Bangladesh makes no claims to being anything else but minnows, a team that has no pretensions. It has a dismal record so far. None of this justifies the ridicule that was heaped on it by Hookes who also happens to be the coach of the Victoria Cricket Association and, thereby, can be said to hold an official position of sorts.
It is entirely possible that Test series will be the mother of mismatches but Bangladesh is touring Australia and can be said to be the guests. If you cannot praise the guests, you must not indulge them and not mock them. Hookes makes the Australians look bad, ungracious hosts who could do with a lesson or two on good manners.
Whether or not Bangladesh deserved to be accorded Test status is immaterial. One has only to visit Bangladesh to see that cricket is a passion and even when their own team is not involved, the crowds flock to the stadium and fill it and when the Test matches are played against Australia, every television set will be switched on.
Bangladesh needs to be encouraged but they themselves must get it right, I don’t think they should be making costly investment in hiring foreign coaches for the national team. It’s a bit late in the day for that.
Rather the investment should be made at an Under-15 level and it is here that talent can be unearthed and a foreign coach can work on it. Bangladesh seems to be too much in a hurry and, as they say, haste makes waste.
And this brings me to Bangladesh’s tour of Pakistan. Shoaib Akhtar has been allowed to miss the series and will be playing for his county, Durham instead. Now we learn that Abdul Razzaq too will miss the series and carry on playing for Middlesex.
We learn from tit-bit media reports that the Bangladesh series provides the opportunity to try out some promising, young players. The principle is wrong. Pakistan must play its best team. One does not experiment at Test level.
A Test cap should not be handed out as a give-away, like a commercial company hands out key-chains and ball-point pens. A Test cap should be earned the hard way. Just look at what the green, baggy cap means to Australian Test players. It becomes their most prized possession.
The wearing of a Pakistan blazer should be seen as a signal honour and it is an honour that must be earned. To play for Pakistan should be the culmination of an ambition. Not the beginning of one. Nor should the Bangladesh series be seen as trial matches for the tougher series against South Africa.
Despite Hookes, insulting remarks, he does not make out a case for playing a second string and Steve Waugh has made it clear that a Test match is a Test match.
The NatWest final was a bit of a fiasco and South Africa was simply blown away. South African batsmen seemed over-awed by the occasion and England’s bowlers were on target. There was some seam movement and a little bit of swing but it was the accuracy that did for South Africa, lack of footwork and poor shot selection.
Jacques Kallis was in no mental shape and was due to fly out to South Africa, immediately after the final, to be with his father who has lung-cancer. So too was Shaun Pollock whose wife is pregnant. Should they have played? Clearly they were distracted by domestic worries. A player is required to give hundred per cent in an all important final.
England will go into the Test series with a huge psychological advantage. After its England tour, South Africa will tour Pakistan. At the moment, South African morale is poor but it will pick itself up for it was clearly stung by the defeat at Lord’s.
South Africa, in some ways reminds me of Pakistan. It is an unpredictable team and when it is good, it is very very good but when it is bad, it is horrid. Once again the question has opened up: Does South Africa choke on big occasions?
We need to follow the South Africa Test series against England with interest. It will help out in our own game plan against them. I cannot say that we will have a home advantage because, historically, Pakistan has not had the know-how to take advantage of home conditions.
I think Pakistan’s bowling attack is better than South Africa’s but Pakistan has no Jacques Kallis, no one who can anchor the innings. Herschelle Gibbs has had a miserable tour so far but it is too much to expect that he will carry his poor form to Pakistan.
It will be a good series, two evenly matched teams and each being brilliant on its day. Bangladesh aside, it will be wonderful to see international cricket return to Pakistan. South Africa gets the credit for dismissing security concerns, something that Australia and New Zealand had hidden behind in not wanting to tour Pakistan.
I will write in detail about the new domestic structure when I have fully understood it. But it’s good to see Hasib Ahsan and Ijaz Butt making a comeback and become officially associated with Pakistan cricket.
Both bring a lot of experience and though the years may have taken their toll, will bring energy to their jobs. Both came into the Pakistan team, more or less at the same time, spotted by A.H. Kardar who was a shrewd observer of talent and picked them and threw them in the deep end. Inspired selections at the time, both know what Pakistan cricket is all about.