“A man seldom puts his authentic self into a letter. He writes it to amuse a friend or to get rid of a social or business obligation,” wrote H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), the American satirist.
But letters of many writers and intellectuals prove otherwise. Some candid letters by some authors are examples of how a man puts his real self into a letter, the hidden side that he otherwise may never expose to the world. Such frank and truthful letters sometimes become part of history.
The art of letter-writing is already dead, some say. Indeed the age of emails and SMSs seems to have sealed off the fate of pen-and-paper letters. And if letter-writing is alive at all, the art of literary letter-writing is long gone and buried, the naysayers argue.
The fact is people still write letters, but their literary talent is wasted online. Sometimes we come across quite witty and informative talk online, but most of it would be lost forever in the black hole known as cyberspace. The romantic charm of receiving a letter in mail, now referred to as “snail mail” by some, is not totally gone. The arrival of a postman, the envelope, opening it, the paper, the ink, the scrawl and feeling the actual letter with all its physicality is not entirely a thing of yonder years. Many still love to write letters the traditional way and the steady flow of published collections of letters by well-known authors proves that there are still readers who love to read old-fashioned letters.
In recent past the publication of special issues on the epistolary art by some literary Urdu journals, such as Tehqeeq (Jamshoro) and Saheefa (Lahore), too, is a sign that letter-writing is not dead after all and letters by literati do attract attention. They make one nostalgic about the good old days when bulky issues of Nuqoosh presented hundreds of letters written by bigwigs.
Letter-writing is a literary genre and a good letter is a piece of good literary writing in itself. Ghalib’s letters are not only an epitome of Ghalib’s wit and wisdom but also a part of our literary heritage and a treasure to cherish. So are the letters by literary colossi. As letters are a private affair and are often written in an unrestrained way and unreserved style, they give us a chance to peep into the private lives of their writers and to know of some secrets that are otherwise never revealed. Same holds true for letters written by Mushfiq Khwaja. Candid and witty, his letters conform to Khwaja’s straightforwardness that often offended friends and foes alike.
Mushfiq Khwaja (1935-2005) was a towering literary figure of our times. He left behind a number of literary writings, including poetry, columns and research works, but many, like this writer, feel that he perhaps did not write as much as he could have or should have. But this was somehow compensated as he was a prolific letter writer. Once Mushfiq Khwaja informed this writer that sometimes he would spend an entire day writing letters or replying to the ones he received. His circle of friends and acquaintances was enormously vast and perhaps there would be a rare writer or poet of Urdu in India and Pakistan that Mushfiq Khwaja did not befriend (albeit at a later stage a mutual dislike developed in few cases).
He often wrote to them detailed letters. In fact, he loved writing letters and so far over a thousand of his letters have been discovered and published. Thousands still remain unpublished. At least five collections of Mushfiq Khwaja’s letters have so far been published: Mushfiq Naame (letters written to Muhammad Aalam Mukhtar-i-Haq), Makaateeb-i-Mushfiq Khwaja (addressed to Rafiuddin Hashmi), Maktoobaat-i-Mushfiq Khwaja (addressed to Nazeer Siddiqi), Maktoobaat-i-Mushfiq Khwaja (addressed to Mukhtaruddin Ahmed), Muraaslat (letters exchanged between Mushfiq Khwaja and Siddiq Javed).
Now a new collection of Mushfiq Khwaja’s letters, addressed to Prof Dr Tehseen Firaqi has appeared. Titled Baaten Mushfiq Khwaja ki, the 202 letters included in the collection chronologically are packed with some rare literary information. It offers Mushfiq Khwaja’s personal and candid opinions about many contemporary writers, literary issues, books and some irreverent remarks about ... well, many things and many persons.
Compiled by Dr Humaira Irshad and published by Karachi’s Rang-i-Adab Publications, the book is annotated and also has an index, a rare commodity for the readers of Urdu books.
Mushfiq Khwaja’s letters addressed to Tehseen Firaqi, included in this collection, were not meant to get rid of a social obligation or just to amuse a friend. They reflect Mushfiq Khwaja’s true self, his love for friends, sincerity, knowledge and wit as well as wisdom.
Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2018
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