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July 20, 2003
Author: Sindh’s master storyteller
ON JULY 14, 1978, Naseem Ahmed Kharal, one of the greatest short story writers of Sindhi literature, was cruelly taken away from us. His gruesome murder left countless of his readers and admirers in a state of shock and grief. Naseem, as he was called by his friends and contemporaries, had until then held sway in the art of story telling for over two decades and his untimely exit left a void, which has still not been filled.
Born on June 29, 1939, in an upper middle class Sindhi family, which had originally come from southern Punjab, Naseem approached life with extraordinary commitment and awe. He had to shoulder the heavy responsibility of supporting a big family at a very young age of nineteen. But he took up the challenge with great courage. Added to this were the tensions caused by property disputes and intense tribal feuds, which marred the early days of his youth. Nevertheless, he continued his education while his agricultural pursuits helped him support his family. This tenacity gave him the reputation of being a man of steel.
His human qualities were generally admired. But it was his skill and brilliance as a writer, which took Naseem Kharal to unprecedented heights. His short stories are full of real life examples. They depict the true conditions of the society in which he lived. Some of his stories like “Pehreen Murad”, “Kaafir”, “Shabnum shabnum kunwal kunwal”, and “Chotreehon Dar” are so well written that they can easily find a place amongst the bestsellers.
A landlord by birth and a lawyer by profession, Naseem Kharal managed to combine the skills of these two professions to develop the capacity of observing the milieu around him in the most natural of ways. His stories, though written in simple and clear Sindhi, lead the readers to believe that pragmatism and shrewdness are the watchwords.
Naseem Kharal’s forte was the language he used in his stories. His characters spoke the language with the idiomatic usage which people in their setting normally did. In “Kaafir”, the language spoken by “Seetal”, is exactly the kind spoken by the low caste Hindus in the interior of Sindh. Likewise the Moulvi adopted a style no different from that used by his kins. Similarly, “Pehreen Murad” reveals to us the original language and code words of the cattle thieves in Sindh.
In “Chotreehon Dar”, the ineptitude and domineering attitude of the police is accurately captured by the writer through the language used by the character who plays the role of the police officer. One still finds it prevalent in the police circles. In short, the writer had full command over Sindhi idioms, phrases, and dialects. All these qualities are rarely found in one writer. Since Naseem Kharal displayed unprecedented proficiency in the use of Sindhi language, his stories are classic masterpieces.
On the one hand, his short stories reflect the denigrating status of a Sindhi wadera. On the other, they describe the mindset of the urban-turned-rural feudal class. Naseem Kharal displays a fondness for the characters he writes about who he appears to identify with. Because of his realistic approach, vast observation, and completeness of his art, Kharal outshines his contemporaries.
His stories mainly revolve around an “incident” which acts as a trigger for Naseem Kharal to write a story. For example, it was the corpse, which had got stuck in the thirty-fourth gate of the barrage, that inspired Naseem to write his classic masterpiece, “Chotreehon Dar”. Similarly, the “plots” of his stories revolve round an actor. A study of his characters reveals the fact that he writes his stories in order to reveal startling facts to the readers while leaving the drop scene to their imagination until the denouement comes.
For example, in “Pehreen Murad”, Sanjar is a close friend of Inayat and their friendship has stood the test of time. Nevertheless, Manak, Inayat’s son, engages in cattle theft on the insistence of his father without disclosing to him the identity of the victim. After the crime, the trackers trace the footprints to Sanjar’s home. The readers are kept in suspense all along and can never guess until the very end that the victim is none other than the closest friend of the thief’s father.
Naseem Kharal’s stories focus on the characters who are central to the theme. At times, one gets the impression that his characters give his stories the status they enjoy. The characters are made lively by the language they speak, their appearance, emotions, and attitudes which create a typical atmosphere. All this goes into the making of the ingredients of a successful story. For example, Inayat and Manik, Raees and Deenu, Seetal and the Maulvi, to name a few, are characters which are legendary.
Naseem Ahmed Kharal left us a quarter of a century ago. His loss is still greatly felt: his contemporaries have showered all kinds of accolades on him. Sindhi literature owes a great deal to him. His stories deserve to reach a wider audience and should be translated into English as well as Urdu. Thus Kharal’s message can be conveyed to people from all walks of life.
A daughter’s tribute
WHEN my father, Naseem Kharal, was murdered on his lands 25 years ago, he was still young and life would have had many things in store for him. It was sad to see him depart at a young age of thirty-nine leaving behind a widow, my mother, and six minor children. I was the eldest at the time and was just seventeen. My youngest sibling was only six months old.
My father is described as one of the best Sindhi writers of his time. Even after all these years, when I go through the stories he wrote, I feel his presence. There he is capturing the tales of people living next door and of feudal lords who still control our villages.
While reading his stories, I can smell the fragrance of the earth and crops. And then I am suddenly transported to the scene of drawing rooms in the houses of the rich. Here I can indulge in the fragrance of expensive French perfumes mingling with that of the Havana cigars.
His stories take me into a world of paradoxes where the good and the evil coexist. At one stage you are moving about in high society and then with equal ease you slip into the life of the low class. Such was the skill of my father’s pen that through the language his characters speak, I feel I know them very well. It seems he had been living among them for ages.
My father’s stories have crossed the borders and have been highly appreciated by people interested in human psychology. Late Pir Hisamuddin Rashdi, a well-known scholar of Sindh, suggested in one of his essays written on Naseem Kharal’s stories that his work should be preserved for posterity. Mahtab Mahboob, a popular Sindhi story writer, has given him the title, “Imam of Sindhi Stories” and believes that his work is equivalent to a dictionary of pure Sindhi language.
Naseem Kharal may not be amongst us any more but his handsome personality and the power of his pen have left an impression on Sindhi society that will last for years to come.— Faryal Tariq
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