Although Dr Anis Nagi loves to dabble in many genres of Urdu literature, but criticism is his forte. He has authored seventy books so far on criticism, fiction and poetry and plans to produce more books, as ‘writing is his passion’. His incisive comments on music, books and films are, at times, hard to digest but yet they are not too far from truth.
He remembers watching Omar Khayam in 1946 in Sialkot. For him that was a starting point. “In our college days, we used to relish a good number of European and American movies. In my college, i.e. Govt. College Lahore, there was a Classical Film Society in those days and the noted man of letters Safdar Mir was its patron. I watched Do Begha Zameen by Balraj Sahni in my college,” narrates Mr Nagi passionately. He was a great fan of films that starred Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn and Sir Lawrence Olivier as in his opinion, they were men of theatre. So his list of favorite films includes, Hamlet, Lawrence of Arabia, Viva Zapata and On the Waterfront. His pick, however, is Viva Zapata as his all time favourite movie. Says he: “The acting of Marlon Brando, and Anthony Quinn is stunning and so is the direction of Elia Kazan. Basically, this movie is based on the Mexican peasants’ revolutionary struggle. It truly portrayed the plight of the peasants. I have watched this movie many times over the years.” But he is pained to see that priorities have changed in the West and now there is more emphasis on thriller and science fiction movies. That’s why, he claims, that we are unable to find an actor of the calibre of Lawrence Olivier or Anthony Quinn now.
He lashes out hard at those who are making these ‘vulgar’ and ‘sub standard’ films in Pakistan. He says that hooligans finance films in Pakistan and they only want their money back, thus the quality of the film gets a deathblow. “Watching a Pakistani film is tantamount to inflicting an injury to your nerves. Our actors do not qualify to be even extras in the western movies. They do not know the ABC of acting. Since, the storywriters are hardly educated, they play havoc with the story. Therefore, our local industry is in a deep quagmire. Only the trained and professional people could bolster our tottering industry,” states Dr Anis Nagi plainly.
He adores the songs of Heer Ranjha because Masood Pervez, who was well educated, wrote them. Other than this aspect, he does not find any aspect of this film as laudable. He proposes to set up an institute for actors to be at par with acting standards of the west and also exhorts the government to support the film industry.
Music too mesmerizes him like any other connoisseur of art. His choice in the field of music has not undergone any change at all. K.L. Saigal continues to remain his favourite singer. “I have been listening to Saigal for the past 40 years. He gives me great company each morning as I listen to him while doing static cycling. He is matchless in the domain of music and melody, which his voice exudes, is very hard to find now. Though he sang for only 13 years, his majestic voice enabled him to win a great number of fans,” opines Nagi sahib.
He is all praise for Lata too and states that she knows the art of ‘manipulation of voice’ very well. That’s why, her voice does not tremble even at such an advanced age, he remarks. He thinks that only those songs of Madam Noor Jehan are worth listening, that were composed by great Khwaja Khursheed Anwer. As regards Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, he is of the view that his voice was bereft of melody and if you minus religious songs and qawwalis from his singing career, his popularity will drop by 50 per cent. He goes on to add that Nusrat Fateh Ali was a great composer and his voice was not that superb.
Nagi sahib used to study voraciously, but of late, things have changed. Due to advancing age, he is unable to study many books now. Secondly, he publishes his books by himself. Thus a lot of time is consumed in writing and getting his works published. Among his favourite authors are, Camus, Sartre, Doeestovesky and Pablo Neruda. He feels great attraction towards the poetry of Neruda as he translated it into Urdu. His poetry fascinates him immensely and no wonder then that Neruda is his favourite author. But he is grieved to see the decline of book culture in our country. “Ours is an anti-knowledge society. We treat our writers and intellectuals harshly. Our heroes are no longer our writers. Nobody acknowledges the contribution of writers.” We will have to restore the self-respect of our writers, he concludes.
Although Dr Anis Nagi loves to dabble in many genres of Urdu literature, but criticism is his forte. He has authored seventy books so far on criticism, fiction and poetry and plans to produce more books, as ‘writing is his passion’. His incisive comments on music, books and films are, at times, hard to digest but yet they are not too far from truth.
