Baba Farid, the pioneer of Punjab’s contemporary literary tradition, is one of the most revered and loved figures in our cultural history who has rightly been celebrated since 12th century by the people as a larger than life saint and poet generation after generation. While being well-versed in Arabic and Persian languages and literature, he chose people’s language as a vehicle of his creative expression. His choice of language proved to be trailblazing literary act that assumed historic significance with the passage of time. It’s not surprising that his verses [Shloka] were collected and preserved by Baba Guru Nanak, an immortal seer,which later became an integral part of sacred Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh scripture.

Baba Farid is owned by all major communities - Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus - and thus is lucky to have found many a translator across the religious divide that otherwise never ceases to severely afflict the people of Punjab. The latest translator of Baba Farid is Muzaffar A. Ghaffaar who is a well-known poet, writer and teacher. But above all he is a reputable translator who have rendered scores of Punjabi literary classics into English. He is very prolific and his huge output boggles the mind. His ‘Baba Fareed Ganjshakar, Within Reach’ is a part of the series ‘Masterworks of Punjabi Sufi Poetry’ which contains ‘Text in Nastaliq; Gurmukhi; Roman / Extensive glossary; poetic translation; line by line discourse’ published by Ferozsons, Lahore.

His poetic translations of couplets is nearly as good it could be which show his command over English language. Glossary is comprehensive that can help all kinds of readers to understand and appreciate the verses. Line-by-line discourse gives you a perspective as well as textual analysis in some measure. Since translations are not in contemporary prose they tend to create an ambiance of bygone era.‘O Fareed, black my clothes, black my guise / Full of sins I walk about, people canonize [Freeda, kaalae maendae kapre. Kaala maenad vaes / Gunhin bharya maen phraan, lok kahae darvaesh]’ is how he translates one of the famous couplets. Savour another couplet: ‘On the bank a tree, till when can it could hold true / O Fareed,in unbaked pitchers, water till when can accrue [Kandhi uttae rukhra, kichrak bannhae dheer / Fareeda, kachae bhaandae rakhiae, kichar taain neer].

Mr. Ghaffaar’s translations also have some of the couplets not found in the Guru Granth Sahib as they have been orally transmitted over the centuries. ‘Muhammad Asif Khan’s text, which has been used in this book, includes eighty three dohras which are not from the sacred text. Three of these ashloks are a part of this selection’ says the translator but for some reason, unbeknown to us, ‘Shlokas’ are called dohras in the book. Secondly, he hasn’t followed the order in which the couplets appear in late Asif Khan’s book ‘Akhiya Baba Farid ne’. Asif Khan for obvious reasons followed the order that we find in Guru Granth Sahib. Mr. Ghaffar has made Baba Farid’s verses accessible to English reading public which is a no mean feat as he is not an easy poet to translate because of fascinating austerity and richly layered brevity of his verses. It’s meaningful work done with love and care. Your library would be poorer without this book. So buy your copy today.

‘Sariaki Mythology’ is Javed Asif’s latest book published by Qaaf Publications, Dera Ismail Khan. Javed Asif is a good poet and writer. But strangely he has ventured into a territory he seems not to be familiar with. Anthropology is a specialised academic discipline that requires an anthropologist worth the name to be equipped with sophisticated analytical tools to decode what is coded in apparently baffling bunch of ancient tales. This not to deny the fact that there is no clear cut distinction between a folktale and a myth as both have certain overlapping features which blurring the boundaries create a lot of grey area. Ironically it’s grey area that tempts rookie scholars to dabble in the academic matters they are not trained to handle.

Javed Asif has collected tidbits of oddities of social life that embody superstitious practices. Folks in order to tackle odd or unusual situations employ non-rational or non-logical measures suspending their disbelief. Javed Asif’s collected stuff comprising folk anecdotes, sayings and adages is not specific to what is called Sariaki speaking area but are spread all across Punjab if one cares to be objective. His is in fact a simple narration of nuggets of our folk life. In his effort to project prosaic social phenomenon of collective life as if it has some mythological significance, he quotes author after author, dead and living, none of whom by no stretch of imagination can be taken as an authority on the subject. He even goes to the extent of touting local poets as experts on mythology though unwittingly.

Mythology is a collection of ancient stories in which forces of nature and phenomenon of experience find personified expression building a sacred narrative about origin of life and world, gods and heroes etc. It mainly deals with cosmology and cosmogony of primitive age. What Mr. Asif offers is deep-rooted superstitions found in the lingo-ethnic groups spread across Punjab regarding wind and dust storm, and rain and drought, poverty and riches and other odd situations of individual and social life.

Punjab and adjoining regions have no mythology except the one they jettisoned as Hindu or Indian mythology after their change of religious faith. Superstitious cultural practices cannot be taken as myths. The book may be a good read if the author desists from insisting that cultural factoids are a treasure trove of myths.“Myth is a language, functioning on an especially high level where meaning succeeds practically at ‘taking off’ from the linguistic ground on which it keeps rolling,” says Claude Lévi-Strauss, the greatest anthropologist of 20th century. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2018