Caring little for publicity, the translator par excellence, Shahid Hameed, dazzles the literary diaspora every once in a while with his exquisite translating skills. Recently, he rendered Brothers Karamazov into Urdu, thus adding another feather to his crown. Of course his other trophies are War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice, Old Man and the Sea, Sophie’s World, Problems of Palestine and many other works into Urdu language.
Reminiscing about his romance with movies, Shahid Hameed says that he still remembers watching Anmol Ghari in some cinema off Abbot Road in Lahore, in 1946. Other flicks that he remembers watching are Roman Holiday, A Place in the Sun, Cat on the Hot Tin Roof etc. However, War and Peace failed to impress him. “The novel War and Peace is an all embracing book. It encompasses all the facets of life succinctly. But I was startled to see its movie, as it was not up to the standard. Few characters have been mixed up in the movie, thus making the script weak. But, Audrey Hepburn played the role of Natasha beautifully,” states Shahid Hameed. He talks highly of the acting of Audrey Hepburn, stating that she is his all time favourite actress.
Of movies from Bollywood, Shahid mentions films such as Nadya Kay Paar and Andaaz with some veneration. He states that Mein Hoon Na of Shahrukh Khan’s was not a bad attempt too. Recently, he watched Naach and liked it also. He is of the opinion that the Indian cinema is run by creative minds and they know well to produce classic movies. But, sadly, they too lay great emphasis on quantity rather than quality.
Shahid Hameed is not at all satisfied at the performance of our local cinema and if of the view that uneducated and roguish lot peoples our film industry at the moment. Therefore, he is unable to name any one film produced by our industry in the recent years that captured his attention. However, he lavishly praises oldies like Intizaar and Koel.
“Our industry is facing an enormous shortage of educated people. At the moment, rogues are ruling the roost. Ahmad Bashir got training in film making from the US and tried to break the ice by making a movie Neela Perbat. But how sad it is that to this day, it is rotting in the boxes.”
According to him, our theatre too has fallen on bad times. Here too, he points out, there are no educated people around at the moment. Remembering the glorious days of our theatre, he adds, “There was a time when literary titans like Kamal Ahmad Rizvi, Rafi Peer and Naeem Tahir were associated with it. Since they were all well-educated and well-read persons, what they produced was really worth watching. I still fondly remember one of their stage play’s Lafangay Kee Diary, which was an instant hit.”
Shahid Hameed has been listening to music since his college days when he used to avidly listen musical programmes on the radio. The singers that he has listened to with rapt attention include Roshan Ara Begum, Noor Jehan, Lata, Munawwar Sultana and Sureender Kaur. But he feels that the initial period of the singing of Noor Jehan was more promising in terms of songs quality. A Punjabi singer, Zubaida Khanum, too impresses him. But the voice, which enthralled him beyond words, is of Geeta Dutt. “The voice of Geeta Dutt was so fabulous that it put me in a trance. The pain and anguish that her voice oozed is something I never experienced in any other voice. Surely, it was the most pleasant voice that my ears ever heard,” states Shahid Hameed fervently. An ardent fan of Naseem Begum too, Shahid Hameed estimates that if she were alive in the heydays of Noor Jehan, she would easily have surpassed Noor Jehan. Then comes the turn of Indian maestros, Rafi and Mukesh.
Summing up our conversation as regards music he says that pop music is nothing but noise and more than ninety per cent voices among the pop singers are not pleasing to ears.
There was a small library in Shahid Hameed’s village at that time too. So he started reading books by lending it from that library. From his uncle, who was a scholar of Persian language, he got an opportunity to come across such monumental works as Masnavi of Rumi, Gulistan of Sadi and Diwan-e-Ghalib. Among the Urdu writers, he has read Faiz, Manto, Chander, Chughtai, Bedi, Qurratul Ain Haider, Ghulam Abbas and Intizar Hussain with religious devotion. He thinks that after Faiz, Majeed Amjad and Muneer Niazi are really great poets. As regards Muhammad Saleem ur Rehman, who is regarded as an important poet of new poetry movement, he says, “Muhammad Saleem ur Rehman is a splendid poet. Unfortunately, he has not been given his due status in the literary world.” Of the other writers in the world, he is especially thrilled to read 19th century Russian and French literature. He pays utmost tribute to writers like Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgnev, Chekov, Doestovesky, Mauapassant, Flaubert, Moliere and Milarme.
On the decline of book reading culture, he says that since paper in our country is costly so naturally books are beyond the reach of an average citizen. But still there are people who read books as he has received encouraging letters for his translations from some very far off regions. It is his desire that the government sets up institutions that carry out the task of translation so that our Urdu readers may be able to taste world literature. On the question of his any favourite book, he unanimously names Diwan-e-Ghalib as his favourite. “Ghalib has deftly depicted the changing moods of man. I love to read it again and again. In fact, Diwan-e-Ghalib keeps lying near my bed. Whenever I need to study it, I just pick it up and start reading it,” remarks Shahid Hameed.
Caring little for publicity, the translator par excellence, Shahid Hameed, dazzles the literary diaspora every once in a while with his exquisite translating skills. Recently, he rendered Brothers Karamazov into Urdu, thus adding another feather to his crown. Of course his other trophies are War and Peace, Pride and Prejudice, Old Man and the Sea, Sophie’s World, Problems of Palestine and many other works into Urdu language.
