Poet Eshan Akbar’s Hawa say bat; Chanan

Despite the heat generated by the long search for the prime minister, winter is slowly but steadily giving the notice of its arrival in Islamabad.

Literary organizations — like all other segments in our society, which have the habit of starting their functions much later than scheduled hour for the start given in their invitations (which are sometimes stretched much beyond the time that normally would be required to complete the array of speakers at these functions) — do seem to be taking a backseat in Ramzan; because you have to end before iftar, and even the iftar is provided, the function has to end before taraweeh time.

No wonder Shakespeare and Goethe, Iqbal and Ghalib, Ghazali, Farabi and Razi and Hegel, Descartes and Kant, and what else you have in rows after rows of knowledge - whose esoteric and exoteric thought are discussed and debated in these meetings, seem to have gone back to the stacks in the library, and the arguments and counter-arguments around the table seem to be, as it were, taking a respite for the time being.

So as one tries to rearrange the scattered books, one comes across a few things, and would present to the reader.

There is Hawa say Bat (Dialogue with the wind) by Prof Eshan Akbar. Here is a poet whose imagination does not go astray; one finds a mature versification that leads you on to “overwhelming questions”. Here is a poet who takes you to new worlds in a non- classical style; the diction is innovative. And, so are the words. From various local and traditional dialects and languages, and mixed in the metre of Urdu Nazm or Ghazal with a subtlety that you don’t feel stranger, as it were in the new pastures. One extract from his poem “Koi Dabi Pour Kamad Key” that has always won the dad (applause) at the mushairas: Aiay sambhlea jism key nazneen/ kai umrean tujh par tang/ too shabdh qadeem kitab say/ Izhar say jis key jung/ aath key/ Quoon niklee ghair kay sang.

According to Zia Jallundhari, who has written the preface to the book, the poet sometimes uses a metre that has the lyricism of Punjabi folk songs along with the taste of Hindi dohas, as in the poem mentioned.

One finds Hamid Naseem, Munir Niazi, Fateh Mohmmad Malik, and Aftab Iqbal Shamim praising the unique style of the poet; Hamid Naseem even saying that the words and diction of the poetry of the 21st century would, perhaps, be the same as one finds in his above poem.

One also finds a copy of the first issue of Chanan (moonlight), a monthly magazine, which describes itself on its masthead as a “Potohari Punjabi da Sewak” (the servant of Potohari Punjabi). The paper carries an article on Potohari literature and its growth, besides Ghazals, Nazams, kafi, Naat, Hamd and a short story in Potohari language.

The paper also carries a number of reports of literary meetings, including about a function held in memory of Sultan Rahi in Islamabad by the literary organization ‘zawiya’, in Potohari. The magazine has been published from Bradford, UK. Its editor-in-chief is Mohammad Salim Mirza, while the well-known, young poet Akhtar Sheikh, who also writes poetry of substance in Urduis its honourary editor.

Children writing for children in a way children can assimilate. This is what one finds in the book Bakroon Wala Baba (Old man of the goats) written by Marzia Shaheen, a student of class seven who as an “epilogue” written by Anwar Fitrat, tells us wrote it some years ago, which makes her nine or ten years when she wrote it. In a way, she becomes the youngest author for a collection of this kind. Subjects of the poem are everyday observation like poems on Din and Raat, Mera Kutta, Samander, etc, but they have been dealt with in a manner a young enquiring mind sees it.

Incidentally, she is the daughter of Mohammad Izharul Haq, the well-known poet and columnist. Marzia said she got this gift not only from his father but also from her mother.— Mufti Jamiluddin Ahmad

Rahi Masoom Raza’s ‘Samadhi’

TWO interesting, nay revealing, news have come from the literary scene of India. One is about the desecration of the mausoleum of Wali Deccani - the ‘Adam’ of Urdu ghazal who brought it nearer to the Persian tradition - both diction and content wise, and the other is that the Indian writer Rahi Masoom Raza has undergone the process of Shuddhi after his death! A rare event indeed!

As regards Wali Deccani’s fate, the less said the better. The writers of Gujarat have bowed their heads in shame over the tragedy. Wali was pride of the subcontinental literary tradition and his poetry is full of his reverence for the composite culture the Indian intellectuals are quite proud of. Only BJP could take pleasure in dismantling an innocent edifice that was only lamenting over the apathy of the government towards the linguistic chauvinism of India.

Wali has often used the word Hindi for his Urdu poetry as was the vogue in his days. Maybe, he was thought to be a communal poet for using a bit more Persian and Arabic words in his Hindi; but almost all the Indian universities have Persian departments and it could spur the communalists to dismantle all of them at one go forgetting the fact that both Persian and Sanskrit are close relatives in the genealogical tree of the Aryan languages. Maybe, now it is time to forget the story of Indo-Iranian affinities.

