Waris Shah the man

I FIRST saw the charming young lady close to the centenary of Waris Shah in 2001 when she appeared in the auditorium of the Model Town Library at the invitation of the Lahore Arts Forum (LEAF). At that time, working for a prominent Urdu daily of the city, Shaista Nuzhat was also engaged in research on Waris Shah for a PhD from the Punjab University. Muzaffar Ghaffar, the man behind LEAF, had asked her to speak on the poet as also on his Heer. Last week, Shaista was again in the Model Town Library but now as a fully fledged Doctor of Philosophy.

She chose to speak only on Waris Shah, the man. She said a lot of material was available about his creative work, Heer, but there was not much about his person. She then went into details about his family background calling him a Geelani Syed but also tracing his ancestry to Imam Ali Naqi. (I don’t know how the two divergent schools of thought go together.)

She then revealed that although everyone says Waris Shah was born in 1722, his actual year of birth, as confirmed by her research, was 1717. Accepted. She also added to my knowledge by saying that Waris Shah even went to Madras to get lessons from a Hindu scholar, Pandit Vishwanath. Another piece of news from her was that shortly before his death, Waris Shah spent some time at the mausoleum of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar at Sehwan.

No one can find fault with this contention, either. But what she said further was more confusing than illuminating. She refused to accept that Waris Shah and Bulleh Shah were contemporaries. Bulleh Shah was born in 1680 or 1691 and Waris Shah, according to the learned speaker, in 1717. But it is also a fact, and universally acknowledged, that these two greats remained under the tutelage of the well-known scholar, Hafiz Ghulam Murtaza who lived in Kasur. Moreover, both Bulleh Shah and Waris Shah have made references to the prevailing situation in the Punjab because of the marauding hordes coming those days from across the border, led by Nadir Shah, Ahmad Shah Abdali and the like. Because of that Bulleh Shah had to say, Bura hal hoya Punjab da (the Punjab has been devastated), while Waris Shah made a direct reference to the city of Kasur. Said he: Sarey mulk kharab Punjab vichon, meinun barra afsos Kasur da ay. (In the devastated province of the Punjab, I feel special remorse for Kasur.) That was because he had received his spiritual education there and had a genuine concern for it. However, at the end of her talk, Dr Shaista Nuzhat said in reply to a question that her research did not show that Bulleh Shah and Waris Shah were not contemporaries. Another point on which the learned speaker left me confused was the story about Bhagbhari. Although not in an amorous manner, that name appears in Heer more than once. Almost every account about Waris Shah that I have read says something about his infatuation for a woman of that name, a widow who used to bring him food during his stay in Okara district. Despite that, Dr Shaista insisted that she knew of only one Bhagbhari who had kissed Waris Shah at the time of his birth and whom he considered a virtual mother.

To prove her point, she referred to the makhtoota, as she preferred to call it, penned by Qasim Shah, the younger brother of Waris Shah. That happens to be a story in verse on Waris Shah’s life written at the behest of Waris Shah himself. In that she found no mention of Bhagbhari vis-a-vis Waris Shah. Could it not be that the younger brother purposely avoided any mention of the affair?

Dr Shaista spoke about Waris Shah rather briefly. Accepted that she had only to speak about his person but even in that context she could have indicated his hatred for the feudals and his frustration because of the inaptitude of the judicial system of his time. She could also refer to Col Nadir Ali, an acknowledged authority on Punjabi literature, who refuses to accept Waris Shah as a sufi poet. He goes to term him as an ‘enlightened anarchist’; a rebel of sorts. In the story that he conceived he shows Ranjha as a rebel against the society which had become extremely materialistic. He points to the spiritual hollowness of the people during those days. Dr Shaista need not have spoken about the Heer, but she could have referred to it in order to show the mental attitude of the person producing it.

The function was largely attended.

