DR Rahat Abrar is a scholar from Aligarh Muslim University who has to his credit a number of research works. In his latest attempt, Abrar has dug out a manuscript titled Waqa-i-Hairat Afza, a diary written by a witness of the events of 1857 and following years.

The dairy writer was Urdu poet George Puech Shor, of French origin, who suffered a lot during that time because of his European descent. His grandfather, Puech, was stationed as a captain and the family was settled in Aligarh. George was born there in 1823 and his father John Puech took care to see that his son was well-educated in eastern languages. Thus George became well-versed in Urdu, Persian and Arabic and went on to write verses in Urdu as well as in Persian.

George’s mother was the daughter of a German Jew, Gotlich Frances Koin Frasco, who was also a distinguished poet of Urdu and Persian. He wrote an account of 1857 in Persian verse under the title Fateh Nama-i-Ingrez.

All his verses in Urdu, Persian and Hindi have been collected in a volume under the title, Gumbad-i-Gaiti Numa.

George Shor was the eldest of 18 siblings. Though a Christian, he was deeply influenced by the subcontinent’s culture. Enjoying the reputation of being an Urdu poet, he knew other poets such as Ghalib, Mirza Dagh and Munshi Hargopal Tafta.

Dagh once complimented George by calling him Malik-i-Mulk-i-Sakhun, ruler of the dominion of poetry. He was around 34 years old and living in Meerut when the events of 1857 took place. Belonging to the European community, he found himself in trouble. Encouraged by his friends, George Shor decided to record his pain and suffering.

George Shor seems to be influenced by Mirza Rajab Ali Baig Suroor. In his diary he employs the prose style Rajab Ali employs in his book Fasana-i-Ajaib, which is a dastan written in ornate prose. It is in this dastan that Rajab’s prose style is best expressed.

George Shor too has written his diary in ornate prose and has shown the same dexterity and excellence in his expression which we attribute to Rajab Ali.

Though an ornate expression hardly suits the situation being depicted, George Shor succeeds to a great extent in conveying the grimness of conditions the small community of the beleaguered Europeans faced. They were under a constant threat not just at the hands of freedom fighters but also all kinds of criminals who were on the loose due to the collapse of governance.

The sinister conditions closing in on them compelled the Europeans to flee from one place to the other. But the threat of death was always present. George Shor has depicted all this in a very graphic manner. He himself was a victim and all what he has recorded was part of his personal experience.

Waqa-i-Hairat Afza is a valuable document which helps us understand what was happening away from the war front. The outbreak of the rebellion had unleashed forces which played havoc with civilian life even in towns and villages which were far away from the war front. The whole social fabric was in tatters and the peaceful civil society in turmoil.

This peaceful civil society also included Europeans who had integrated into the society to the extent that their mannerism, eating habits, dresses and speech had all undergone a cultural transformation. George Shor, who was originally French and his maternal grandfather Frasco, who was German, can be cited as examples of such integration. They were not merely poets enjoying recognition from the great masters of their times, such as Dagh Dehlvi, but were also steeped deep into the culture and traditions of Persian and Urdu.

It goes to the credit of Dr Rahat Abrar that he, through his research, has unearthed this forgotten chapter of our culture, literary tradition and history. His research is also an assessment by literary historians and critics such as Ram Babu Saksena, Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Dr Abdullah of George Shor as a poet. This research work has now been published by Educational Publishing House, Delhi, under the title 1857 Ke Inqelab Ka Aini Shahid — George Puech Shor.