March 09, 2008

Ahmed Mushtaq does not wait for you to put any questions to him. He opens the conversation by framing his questions first. ‘Arrey bhai, what is the news from Pakistan? What is happening?’ He invariably asks each time I call him, expecting detailed answers and ready to plunge in long discussions about things political. ‘This is like the period in history immediately after Aurangzeb’s death,’ he sign-posts the country’s current state as one of anarchy, and moves on. ‘Have you written any novel as yet? Why not? Why don’t people write more novels in Pakistan? Are they afraid? There is so much to write about in our country. It is a fertile ground for fiction writers. As a nation we have become like Honduras or Nicaragua!’

He carries on his conversation as if this was the most natural thing in the world, immediately putting me at ease and reducing the gap of many years since we last talked in a tea house in Lahore. A familiar figure in the literary scene for many decades, he left Lahore in 1984. A near-recluse, it took a while to locate him in the vicinity of Houston where he now lives and even then, were if it not for Perwaiz Jafri driving me the long distance, it would have remained a much interrupted conversation on the telephone. It was a real pleasure getting to meet Mushtaq and talking to him but listening to him recite his taaza kalam was a treat not to be missed.

Ahmed Mushtaq shot to prominence as a poet in the ’50s and became associated with Nasir Kazmi and Intizar Husain. Well-known for the artistic finesse of his work, he carefully nurtured a low output with consistent high quality, publishing only two collections of his poetry. He acquired more notoriety than fame when the leading critic S.R. Faruqi pronounced him to be a finer poet than Firaq Gorakhpuri. Controversial opinions notwithstanding, Faruqi remains a staunch admirer of Ahmed Mushtaq and even took the name of his monumental novel, Kai Chand Thay

Sar-i-Asman from a couplet of his. His Kulliyat has been published from Allahabad recently.

Ahmed Mushtaq keeps very much to himself and has stayed away from media attention. ‘I started writing poetry in 1952. My father was a contemporary of Iqbal and was nearly 20 years older than my mother. He was a disciple of Dagh and had even invited Dagh to visit Aligarh, where he was working at that time. He was a wanderer and had travelled up to Katmandu. He knew a lot of verses by heart and once he recited a ghazal to me in Amritsar, which he had written for a tarh’i mushaira. I leant it by heart and got it published under my name in a local newspaper. I was in class eight at that time. My father never found out,’ he chuckles as he recalls.

‘Poetry and philosophy were very much in vogue in Amritsar. The Kashmiris worked for six months and spent the remaining time indulging in poetry and music. I was very fond of music as a child. There was a tailor master in our vicinity who had set up a baithak. I heard Tawakul Hussain Khan and Ashiq Ali Khan perform there and I still recall the faces of those great masters,’ he describes in some detail.

‘We came to Lahore in 1947. I was 14 years old at that time. Poetry came to me later. I don’t know what I found first, my group of friends or poetry. Like the other migrants from Amritsar, my family stayed in Gawal Mandi. The place had a unique style of its own. Restaurants would be open all night with kebabs, tea and Indian film songs. Those were the days of my wandering all over the town. I met Nasir Kazmi in 1949, and later Intizar Husain. Our group of friends included Amanat Ali Khan and Shakir Ali. This was the first time such a circle was formed. That was a very creative period, and like everything else it was to be followed by a period of decline. Creative arts require the proper environment. Other fields also influence it. A single person cannot achieve it by himself,’ he explains.
 

‘Poetry and philosophy were very much in vogue in Amritsar. The Kashmiris worked for six months and spent the remaining time indulging in poetry and music. I was very fond of music as a child. There was a tailor master in our vicinity who had set up a baithak. I heard Tawakul Hussain Khan and Ashiq Ali Khan perform there and I still recall the faces of those great masters.’
 

