I INTENDED to write on Prof Aal-i-Ahmad Suroor when the grand old man of Urdu criticism passed away. He belonged to that bygone generation of critics who had made their appearance in the progressive and modernistic movements during the 1930s and the 1940s and had taken upon themselves to interpret the new writings produced under the influence of these movements. It was in their hands that Urdu criticism took a new turn in consonance with the new trends in our literature and came to stay as a well established critical tradition.
Aal-Ahmad Suroor was the last in the line. As the lone survivor of a glorious generation of critics, he gave the impression of being an ace unto himself and commanded much respect not only in the literary circles of India but also of Pakistan. He contributed much to Urdu criticism, but perhaps his first collection of critical articles, Nai aur Puraney Chiragh made a lasting impact on his readers.
To me, news of his death revoked memories of my few meetings with him while on a visit to Delhi. It was my first encounter with him. I found him a pleasant man and quite alive to the newly emerging trends in contemporary literature. I was pleasantly surprised to find him an ardent admirer of Kishwar Naheed. He had been listening to her, interviewing some writers on Radio Pakistan and appeared very much impressed by her condor.
In fact, the elderly critic who was considerate to the younger writers played the role of an affectionate father and received in return great respect from his juniors in the literary circles of India.
While remembering him as a gentleman and a kind-hearted soul. I tried to recall what I had read from his critical writings. But just then something very unexpected happened and I found myself in a state of shock at the sudden death of Hasan Rizvi, who till yesterday appeared most alive among all the writers around us.
These are instances of people dying because of their loss of interest in life. But does active participation in the activities of life provide us with any guarantee for longevity? Hasan Rizvi’s participation in life was extraordinarily wide and varied. He was primarily a poet but was not content in remaining a poet alone. He was an impatient soul, impatient and ambitious. No single activity could keep him within bounds. I often wondered and felt amused at the variety of interests he has developed and at the multifarious involvements he found himself in. One evening he was seen conducting a mushaira and the next evening he was comparing the Horse and Cattle Show. And with a facility peculiar to him, he could go straight from the Horse and Cattle Show to a musical evening and from the musical evening to some religious congregation, comparing on each occasion with equal ease.
I wonder whether a writer can afford so many contradictory involvements. But there are people born with surplus energy. And Hasan Rizvi had in him this energy in abundance. Under the stress of this surplus energy, he submitted to the temptation of doing many things at one and the same time. And often he succeeded in his pursuits, each being different from the others. He was indeed a successful man.
But what about the poet in him? Successful men and poets are two different species. At times they are obliged to live together. But how to bring about a reconciliation between them? With his multifarious involvement in the field of cultural activities, Hasan Rizvi appeared to have outgrown poetry and turned into a cultural personality. His achievements in this field are many and have a glamour of their own. But what goes to his credit is that the promise he had shown as a poet remained unfulfilled. It was bound to remain unfulfilled. He could not afford the kind of devotion poetry demands. But in spite of this field, he had a few achievements to his credit. In spite of his pre-occupation with mushairas he at times achieved in his ghazal something more than what is required for success in a mushaira. Off and on he experimented with trying to blend the expression of his rohtaki dialect with the standardized expression reserved for the ghazal. Through this device he tried to evolve a new expression in his ghazal.
As far as his prose writings are concerned, at least one work from him deserves serious consideration. And how interesting that this work belongs to a field of writing where we could hardly expect anything worthwhile from him. After all, Hasan Rizvi, though professionally a teacher, was not a scholar. But his book on Nasir Kazmi is a genuine work of research. Here, like a true men of research he is seen probing into the hidden aspects of the poet’s life and digging out strenuously the facts to which even the poet’s closest friends could not have been privy.
I INTENDED to write on Prof Aal-i-Ahmad Suroor when the grand old man of Urdu criticism passed away. He belonged to that bygone generation of critics who had made their appearance in the progressive and modernistic movements during the 1930s and the 1940s and had taken upon themselves to interpret the new writings produced under the influence of these movements. It was in their hands that Urdu criticism took a new turn in consonance with the new trends in our literature and came to stay as a well established critical tradition.
