ONCE again, after a lapse of a few months, I found myself bound for Aligarh. This time the occasion was a Saarc seminar on short stories arranged by the Muslim University’s Urdu Department with the cooperation of the Foundation of Saarc Writers, New Delhi. Rasheed Amjad, Mirza Hamid Beg, Asad Muhammad Khan and Iramullah, along with two writers of Punjabi — Prof Muhammad Ashiq and Akhtar Husain Akhtar — were among those who were invited from Pakistan. This group of short story writers was headed by poet Kishwer Naheed, who was later joined in Delhi by Ajeet Cour. So, we were led by two able ladies.
We flew from Lahore to Delhi. From Delhi we travelled by road to Aligarh via Buland Shahr, the city of Ziauddin Burni and Kishwer Naheed. She was pleasantly surprised to find that her birth place is predominantly a land of mango gardens, better known as Amraiyaan. With mango gardens on our both sides we travelled along and reached Aligarh in the evening.
Early in the morning as I came out of the guest house I was staying at, I found myself treading on a soil appeared to have been reborn under the light rain of spring. The flower beds were in full bloom. The cool, pure air bore with it the fragrance of roses and was reverberant with the cooings of doves. And the shrill call of a koel coming from the dense branches of a mango tree laden with boor acted as harbinger of the incoming season of mangoes. But I could not afford the luxury of a long walk with full attention to those sweet calls and cooings because soon after breakfast we were supposed to rush to the inaugural ceremony of the seminar.
The ceremony began with Vice-Chancellor Muslim University, Nasim Ahmad in the chair. The moving spirit behind the event and the organizer of the seminar was Dr Afzal, head of the Urdu Department. The distinguished scholars, who had for long retired from the university, graced the occasion by their presence. There was a rush of boys and girls who appeared eager to see and listen to short story writers, a number of whom had a place in their courses. The Muslim University has perhaps been more accommodating to the living writers in its syllabi.
Short story writers of different languages coming from quite a few countries of South Asia were present in a reasonable number. But the ones known to us as the young Urdu short story writers, who by the way are no more young, registered their presence by being more vocal. Most of them appeared to have Qazi Abdussattar as their mentor. To name a few, they were Syed Mohammad Ashraf, Salam bin Razzaq, Shaukat Hayat, and Dr Ghazanfar. Like Jilani Bano, who stood there as the defender of the cause of female writers, they too had a case to fight for. They seemed to harbour a feeling that ‘they have not been acknowledged’ the way they should have been. In this respect, culprit number one in their eyes are the critics, who have failed in their duty in respect of contemporary writings and are preoccupied with the meaningless discussions of theories such as structuralism and post-modernism. One story writer, giving vent to his anger, ended his long article by announcing that the ‘critic in Urdu literature is dead’.
Jilani Bano had her own reasons for condemning the critics. She censured them for what she regards male bias against female writers. Her argument was that the critics in their studies ignore women writers and recounting names of poets in their surveys they omit their (women’s) names.
I do want to share the worries of Jilani Bano, but only when I am convinced of the worth of such surveys which carry with them an indiscriminate listing of names. Will the insertion of the name of an ignored female writer in any survey of this sort help her to earn a better recognition as a writer?
Such were the worries of the writers who were expected here to discuss the problems of contemporary short story writing in a serious way.
However, what is more important is the fact that the university took care to invite writers from different corners of South Asia for a serious dialogue.
In fact, the Muslim University has for long developed a tradition of such seminars, which seem aiming at disseminating knowledge and promoting awareness through discussions. And that is perfectly in accordance with the Sir Syedan spirit, which may still be seen working in one way or the other. Here, I very much want to talk about the Sir Syed Academy working under the auspices of the university and its precious publications that it was kind enough to give to me. But for want of space, I leave it for one of my forthcoming columns.
ONCE again, after a lapse of a few months, I found myself bound for Aligarh. This time the occasion was a Saarc seminar on short stories arranged by the Muslim University’s Urdu Department with the cooperation of the Foundation of Saarc Writers, New Delhi. Rasheed Amjad, Mirza Hamid Beg, Asad Muhammad Khan and Iramullah, along with two writers of Punjabi — Prof Muhammad Ashiq and Akhtar Husain Akhtar — were among those who were invited from Pakistan. This group of short story writers was headed by poet Kishwer Naheed, who was later joined in Delhi by Ajeet Cour. So, we were led by two able ladies.
