ASIF Farrukhi is a different kind of writer. Be it criticism or research, editing or short stories, whatever he pens is stamped with a hallmark of his own.

Asif Farrukhi is a free spirit, always looking for something different and strange. So when he writes something critical or based on research, it naturally turns out to be quite different — sometimes it sounds like a short story even. Maybe, some ‘normal’ or ‘established’ critics would frown upon such ‘eccentricities’, but these are the very same things that have made Farrukhi’s critical writings more readable than the ones penned by ‘normal’, ‘established’ critics.

His different and highly readable style is more tangible in his new book Chiragh-i-Shab-i-Afsana: Intizar Hussain ka Jahan-i-Fun. He himself has dubbed this book as “a descriptive topography of Intizar Hussain, an atlas of the imaginary geography of this land”. True to the statement, the book discovers, surveys and records the prominent features of Intizar Hussain’s writings and personality.

Just published by Lahore’s Sang-i-meel Publications, the book at times reads like a chapter from an autobiography of Farrukhi or, at least, the history of his reading. Farrukhi has described in his own unique style the dream-like scenes where we find a young boy reading books — sometimes in a sneaky way — that he finds on the bookshelves of his eminent father, Prof Dr Aslam Farrukhi. Stories that captured the boy’s mind and soul are the ones written by Ismat Chughtai and, of course, Intizar Hussain, for the kind of surrealistic world that he loves to get lost in is not found anywhere more easily and frequently than Intizar Hussain’s books.

Thus we see the young boy, Asif, not only being enchanted for the rest of his life by a spell cast by a magician like Intizar Hussain, but slowly and surely turning into a writer who loves to narrate uniquely different ideas in a new style, following in the footsteps of his hero who was later to become his fellow writer, friend and mentor, too, though not necessarily in that order.

Unlike some other critics and scholars who used to adore Intizar Hussain and now despise him, Farrukhi’s life-long enchantment has not ended even after the magician’s death. Intizar Hussain has left the mundane world but Farrukhi is still under the magical effect that Intizar Hussain’s writings and his personality had created.

The book is, apparently, an appreciation of Intizar sahib and his works, but it is not without the critical and research aspects. Starting from Intizar sahib’s life — his birth, hometown, family, education, teachers, migration to Pakistan, his journalistic career, friends — the first chapter, a compact and authentic account, ends with Intizar sahib’s death, the inevitable that stares us all in the face. Then Farrukhi relishes describing the tale of the Urdu short story succinctly before delving into Intizar sahib’s short stories and novels. Here he comes into his own and, taking full advantage of his hugely vast reading and a long and close association with his hero, he reveals some new aspects of Intizar Hussain’s fiction.

Intizar sahib’s translations, plays, his critical writings, biographical works, memoirs, travelogues, sketch-writing, miscellanea and newspaper columns, too, have been brought under study, but it is the part of the book on his fiction that brings Intizar sahib’s works and thoughts to life. The detailed analysis is, perhaps, the best carried out on the writer so far.

Maybe, some would dub the book as ‘impressionistic criticism’, but the critical and research parts of the book are not all too subjective, though Farrukhi does not hesitate to tell the reader, in a somewhat ‘Intizarian’ style, what he ‘feels’ about the works he is analysing. Also, the detailed references and notes, painstakingly and meticulously appended at the end of every chapter, make the work more scholarly than it apparently looks and sounds because of the style and a verse-like title. In fact the title is derived from a couplet by the well- known Indian poet Irfan Siddiqi.

Secondly, Farrukhi himself did not intend to write a formal book donning a heavy and hackneyed critical vocabulary laden with literary terms. As he has put it in the epilogue: “I have not read books as raw material for criticism, neither have I written these pages as criticism. How can I describe the story of my life in formal critical terms? I rather envy those who can do so but find myself quite unable to do that.”

In fact the book was intended to be the part of Pakistan Academy of Letters’ (PAL) series ‘Shakhsiyet-o-fun’ and Iftikhar Arif, the then chairman of PAL, had asked Farrukhi to write a book in the series on Intizar Sahib. But the book took too long to complete and swelled much beyond the scope of PAL’s series. Farrukhi did not send it to the press until Intizar sahib had read the manuscript and both of them were satisfied with its contents. Perhaps the only regret that Farrukhi feels is that it could not be printed before Intizar sahib’s departure for his heavenly abode.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2016

Opinion

Editorial

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