As it happens towards the end of July every year, central Punjab brims with functions in connection with the Urs (205th this time) of Waris Shah who produced the best known major Punjabi tale, Heer. The Lahore Arts Forum (LEAF) leads in this respect as it keeps arranging functions on Waris Shah and Heer throughout the year. It also happens to be the only organization in the country which celebrates the works of all major Punjabi poets.

In keeping with the centenary celebrations of Waris Shah, LEAF organized two concerts earlier last week in Hall II of the Alhamra Cultural Complex which was overflowing with an enthused audience. The programme began with presentations of Heer by seven prize winning singers from all over the Punjab, each with a different style while adhering to the traditional bhairvi rendering. This was followed by a non-traditional rendering of Heer based on different raags. Six people participated in this part of the programme.

The World Punjabi Congress headed by Fakhr Zaman also arranged a Waris Shah Day in a local hotel. It was presided over by the veteran journalist, Ahmad Bashir. Among others, Shafqat Tanvir Mirza and Parvin Atif spoke on the occasion. Afzaal Shahid conducted the proceedings. — ASHFAQUE NAQVI

Too late the rescue operation

AFTER a severe drought lasting eight years, when the rain finally came this year, people of Badin, Thatta and Thar had forgotten about the miseries that had accompanied rains in 1994 and the cyclone in 1999. The romance of sawan had clouded their wisdom and they did not understand that the network drains and the notorious LBOD had changed their ecology for good. There won’t be any safe monsoon again.

When it started to rain on the evening of Thursday, July 24, Majeed Loond of village Ramazan Loond, 60 kms south of Badin, could not envisage the danger ahead. The showers were strong and continuous and he was happy that the drought had finally ended. Water was soon standing in the fields and inside the hedge around his house made of straws and mud.

“On the night of Friday at 2am, the water entered my hut,” he said. “The level was rising so rapidly. When the water rose above the two cots we were sitting on, we put the two on top of each other and perched the children on the top. But the water was still rising rapidly and then we realized that it was not rainwater, but that the dykes of various drains of LBOD had broken. Thank God, before the water could cover the second cot, dawn broke and we decided to move out to find some elevated ground for safety.”

When splashing and struggling, Loond and his family came out in the open, they saw nothing but water. “There was no land at all.” “We then decided to find the link pucca road and then walk on top of it. Luckily, we found it. Even the road was under three to four feet of water.”

After a horrible journey of one hour, they reached the bank of the Naun Wah canal. They passed villages Janjhoo Dal, Ismail Bhatti, Kamal Mandhro and saw frightened people sitting on top of the roofs of their kutcha houses and crying for help. Only the rooftops of the houses were above water. “These villages were relatively in a low-lying area and I realized that the average level of water surrounding these villages was 12-15 feet.” He said. “The cries for help of known friends and their families could not melt us as we knew it would be suicide to go for the help of 400 residents of these villages, when we were not sure of even our own safety.”

The bank of the canal, although under knee-deep water, was like a haven for the thousands of people coming from both sides of the canal and moving towards the closest town Behdemi, but when they saw bodies floating around Behdemi, they realized that all the residents had flocked to the only pucca house, which was an island surrounded by 10-12 feet deep water. The people then decided to march towards Badin city, 55 kilometres away. Everyone had just clothes on and nothing more.

“I saw the well-to-do families of our area no better than the poor,” another flood victim, Ramazan said. “This misery was for everyone. It was a hundred times more horrible than the cyclone in 1999.”

“When I reached Behdemi in search of my cousin Ibrahim, I was appalled,” Jan Mohammad, one of three local volunteer rescuers said. “Having seen six bodies of people whom I knew on my way to Behdemi, I was in a state of shock. I resolved that I had to do something to rescue stranded people even at the cost of my life. After shifting my frightened cousin, sitting on the rooftop of a mosque, to a safe place, I decided to go back and rescue others.”

