TILL yesterday Shamsur Rahman Faruqi was known to us as a leading Urdu scholar. But after the publication of his voluminous novel, Kai Chand Thai Sar-e-Asman, he has also gained the reputation of a celebrated novelist. However, the novelist does not stand estranged from the scholar. In fact, the novelist has grown out of the depth of his scholarly involvements. A scholar who claims to have gone through the 48 mammoth volumes of Dastan-e-Amir Hamza cannot remain immune for long from the germs of story writing. Faruqi gradually caught those germs and then started writing short stories whose central characters were generally distinguished Urdu poets belonging to the classical period.

In fact, the kind of novel he wrote was long over-due. The fading splendour of the Mughal age fast reaching its end waited long to be conserved amicably in some form befitting that splendid culture. Faruqi rose to the occasion and did the job in a remarkable way.

Now the English version of the novel is also available, published under the title The Mirror of Beauty. Faruqi chose to translate it himself. From the foreign world Orhan Pamuk was the first to come out with his opinion. “An erudite, amazing historical novel,” he wrote, “elegiac in tone and written with heartfelt attention to the details and the rituals of a lost culture.”

After a writer has brought out some remarkable work and has been laurelled for it, he may well rest on his laurels. If not, he at least needs some rest. But no. Faruqi is an untiring pen-friend. Prolific writer that he is, he must go on writing, caring little for rest. Indeed, with his growing age and failing health he needs a bit of rest from his pen. But no. Let’s look at two other books from him. They are Hamaray Liyae Manto Sahib and Qabz-e-Zaman. They have both been published by Schehrezade, Karachi.

Hamaray Liyae Manto Sahib, that is, ‘The Signi­fi­cance of Manto for Us’ has been dedicated to three story writers — myself, Enver Sajjad and Surrendra Prakash, who regretfully is no longer with us.

The other book, Qabz-e-Zaman, an adventurous fictional work, is indicative of the fact that this ambitious soul is not going to stop. Once again he has dived deep into the Muslim history of pre-partition Hindustan and has brought out a strange character, a commoner who, while travelling, sees himself in a strange situation and finds to his horror that he has landed in a different age. Wandering wonderstruck in a strange city he enters a mosque bearing the name Zeenatul Masjid. There he sees a grave. The epitaph on the grave indicates that Zeenatul Nisa, the daughter of Shahenshah Aurangzeb, is buried there. And that this mosque had been built under her instructions in the year 1707. What a shock for him. He recalls that when he had left his town Nangal Khurd it was the year 1520 and Sultan Ibrahim Lodi was the ruler. How was it that he, in his short travel, took more than two centuries to reach this strange city.

So this is the story of a man who has lost his own time. Mysterious circumstances pushed him in a time far ahead from his own. What a fantastic experience. And how to capture it in words — a wonderstruck soul thrown into another time. But Faruqi has managed to capture the experience in a dexterous way.

While the whole depiction of an uncanny situation is captivating, the last chapter, ‘Arz-e-Musannif,’ appears to me a superfluity. A fiction writer is not expected to disclose his source or sources of inspiration in such a prosaic way. He should not do it. It is the headache of the critic and the researcher. It is for them to look deeply into a piece of fiction under study and try to trace the origin of the ideas expressed there.

A creative writer picks up consciously or unconsciously so much from here and there, digests it and then forgets about it. As opposed to the scholar, a creative writer should have the capability to assimilate and to forget. As for that particular creative writer who also happens to be a scholar, he should develop the ability to control the scholar in him when engaged in his creative work.