Popular fiction is something highbrow critics frown upon. Yet popular fiction is often more popular than what is called ‘literary fiction’.
The difference between the two is difficult to describe but can be summed up as: literary fiction has a great theme, subtlety, depth, seriousness and masterful use of language. For instance, Ibn-e-Safi’s novels were and still are more popular than, say, Shaukat Siddiqi’s novels. Though Siddiqi’s Khuda ki basti has been among the bestsellers and it is definitely better than any novel by Ibn-e-Safi, Siddiqi had never been as popular as Ibn-e-Safi until Khuda ki basti was televised.
Similarly, Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder is undoubtedly one of the great fiction writers of Urdu. Her novels too did sell well and Aag ka darya is a masterpiece that is still read and appreciated. But what about Razia Butt’s novels? Some of the readers must be shocked, I bet. Though Razia Butt had been very popular in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, there is no comparison and popularity is not a yardstick to measure the greatness of a writer; you may argue.
I do agree. But the problem is these days we have a new lot of fiction writers who are as popular as Razia Butt was back then and most of them are, incidentally, females. One such writer is Umaira Ahmed. Immensely popular among female readers, her novels sell quite well. But serious critics have never considered either Razia Butt or Umaira Ahmed as novelists. Even Ibn-e-Safi’s name is rarely mentioned, if ever, when recounting the history of Urdu novel.
Among those ‘new critics and researchers’, mostly students doing MPhil or PhD in Urdu, there is a trend to include the popular fiction writers like Umaira Ahmed in their otherwise quite serious and well-researched dissertations, and that too on serious and philosophical issues like ontology. One such example is a dissertation by Raheela Lateef.
Just published by Lahore’s Majlis-e-Taraqqi-e-Adab, the dissertation, titled Urdu novel mein maa baad-ut-tabeeyaati anaasir: 1947 ke baad, is a study of metaphysical and ontological elements found in Urdu novels written in the post-1947 era. The book first discusses the meaning and nature of metaphysic and ontology. With references to philosophical works in Urdu and English, she explains the terms related to the topic.
Metaphysics and ontology have always attracted the writers and poets of Urdu. So it should not be a surprise that fiction and even modern fiction in Urdu is deeply steeped in the ontological and metaphysical issues. Many of the novelists of Urdu have touched the topic, either cursorily or have discussed it at length, as the dissertation by Raheela Lateef concludes.
Tracing the metaphysical issues in Urdu novel, she begins with Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder, as she thinks that before Hyder, Urdu novel was in its early stages and was overwhelmed by reformist, didactic and moral agenda. Not only were old maestros, such as Nazeer Ahmed, Ratan Nath Sarshar, Rashid-ul-Khairi and Prem Chand, more concerned about social and didactic literature but latter-day modern and Marxist writers, such as Ismat Chughtai, Krishan Chandr and Rajindra Singh Bedi, too were deeply influenced by the idea of objective, realistic and ‘purposeful’ literary pieces, adds the writer. But she would have done a favour to the readers had she touched upon the topic of some of the early writings of Urdu, especially poetic ones, to give some idea of how long and deep runs in Urdu literature this tradition of metaphysical and ontological issues.
Other novelists included in the study are Ahsan Farooqi, Mumtaz Mufti, Abdullah Hussain, Ashfaq Ahmed, Nisar Aziz Butt, Khadija Mastoor, Jameela Hashmi, Bano Qudsiya, Intizar Hussain, Anwer Sajjad, Salahuddin Pervez, Anees Nagi, Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Faheem A’azmi, Baba Muhammad Yahya Khan, Abdus Samad and Mirza Ather Baig.
In her introduction, Raheela Lateef says that “in the fourth part of the second chapter, the novelists who have penned symbolic novels are included and among them are Mustansar Hussain Tarar and Umaira Ahmed, as the style of their writing is quite unique” (page 12). This must be shocking for a reader of literary fiction, but, surprisingly, Umaira Ahmed’s name is missing altogether from the dissertation. Her name is mentioned neither in the footnotes nor in the bibliography despite mentioning her name in the introduction. It seems that researcher had included Umaira Ahmed in her analysis but then it was removed when the dissertation was sent for publishing in the book form, perhaps on the advice of some senior critics or professors.
In either case it needs some explanation. Is popular fiction that bad that you have to axe a portion from your thesis to exclude a popular fiction writer? Aside from that, the book is an appreciable endeavour to understand modern Urdu novel and its metaphysical and ontological aspects.
Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2018
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