May 04, 2008

 The linguistic and literary skill of Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s 900-page English translation of The Adventures of Amir Hamza is an astonishing feat. The creativity with which he has transposed the language of the great 19th-century classic Dastan-i-Amir Hamza into an elegant, fluid English prose reveals a rare familiarity with the literatures of English and Urdu. His is also the first major translation of an Urdu classic in 300 years.

Born in 1968 in Hyderabad, Pakistan, Farooqi was educated there at St Bonaventure’s High School and the Model School and College but developed an early fascination with stories, particularly Dastan-i-Amir Hamza, in a series of Ferozeson’s Urdu books for children. He continued to read voraciously while struggling with engineering for three years at the NED University, Karachi: he found English classics were more readily available and contemporary English fiction had a greater output, than the Urdu books he devoured. Consequently, when he started to write he ‘found it easier to structure sentences in English than in Urdu.’ He dropped out of NED and tried film-making and journalism and set up a literary magazine Cipher, with like-minded friends, journalist Zainab Masud, and Azhar Abidi now the Pakistani-Australian novelist, to whom Farooqi has dedicated his Amir Hamza translation.

In 1994 Farooqi married and migrated to Toronto. There he came across Gyan Chand Jain’s book on classical Urdu literature which excited his interest and led to a discovery of the dastan tradition. He found several versions of the Dastaan-i-Amir Hamza, including the popular one-volume edition by Ghalib Lakhanavi and Abdullah Bilgrami, which he decided to translate.

Versatile and prolific, he also writes fiction in English. His first novel, Passion in the Time of Termites (2000) is a satirical magic realist tale about the septuagenarian Salar Jang’s quest for a bride while the fictitious Purana Shehr where he lives, is overtaken by termites. The novel though somewhat overcrowded, has some really powerful, vivid writing, particularly the many lively cameo portraits of Pakistani life. His second novel, The Story of a Widow, is to be published in August and he is working on a third. He has also written a children’s book, is translating Tilism-i-Hoshruba and developing an online website for Urdu

literature (www.urduproject.com). 

In a recent e-mail interview he answered a few questions.

Q. You first encountered a children’s version of the Dastan-i-Amir Hamza and would enact its characters in games with your brother. Which characters did you identify with and why?

A. We identified with the most powerful or the most cunning characters — like Landhoor, Aadi and Amar Ayyar, in much the same way that we identified with the wrestlers or detectives we watched on TV. I guess all children identify with larger than life heroes and adventurers. It is one of the things their imagination’s infinite capacity compels them to do.

Q. You rediscovered the dastan as an adult. What impelled you translate it?

A. There are many narrative devices in the Urdu original from which I have translated that do not exist in the children’s version published by Ferozsons. Considering that such an important legend was not available to a wider readership still was the main reason for doing the translation.

Q. How did you find the right language for it in English?

A. The first 10 to 15 pages were very hard going. That is where the language is very poetic and ornate and there are many details. But that struggle helped me to understand the right tone for the translation. The ornate and cryptic passages that decorate the beginning of most chapters remained a challenge till the end.

Q. Your translation reveals a profound knowledge of classical English and Urdu literature. Did the process of translation lead to new discoveries?

A. I had consulted a number of books to decide on the kind of language best suited to convey the flavour of the Urdu language. They included several translations of The Arabian Nights and other classical texts. But in the end I had to reject all of them because each language has its inner tone. There were no good examples before me of translation of a text from our oral literature. So I had to create a language that conveyed the texture and ring of the Urdu language. Before attempting the translation of Amir Hamza I had translated Afzal Ahmad Syed’s poetry which has a variety of tones, from classical to contemporary and his language can be as richly layered as it can be minimalistic. It was one of the exercises that helped me arrive at the inner tones of Amir Hamza as well. Most of my reading during the time I did the translation was from Urdu. Even now most of the subjects of my current fiction projects and my other ongoing translations keep me occupied with Urdu literature.

Q. The footnotes are a universe of their own: they provide a wealth of information about a lost world, its costumes, cultures, references. Did that involve much research, or travel to India and Pakistan?

A. Some references were known to me from my readings but most of what you read in the footnotes is available in the 19th-century Urdu and Persian dictionaries or in reference books on the subjects. I have never visited India but travelled twice to Pakistan during the time I was doing the translation.

Q. Did the seven years you spent in translating the book change you?

A. It is said that translation is a more intimate reading. Once you have spent such a long time with a text you begin to see its functions and mechanisms more clearly. That knowledge can be used to understand other narrative worlds, even if they are very different from the one you have experienced. Basically it gives one the tools for negotiating his way in a fictional world. Now when I read a story that I like, I think about how it was conceived and functions. So in that sense it has made me a more conscious reader.

Q. In your Preface you mention that, unlike today, earlier generations knew Arabic and Persian. Do you think that this needs to be addressed?

A. Before we address the problems posed by the loss of Arabic and Persian we need to fix the gradual but sure loss of the knowledge of Urdu among our younger generations. The knowledge of Arabic and Persian deepened the understanding of Urdu and that was the reason they were our cultural languages. We need to tell our children constantly that language is the first block on which the entire edifice of a culture is raised. It is not a proud people who boast of their proficiency in a foreign language like English without having a good command over their own — which is increasingly the case among the educated classes in Pakistan and their relationship with Urdu. This ridiculous mindset must change.

Q. What made you think of a literary career? How did your family respond?

A. Leaving my engineering studies was a cause of concern for my parents only in terms of my jeopardising my future employment prospects. When I did seriously think about writing as a career, which was sometime in my mid-20s, I always thought of writing stories for children. I knew it would not be easy. The publishing industry in North America is very competitive.

Q. Your English novel, Passion in the Time of Termites is said to have been inspired by Marquez. Was it?

A. It was the publisher’s unfortunate choice of the title (against my wishes) that made it sound as if it was a spoof on Marquez’s novel. The inspiration for my novel was, in fact, Muhammad Khalid Akhtar’s Urdu novel Chakiwara Mein Visal. Our house in Hyderabad had termites, and there was an octogenarian gentleman in our extended family who used to advertise in the newspaper matrimonial columns as a ‘gentleman of 50’. Some of these elements went into that story.

Q. Your book for children, A Cobblers Holiday or Why Ants Don’t Wear Shoes will be published soon. Is there a link with the termites in your first novel?

A. People naturally make a link because both of them are about insects. But in truth there’s no link between my novel about the termites and The Cobbler’s Holiday. The Cobbler’s Holiday was one of my earliest stories. Therefore, I was very pleased that it found a publisher and a wonderful illustrator.

Q. Your new English novel, The Story of a Widow is set in Karachi. What is it about? What determines your choice of creative language?

A. The Story of a Widow is a short novel, written in just one year. It explores a widow’s quest for a fulfilling marital experience; something denied her by her deceased husband when he was alive. My choice of language depends on the story. Each story must use the language that evokes the world it describes.

Q. Can you tell us about your forthcoming works — your third novel, your online Urdu Project and your translation of Tilism-i Hoshruba?

A. My new novel is about a courtesan. The Urdu Project is under development. It will have several components of which the availability of selected classical texts for interactive online reading would be one. Tilism-i-Hoshruba is one of the self-contained tales associated with the Hamza legend. I have been working on it for some years now. The first book in the series will come out soon.

Q. Did migration open out a world of literature because of the access to libraries and literary events? Is writing and translation a process of reclaiming Pakistan?

A. My ambition is always only limited to telling the story in the best possible way. Any other results are incidental and do not figure in the storytelling attempt. Libraries have always been an important part of my life but I generally avoid literary events.