LIVING in a tranquil place, away from the congestion, noise and pollution of the city of teeming millions may be anybody’s dream. Poet, playwright and short-story writer Asad Muhammed Khan is lucky to have realized his. He has settled down for the ‘rest’ of his life in Gulshan-i-Maymar, off the Super Highway, with his wife. All four children are married -- two daughters in the city and a son and a daughter settled with their families abroad.

Asad sahib seems content with what he has achieved, both in terms of appreciation and material gain. At the age of 76 plus, he still drives himself around in his small car, visiting friends and relatives in the city. He has already said farewell to commercial writing and now does what he wills.

“TV producers ask us to create the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law type characters as are popular on Indian channels. Till a few years ago, Indian producers told their writers to write plays as were presented on PTV,” he tells Dawn during an interview. “Instead of catering to their demands, I prefer writing for my own satisfaction at my leisure,” says Asad. At present, he is contributing to a literary magazine, Mukalma, a series of articles based on his visits to various European and Asian countries, where his TV assignments took him when he wrote for PTV.

Being computer savvy, Asad enjoys chatting and the exchange of e-mails with friends and grandchildren on the net. “I understand what the young ones mean, though their parents may not. They write in their shorthand style such as ‘b4u, 2, u r, ur’ etc, whereas I prefer my own traditional style of writing.”

The widely respected and admired writer is not bitter about what he deserved but somehow did not get. Seeing his credentials, one, however, wonders what he should have done to get official awards such as the President’s Pride of Performance Award. If merit is anything, his contribution to literature and performing arts seems unusual.

He has to his credit several collections of short stories, a collection of poems and lyrics and has written or co-authored many serials and long plays for TV channels. He could be considered for the award even on the basis of his popular national and classic songs:

Mauj barhay ya aandhi aaya, diya jalayay rakhhna hai/Ghar ki khatir sau dukhh jhelay, ghar tau aakhir apna hai.(A crude translation may go like this: Whether a tide rises menacingly, or a windstorm blows violently, we have to keep the flame of this lamp alive at all costs and pains. After all, what we are suffering for is our own home).

Imagine the relevance of this song, sung by Shahnaz Begum, to the current challenges the nation is faced with and the inspiration and strength it may give to the people.

And see the following one sung by Efraheem:

Zameen ki goad rung say, umang say bharee rahay/Khuda karay yeh ...

(May this land remain enriched as it is with colours and the rays of hope. May its fields stay lush green forever).

And his contribution to classical music is also immense. Who hasn’t heard and enjoyed the songs such as:

Anokha ladla khelan kau mangay chaand

Kaisi anokhi baat ray or

Tum sung nainan laagay, laagay nahin jiara

Pia, pia bolay pia mun ka papihara.

Call it cronyism, favouritism or sheer nepotism at work that has stood between him and the award. He may casually mention “politics” for the exclusion of his name from the annual lists of the award, but prefers to remember what he has received in appreciation of his endeavours.

Laurels and works

He received the National Award for the Best Work of Urdu Prose (the Baba-i-Urdu Moulvi Abdul Haq Award) for Narbada, his collection of short stories in 2003, the Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi Award for Fiction in 2004, the Aalami Farogh-i-Urdu Adab Award at Doha, Qatar, in 2007, and the Sheikh Ayaz Award for Prose, also in 2007. Besides, a number of Pakistani and foreign scholars have done their theses on his works.

Asad began writing poetry in 1960 and short stories in 1970. His first collection, Khirki bhar aasman, published in 1982, comprises both poems and short stories. Rukay huay sawan, a collection of lyrics, was published in 1997, and the short story collections are: Burj-i-Khamoshan (1990), Ghussay ki nai fasl (1997), Narbada aur doosri kahanian (2003), Teesre pahar ki kahanian (2006) and Jo kahanian likheen (2006).

The Harvest of Anger & Other Stories and Fires in an Autumn Garden are the two volumes in translation published by the Oxford University Press. His works have also been translated and published in India.

Inspired mostly by English poets, Asad chose poems and lyrics as a medium to express his sentiments, and never tried his hands at ghazal.

He does not readily name his favourites among the Urdu poets. “I read and try to understand Saadi’s Persian verses. I read Rumi mostly through English translations. They are both giants of Persian poetry. Whereas Saadi’s verses have wisdom in them, Rumi’s have unrestrained devotion.”

Born in 1932 in the Aurakzai tribe of Pathans of Bhopal, the town, he says, was founded by his ancestors eight generations before him. He did his matriculation and received a diploma in commercial art in his hometown. He migrated to Lahore in 1950 to live with an uncle. His elder brother had graduated from a Sialkot college. But as most of his relatives had settled in Karachi, he also arrived and settled here in 1952. He sat an examination for the post of station master, qualified and underwent a year-long training.

Though he started working at the Hyderabad railway station, he did not like the atmosphere there and quit. He then joined the Karachi Port Trust’s traffic department as a clerk. His officers saw in him a budding poet and writer and encouraged him to pursue his writing career rather than doing office work. He did his graduation from Karachi University and also passed MA (previous) in English literature, but could not study for the final exam for lack of finances.

Reminiscing excitedly about his hometown, he also mentions the names of two luminaries of their respective fields in Pakistan. “Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan is also from Bhopal. His father was the headmaster of a school and my father was an art teacher in another school.” The other name he recalls fondly is that of Ahmad Ali Khan, the late editor-in-chief of Dawn. “Ahmad Ali Khan was my senior by several years and the school we both studied in will ever be proud of him as he had risen as a luminous star of English journalism.”

Communism

Asad sahib never joined any literary coterie, though he supported the Communist Party when it was banned in India. He narrates how he was put behind bars in his hometown of Bhopal for 17 days when he and his fellow students were caught writing pamphlets for the party.

“Being too young and because of our parents’ concern, we apologized and promised to shun our activities then. I believe the failure of the USSR was a big blow to the poor of the world. Iqbal had warned us decades ago that the monsters of imperialism would finally gobble up nations,” says Asad. “See what they are doing to Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran is looking them in the face, but how long it can do so has to be seen.”

Beyond the last mountain

In the early ’70s, he scripted the Urdu part of the English-Urdu film Beyond the Last Mountain. The English part was done by Javed Jabbar.

He blames the then government for the failure of the experimental picture. He says Sohail Rana, who was its music director, met Nusrat Bhutto in Islamabad and brought the government’s message that the script be changed as it alluded to the insurgency in Balochistan. The script was made topsy-turvy and there was nothing concrete left in it. So the film based on it was bound to fail.