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YAADON ki baraat, an autobiography by Josh Maleehabadi (1898-1982), first appeared in 1970 and it created quite a stir. Josh had already been beset with some controversy and his autobiography only added to his reputation of being an iconoclast and a ‘rebel’.
Josh’s irreverent open-mindedness and his unconventional views had earned him the wrath of the orthodox segments. As a student, he was expelled from Aligarh’s MAO College for his indiscipline. While serving in the princely state of Deccan, Josh wrote a poem criticising the Nizam, the ruler of the princely state, and was promptly dismissed and exiled. His poetry against the British India government as well as against capitalists and capitalism had won him the title ‘Shaer-i-inqilab’, or the poet of revolution. As a poet, he was not in favour of writing old-fashioned ghazals, though Josh himself was a semi-romantic and wrote ghazals, too. This had angered many old-fashioned critics and litterateurs.
As if all this was not enough, during his visit to India in 1967, Josh gave an interview to a Mumbai English newspaper. The interview became much controversial and cost him his job at Urdu Development Board (now Urdu Dictionary Board) where Josh was an advisor and editor. Though Josh clarified he was misquoted and contradicted the content of the interview, rumour had it that Josh had ridiculed Gen Mohammad Ayub Khan, the then president of Pakistan in his interview.
Josh did not give two hoots to the negative perception about himself. The fact that he knew that his autobiography Yaadon ki baraat would not be received well in certain quarters is evident from the remarks he wrote when presenting a copy of the autobiography to Maulana Mahir-ul-Qadri, a poet, writer and editor of Faran. What Josh had written on the copy can roughly be translated as “Respected sir, here is the goat; you may please slaughter it with passion”.
Despite the upheaval that the country was passing through in 1970, the book took the country by storm. Aside from the expected criticism from the orthodox sections, some of the critics and literary figures too were not much happy with the book. In fact, the controversy had begun even before the book was published: according to Dr Hilal Naqvi, Hurriyet an Urdu daily form Karachi, had requested Josh to serialise his memoirs. The agreement was signed in 1969, but after the introductory piece, Josh wrote some episodes that included some sensitive issues and no newspaper in those days could have published those pieces. Josh was aghast and discontinued publishing the episodes.
So the book was contentious even before it was published beyond a few initial pages. But, luckily, he kept on recording his memories and the result was his Yaadon ki baraat, the book that became more controversial on several counts.
Firstly, some right-wing writers and critics criticised it for its contents, especially the portions in which Josh had discussed his love affairs or had written something about his faith. Then there were friends and fans that wanted to read more and know much more than what Josh had written. For Instance, Dr Waheed Akhter complained, according to Hilal Naqvi, that Josh had ignored his adversaries such as Niaz Fatehpuri and Jigar Muradabadi. Mushfiq Khwaja thought that Josh had written about only those from whom he gained some monetary gain.
Hilal Naqvi has explained it promptly. Many wanted to read about the days, literary events and the literary atmosphere that Josh had experienced. Many thought Josh should have written about some great literary and political figures and his contemporaries whom he had rubbed shoulders with and it included some bigwigs such as Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai, Kamal Amrohvi, Akhter-ul-Iman, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Sahir Ludhyanvi, Sardar Jafri, Balwant Singh, Jagan Nath Azad, Arsh Malsiyani, Krishan Chandr and many more.
Many of these names and events concerning them did not appear even in the second edition of the book published in 1974, wherein 54 new pages were added. Though Josh had said on several occasions that he had written about those personalities, somehow those pages were not included in the text and the manuscript too had gone missing.
Dr Hilal Naqvi is a researcher and true fan of Josh. He had been very close to Josh ever since he was a student and has been collecting Josh memorabilia. Naqvi has written or edited many books on Josh and had solved the mystery of the missing pages of the original text of Yaadon ki baraat when he, after years of research, had traced the missing 243 pages of the text, hand-written by Josh. In 2013, Hilal Naqvi had published those missing pages.
Now Naqvi has done another memorable job and lovers of Josh and Urdu literature must thank him: he has compiled, edited and annotated the entire text of Yaadon ki baraat, along with those missing pages, now inserted in the text as desired by Josh. The new, complete edition, just published by Karachi’s Welcome Book Port, has the footnotes written by Josh along with some important and informative notes by Hilal Naqvi. This new edition has also taken care of the calligraphic errors that had crept into the early editions.
Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2018