The other story - the consecration of Urdu writer Rahi Masoom Raza - the writer of Aadha Gaon, a Hindi novel, that Rahi did not want to be translated into Urdu. Actually he had a standing instruction not to have any of his works translated into Urdu for it was an ‘illegitimate child’ of Hindi, a rebel that destroyed Indian unity and gave birth to Pakistan in a caesarean operation in August 1947. Aadha Gaon, set against the northern and southern banks of India’s sacred river the Ganges near Ghazipur, is perhaps the bitterest possible attack on the partition of India in Hindi fiction. Rahi did not think it proper to be considered a renegade by doing so. After all, he was himself a Muslim Leaguer in Ghazipur on the eve of partition, and his father, Syed Bashir Husain Abidi, a well-known advocate of the district, was president of the Ghazipur Muslim League. His novel discussed the role of the Muslim League and the Quaid-i-Azam. Rahi holds the Muslim League and the Quaid responsible for the partition. The new Indian scholarship does not, however, seem to agree with him. Prof Amar Nath Jha’s book Guilty Men of Partition lays the blame on the Congress for coldshouldering the Muslim demand for ‘safeguards’ and, instead, giving in to the maximum demand of partition. The main plank of this argument is that Mohammad Ali Jinnah had accepted the Cabinet Mission Plan and the Congress backed out of it. It amounted to spurning the Muslim League’s acceptance of transfer of power to a united Indian federation.

But the incident which turned Rahi into a Urdu-hater has been reported by Qazi Arshad Masud Gangohi in a book, titled Tazkirah-i-Mashahir-i-Ghazipur, recently compiled by Aziz-ul-Hasan Siddiqui. What mighty contests arise from trivial causes.

Rahi did his MA and PhD from Aligarh Muslim University and got his adhoc appointment as a lecturer in the Urdu Department requiring to be approved by the selection board. Nawab Ali Yawar Jang, the vice chancellor, and Prof Aley Ahmed Suroor were members of the Board and the Board gave its verdict against Rahi.

Rahi was dejected and he went into litigation against the decision and he wrote an article in the August 1948 issue of monthly Onlooker, titled ‘Urdu is not a Language.’ He wrote in the article that Urdu was a Shaili (Asloob, dialect) of Hindi, not a language. This spate of anger made him a popular writer among the Hindi fraternity and from that time onwards he never looked back. Success after success came to him after this stand until he touched the peak of his popularity with the Doordarshan TV serial Mahabharat - a serial so popular that Sunday mornings in Indian cities in the early 1990s presented a deserted look because millions of Indians preferred to sit in front of their TV sets, glued to their chairs, watching the arrival on the small screen of Rama, Sita and Lakshman in an imaginary grandeur of India’s mythical past.

Rahi became a household name - as known as Rama himself - and the very fact that he fitted the Hindutva prescription for loyalty to India, a more interesting event has taken place recently. Hindi scholars and Mahabharat fans have erected a Samadhi-type memorial to the departed Rahi in front of the Sankat Mochan Mandir on the bank of the River Ganges with the inscription on the gate of the Samadhi: Rahi Masoom Raza - Shudh Santan, meaning Rahi Masoom Raza a Pure son of the Hindu Nation. I wish Rahi were alive to see this happen during his lifetime because I am told that Samadhis could be built during the lifetime of individuals earmarked for the honour of having Samadhis after their demise.

No comments on the posthumous Samadhi but the fate which Rahi enjoyed - his consecration as a pure son of the soil - was not to be the fate of Wali Deccani, whose mausoleum, built in 1707, and renovated many a time, could also be deemed a son of India because he wrote the following verses:-

Ai Sanam Tujh Jabeen Upar Yeh Khaal

Nagini Jun Kuwain Pe Piyasi Hai

(O my idol, the mole high on your forehead is the fortunate

Hindu of the holy heights of Haridwar.

And those ringlets on your dimpled chin,

Resemble the thirsty vipress coiled on a well).

Another couplet:-

Is Rain Andheri Mein, Mat Bhol Paron Tus Se

Tuk Paon Ke Jhanjhan Ki Awaz Sunati Ja

(Lest I lose my moorings on a dark night like this one, go on tinkling your anklets, my dear, to lead me on).

I think that unless the concept of pure son of India is undergoing Shuddhi itself at the hands of Vishwa Hindu Parishad volunteers in saffron-coloured unstitched overalls, neither Wali Deccani nor Rahi Masoom Raza deserved the kind of treatment which they got. The former’s desecration killed secularism and the latter’s consecration prescribes total conformism to Hindutva’s idea of nationhood. It spurs them on to demand complete conformism or extermination.