Haji Abdul Rehman Mallah, Nazim of Union Council of Bhugra Memon, and other residents of Behdemi had put together a turho, a raft made of straws, to rescue and shift stranded people. “I liked the idea of the raft,” Jan Mohammad said. “We quickly made a raft and moved south of Behdemi to rescue people from the villages of the Loonds, Dals, Bhattis and Mandhras.

“On Sunday, the third day of the flood, we reached these villages and rescued 400 people, except a family where a pregnant woman was in labour. The people said they had been sitting on their rooftops for three days without food and strangely the children had not asked for food. They had forgotten about food.”

The first rescue mission, headed by Faisal Edhi, reached Behdemi on Sunday. The miserable woman gave birth to a boy on the rooftop and learnt an hour later that her three-year-old son had drowned. That family was then shifted to a safe place by Edhi’s boat. The Pakistan army reached these places on Monday.

The local people attribute the monsoon’s floods and devastation to the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD), a Wapda project to take drainage water from Nawabshah, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas to the sea.

The Kadhan-Pateji Outfall Drain (KPOD), the Dhoro-Puran Outfall Brain (DPOD) and various other field drains and sub-drains empty themselves into the LBOD, which subsequently goes into the Tidal Link to flow into the sea. The local people have been contending that the plan of the LBOD was not only faulty, but it has also blocked the natural flow of water, which was along the Puran riverbed towards Shakoor Lake in Badin district.

“Before the LBOD, rain water used to drain out within hours,” recalls Bahadur Khan Loond, 78. “Koonjsar Khanto and Shakoor Lake used to suck in all the rain water. Sawan was always pleasant. People used to take their herds, cattle and camels to the desert for grazing. Young men used to go for hunting and stay in the desert for weeks.”

According to an irrigation expert, between 1974 to 1980, local consultants proposed a discharge of 18,000 cusecs (cubic feet per second), including rainfall discharge (run-off) and emergency discharge of five inches rainfall within 24 hours. This meant that an area within its command or catchments, if it gets five inches rainfall within one week, at least 60 per cent of it would be discharged into the LBOD within two or three days. This proposed design was allegedly not followed. Wapda authorities then decided to initially start with a discharge of 5,000 cusecs to be expanded to 18,000 cusecs as different phases of the LBOD were commissioned. There may be many components of the project yet to be executed, but the present designed discharge of the LBOD components and main drain do not include rainfall run-off. The whole plan was made on an assumption that there will not be any breaches.

This plan also does not outline any precautionary measures and controls, and the quality of maintenance work has always been in question. In 1994, the LBOD overflowed, and had played havoc with the lives and property of people and the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had ordered an inquiry.

This year there was more than five inches of rain in all the three districts of Nawabshah, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas. Flood water entered the LBOD and overflowed, causing 13 breaches at various points.

The Sindh government and the World Bank have allegedly blacklisted the consultant responsible for the failure in this project. But the lives of hundred thousands of people are in constant danger.

Poor maintenance work on the irrigation canals and silting in the tails of the canals have choked the whole Kotri barrage irrigation network. The canals have overflowed and breaches have caused flooding in low-lying areas. Each year, the breaches in the canals and inundation of hundreds of villages have become a routine phenomenon during the monsoon in Sindh.

The current unprecedented flood in Badin, Thar and Thatta call for an urgent look into the problems involved with a radical insight.

The first official rescue operation, that also from the army, reached the worst-affected areas on Monday. That was the fourth day of the floods. Faisal Edhi was, however, the first non-governmental rescue mission which reached on Sunday.

Newspapers and cable channels are flooded with news items and reports suggesting that a hectic rescue operation is in progress. While the flood has practically snatched away everything from locals who had managed to start their lives anew after the 1999 cyclone, this has become a good opportunity for many political, administrative and development quarters to claim credit. The main focus of the “fire-fighting” is in the large cities, including Badin, whereas thousands of people have still not been shifted to camps. The height of apathy can be judged from the fact that not a single dignitary has been taken beyond Badin city.