ASHFAQUE Ahmad was an ambitious man not content to be known as a writer alone. And his ambition did not remain unfulfilled. He undoubtedly was more than a writer. But as a writer, too, he had a versatility, which helped him shine in fields other than literature. I was, however, intrigued by the glowing tributes paid to him on different TV channels. They were all praise for his achievements in the field of the electronic media. It came only as an afterthought to them that the man was also a story writer, so some compliments should be paid to him on that account, too. But these appeared faltering as they were not sufficiently acquainted with Ashfaque, the story writer. That shows how a writer’s excessive involvement in the media eclipses his real work.
Ashfaque had started as a short story writer. He rose to prominence just after the partition and earned praise for his promising short stories. His first collection, Aik muhabbat sau afsanay, appeared in 1951. A few years later, in 1957, his second collection made its appearance under the title, Ujlay phool. And that seemed to him enough. His versatile talent did not allow him to remain tied to the short story for long. His radio programme, Talqeen Shah proved to be a super-hit. For so many years he remained busy, happy with the popularity and the fame it had brought in its wake.
With the advent of TV in Pakistan, he discovered for himself a new field to show his talent that brought for him success and a new wave of popularity. Soon, he found his voice reaching the corridors of power. Ashfaque had the unique ability to couch wisdom in catching phrases; wisdom he had gathered from the study of mystics and those Babas he claimed to have discovered in the course of his quest for wisdom. Gen Ziaul Haq developed a flair for this wisdom and in consequence an admiration for Ashfaque’s intellectual abilities.
With the exit of Ziaul Haq, something unexpected happened in the media. The People’s Party entered the corridors of power with its own crowd of intellectuals, which flooded the media.
Disgusted with this situation, Ashfaque now thought of his first love. He announced his return to short story writing. In the literary circles, we all welcomed it as the return of the prodigal son of Urdu short-story.
But the monopoly of the PPP intellectuals in the media was short-lived. With a change of regime their fate in the media was sealed. PTV and the Radio Pakistan could no longer afford to ignore the media talent that Ashfaque was. He once again found himself busy in the media. However, he kept his promise to a certain extent. He did find time to write stories though in a sporadic way. But he was no more the Ashfaque Ahmad of the ‘50s, who had written Gadariya.
If Ashfaque devoted to his story writing only a short period spending his long writing years elsewhere, it is not something unusual. What counts more in literature is the worth of the things written rather than the quality of the written material and the long years devoted to writing. We have instances of writers, who wrote only for a brief period and then said goodbye to writing, spending the rest of their years in doing something else. They had the spark of achieving in a brief period what so many others failed to achieve in spite of devoting long years to writing. Ashfaque had that kind of spark. He wrote stories for a brief period as compared to the long years he spent in writing for the media. But during that brief period, he speedily wrote a few fine stories and succeeded in producing a masterpiece like Gadariya, where his art of story writing found its culmination and ensured his place in the history of Urdu fiction.
Gadariya is a story which may be found imbibing in itself the true spirit of Indo-Muslim culture. Its central character, Daoji, may well be seen as born out of an amalgam of our mystic tradition and the Bhakti movement. Thus, this character occupies a distinct position in the array of memorable characters in Urdu fiction.
One may ask how far this interpretation of story tallies with the thinking of Ashfaque as expressed in his later years. The question may appear pertinent. But is a writer under the obligation to remain in his thinking constantly in tune with the thought expressed in his creative moment? That was with him a moment of truth creatively captured in the form of a poem or a piece of fiction. After being transformed into a poem or a story it attains an independent status. The writer, too, is under no obligation to remain tied to what has been said there.
ASHFAQUE Ahmad was an ambitious man not content to be known as a writer alone. And his ambition did not remain unfulfilled. He undoubtedly was more than a writer. But as a writer, too, he had a versatility, which helped him shine in fields other than literature. I was, however, intrigued by the glowing tributes paid to him on different TV channels. They were all praise for his achievements in the field of the electronic media. It came only as an afterthought to them that the man was also a story writer, so some compliments should be paid to him on that account, too. But these appeared faltering as they were not sufficiently acquainted with Ashfaque, the story writer. That shows how a writer’s excessive involvement in the media eclipses his real work.
