03 May 2004	Monday	12 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

ISLAMABAD, May 2: A dialogue between the West and East cannot take place due to circumstances of history, Urdu critic and poet, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, said here on Sunday.

He was replying to a question at the end of his talk on 'The portrayal of man in literature and the literary man" held at the Pakistan Academy of Letters. Eminent poet Zia Jallundhry presided over the function.

Mr Faruqi argued that the west had realized that it had borrowed knowledge and wisdom from the east and would be loser in case an equal dialogue takes place, since the east would once again gain advantage over the west. No such dialogue is likely to take place, repeated Mr Faruqi.

He mentioned the Urdu literature, which was now written under western influence. "We know from historical experiences that transplantation did not work in unfavourable soil."

Good and great literature renews connections with the past, which is always present in progressive or modern literature. 'No one could understand Faiz or Kishwar Naheed unless he had understood Iqbal, Mir or Ghalib because these great masters were our inheritance and speak of every conceivable life situations, he said.

He paid rich tributes to Iqbal for creating awareness that man must travel beyond far spiritual destinations to understand the nature of world and his place in the world.

This attitude contrasted with the attitude passed on to us after the western age of enlightenment after which man has begun to feel a more perfected being, who had no necessity of discovering the inner meanings of life.

He said since then misunderstanding had been created about the relationship between man and literature. Since the last 150 years, Urdu had been accused of avoiding discussion of pain and sufferings and was looking outward.

He quoted Muhammad Hassan Askari who had lamented that our literature was as good as finished, and the balance sheet was clear since we have neither gained nor lost any thing from it.

But man has become puffed with pride with the knowledge that he was capable of breaking down particles to its lowest denominator. An example of this was found in the present day short stories, which conclude that every thing was described in three pages, giving the impression of newspaper reportage. Our Urdu short story writers seem to be in great hurry, he remarked.

But literature offered a different image of life than the one we see, for instance, through the camera lens. All this was worrisome to Faruqi, who remembered the well-known saying: 'Whom the gods want to destroy they are very kind to him.' "The tragedy we were faced with was in not trying to connect with the past or the wisdom of Jalaluddin Rumi, Iqbal, Ghalib, Mir Taqee Mir."- Jonaid Iqbal