I think that Firaq Gorakhpuri, Dr Tara Chand, Tej Bahadur Sapru, Pandit Sunder Lal and M. K. Gandhi have been brutally let down, and nothing good has come out of these acts of desecration and consecration undertaken to fuel the fire of communalism.

Pakistan batsmen need a crash course

ENGLAND proved not to be an immovable object as Australia, the irresistible force, blew them away as it had Pakistan. In the context of the Brisbane Test match, the drubbing that Pakistan had received at the hands of Australia seemed more palatable.

Nasser Hussain has taken full responsibility for the daft decision to put Australia in after winning the toss. I don’t think it would have altered the result nor the margin of defeat. Instead of losing by a whopping 384 runs, England would have lost by an innings. A team has to be twice as good to beat Australia at home. And England is only half that good!

Australia has so much depth on the bench that it could field two teams, either of whom would beat all comers. Normally a winning team is left unchanged but the dilemma for the selectors is no ordinary one. They will have to decide on whether the captain is good enough to be in the team as a player.

Steve Waugh is still the same, ruthless captain but does he come into the team as a batsman?

He was saved by the bell, as it were, by a timely century against Pakistan at Sharjah but he looked far from convincing at Brisbane and scratched around. It would not surprise me if he is dropped.

The Australians do not believe in carrying passengers, even if he is the captain and I also feel that Hussain’s days may be numbered if England get whitewashed.

England, of course, has been desperately unlucky. Graham Thorpe has had to pull out for personal reasons and this leaves the middle order unguarded. Darren Gough and Andrew Flintoff brought their injuries with them and Gough is out of the series and Flintoff did field as a substitute, so there may be some good news on that front. The injury to Simon Jones will keep him out of cricket for about six months, if not more.

But England’s main worry is batting and it misses someone like Mike Atherton badly, someone who can get stuck in. But Australia has too much fire-power and even Brett Lee, Australia’s Shoaib Akhtar, cannot find a place in the playing eleven.

Though I was surprised that less than a fully fit Gillespie was played and he bowled only three overs in England’s first innings though to his credit and for the tough Australian policy, he did not leave the field. He was used sparingly in the second innings but delivered. But he was not needed for Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne were enough to rout England to wrap up the test match with a day to spare.

I write this after two days of Pakistan’s Test match against Zimbabwe and as matters stand, Pakistan has a slight edge. But once again, the Pakistan batsmen showed that they had much to learn about batting as a team.

Pakistan was on course to get a big first innings score but squandered the opportunity by its, as usual, cavalier batting. Both Inzamam-ul-Haq and Yousuf Youhana who have been out of cricket for some time, looked to settling in nicely but both were out to needless, careless shots and Hasan Raza who batted with great determination ran out of partners.

The lower order made no attempt to hang in there to support Hasan. 285 was a poor score against an attack whose main virtue was reasonably good line and length.

The Pakistan batsmen need a crash course on how to build an innings as a team. All they need to do is to follow the example of Zimbabwe’s batsmen.

Zimbabwe lost early wickets including a highly dubious decision against Andy Flower but such tenacity was shown the late-order batsmen that the Pakistan lead was whittled down to only 60. While Andy Blignaut got a breezy half century even Henry Olonga hung around while Tatenda Taibu reached his half century, an innings that brought immense joy to the school-children who had been brought to see the match.

Saleem Elahi has failed in both the innings, getting out in identical fashion which can only mean that there is a huge fault in his technique and one hopes that Hanif Mohammad the batting coach, will take him to the nets and get the fault rectified. But it’s too early to write about this match which should, in theory, still be in progress when this column gets in print.

India will have to do something about crowd trouble. It can do so by winning for the crowd won’t hurl bottles if the home team is doing well. But, both at Jamshedpur and Nagpur, there were some hooligan elements in the crowd who seem bent on disrupting the match when the home team looked to be losing.

I would have imagined that there would have been closed circuit television and the trouble-makers could have easily been identified. There is a secondary consideration. Cricket is hyped up so much and made an integral part of national pride that losing becomes unacceptable.

Already some television commercials have started to appear that are marketing or merchandising ‘national pride’ ahead of the World Cup. This puts undue pressure on the team.

More security on the grounds is not helpful. Why should the majority of the public be penalised? But something drastic has to be done. We don’t want cricket to follow the football path. We accept that there are football hooligans. Will we have to accept that there are cricket goondas and miscreants?

The media, particularly, must come down hard on this kind of trouble-making. And the ground authorities should arrest the very first man who throws a bottle and cart him off to jail.

On a more pleasant not, it is good to see that the West Indies is beginning to get their act together.

There is still no Brian Lara but quite a few of the young batsmen are coming off, Chris Gayle, Wavell Hinds, Marlon Samuls and Ramnaresh Sarwan are getting in to the groove. Throw in Lara and the West Indies will become a contender in the World Cup.