It takes only a nudge and Mushtaq walks down memory lane in where else but Lahore. ‘My Lahore is still with me. I don’t know much about what remains of it now. This is the city from 1948 to 1957. When the Partition took place, an entire culture was in place, and it continued for sometime in the new country. It ended with the imposition of the martial law. Those were carefree days for us. We would roam around town all night. When the last restaurants closed down, we would go to the railway station. Those were the days of talented writers and painters. I remember that we went as a group to see Nargis in the movie Jogan. The bhajans of Mirabai formed a part of this movie. We kept on seeing the movie almost every day, even when there would be nobody else in the cinema house.

The group of friends included Nasir Kazmi, Intizar Husain, Hanif Ramay, Ghalib Ahmed, and Muzaffar Ali Syed.’ He recalls names in detail. ‘Muzzafar was very creative. He wrote some beautiful geet and doha, which were published by Intizar in the journal Khayal, but I don’t know what happened to him afterwards,’ he describes with passion the early days of the critic and his circle of friends. ‘There was a creative flurry in the years after the emergence of Pakistan. Those were in reality the last breaths of undivided India. After that started the chapter of Pakistan,’ he says as the conversation moves on.

‘As long as I stayed in Pakistan, I kept to myself, apart from a few friends. This proved to beneficial and if I have been able to write a few lines, then I owe it to this. After coming to the United States, I did not feel like an exile. Once a man is dislocated, it does not matter where you go. For me the real dislocation was the Partition,’ he says.

‘In Chiraghon Ka Dhuan, Intizar Husain has recorded but not recaptured those early days. He has a beautiful style and he is successful in preserving the remembrance of things past. Qurratulain Hyder had a bigger canvas. The present is always a challenge for a writer. This includes me too,’ he says, not sparing himself.

‘I was interested in novels but never thought of writing one myself. It is hard work (jan jokhon ka kaam). I never thought of writing my memoirs because I don’t have much to say. Why are there so few novels from Pakistan? I think it is because people are afraid. Many people come to realise this about their talents too,’ he states clearly.

‘There are many kinds of fear and this is one of them,’ he goes on to say. ‘Qurratulain Hyder was a fearless writer Perhaps this is why she left. Thank God that Pakistan has Intizar Husain and he has done what he could. However, I think that Intizar does not know much about politics,’ he says disarmingly. ‘Udas Naslain and Khuda Ki Basti are not bad, but among recent books, the novel I have really liked is Hassan Manzar’s Al-Asifa. My two interests are poetry and politics. I never thought of entering politics myself, but one must know about these things,’ he says as he moves from likings to choices.

‘I was never a prolific writer. One or two ghazals a year at the most,’ he says contentedly. He has also translated from the works of Nazim Hekmat, Attila Jozef and Herman Hesse. Finally coming round to talking about his own poetry, he does not shirk away from discussing Faruqi’s pronouncement about his poetry. ‘Faruqi sahib had his own issues to take up, but for my friends it came in handy to tease and taunt me. It worried me as I regard Firaq a good poet. I have learnt a lot from him. Actually I never even read the article in which Faruqi gave this statement,’ he says nonchalantly.

Poetry remains his passion. ‘I keep reading new anthologies of poetry and sometimes I find good stuff. I am not really fond of American poets, apart from Roethke and he too is influenced by Yeats. I enjoy reading the continental poets more. I have read Akhmatova cover to cover. I think that she should have won the Nobel Prize. Lorca was in vogue in our days. Neruda is a marvellous poet,’ he lists his favorites. ‘I am reading the classical Persian poet Urfi these days.’

In spite of all the emphasis, Lahore is not the only city for him. ‘I came to Karachi in 1955 and met Askari sahib,’ he recalls. ‘I started working in a bank but would spend most of my time in the coffee-house. Then there was a bank merger and they gave us the option so I moved back to Lahore,’ he smiles with satisfaction. ‘Later I went to New York. After my retirement I lived in Florida but after the last hurricane I came here. Agey Mexico hai. Dekhiye kya hota hai,’ he smiles and the smile says it all. ‘Pakistan ko salam kehna,’ he calls out as he waves goodbye. From the backseat window I watch him grow smaller and smaller as the car moves on.