HYDERABAD: Celebrated writer Mohammed Hanif says that he often tries to write ‘love stories’ instead of violent ones, but whenever he does it, someone goes ‘missing’ and things get disturbed.

He concedes that he gets frightened and in a lighter vein puts it that one should be feeling scared as it is essential for health.

Mr Hanif was sharing his thoughts at a session in Ayaz Melo that witnessed a larger number of attendees on Tuesday night.

Novelist Syed Kashif Raza, who has translated his novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes in Urdu, was the moderator.

Putting crisp questions in a lighter vein, Raza asked him how he started writing in multiple languages. Hanif explained that language had unique dynamics in Pakistan. He hailed from a Punjabi family, studied Urdu in government school and while he was working in Urdu journalism he switched over to English.

“And when we die we have to answer questions in Arabic,” he said.

He said he wrote drama and one for his wife. “I still write drama though occasionally,” he remarked and said conditions of writers were not good these days in ours and the neighbouring country.

He told the moderator that he did try to write ‘love stories’ but someone often went missing when he completed 20th page of a novel so everything gets disturbed.

Hanif also asked Raza why he had translated his book in Urdu.

“Because [Gen] Zia shared our love and because it was a desi novel to show conditions of Zia’s era in fiction,” he said and added that Hanif’s novel had adequately covered that period of time, including famous “jokes of rural population that used to be common”.

“Masses lack arms to fight dictator, therefore they turn to jokes to give vent to their feelings and this has been truly reflected in your book,” Raza replied.

The author disclosed that he had started writing a new novel and also had written an opera Bhutto to be presented in the US next year whose composition was being finalised.

He said that Ijazul Haq [Zia’s son] had called him to threaten him that if his father had been alive, he would see how he could write this book.

“I told him, ‘you are absolutely right, I wouldn’t have written that,” Hanif said.

“Every new dictator appears more handsome than his predecessor,” he told the moderator.

He said Hyderabad city was always a shelter for him and whenever he felt broken or dejected he used arrive here to share company with late poet Hasan Dars.

Answering a few questions, he told Farooq Soomro, a journalist, “yes I get frightened [when writing on sensitive areas] and it’s good for health that we should be scared of something as well. But I am scared of ‘seth’ of media houses whose stories are not good either. Journalists don’t get salaries for four months,” he said.

He told another questioner Khalid Chandio that youths would come forward and things would get resolved. “Some say if ‘extension’ gets confirmed things will lead to some ‘cure’ as well,” he said.

Poet Harris Khalique told moderator Amar Sindhu in a session ‘Hi seen na deehndhi chain’ that a poet regardless of his stature was deeply rooted in his native place.

She asked him to differentiate between poet’s ideology and his connection with society. He said things were different when it came to discussing literature. He said revolutions keep ‘individual’ at bay and revolutions negated ‘individualism’.

He said Mir Taqi Mir was a big name but had roots in his native place. He said resistance through literature was more lasting than the one waged through political movements or journalism.

He told audience that an author couldn’t be dictated by a reader who has different levels of understandings.

He said when the Poet of the East was 18 years old he was different from a 60-year-old Iqbal. And same goes for Shaikh Ayaz.

“A poet or an author could not betray his civilisation therefore literature has to be seen in totality.

“A poetic verse lasts longer than a slogan,” he asserted.

“Basically a poet is a hedonist and [Sheikh] Ayaz had said he was a hedonist trapped in political world,” he said.

He maintained that presentation of darker side of society was necessary and that’s what Manto did but Pakistan’s progressive circles didn’t understand him otherwise he was a women-friendly individual.

At another session on ‘Ayaz aae Amir Khusro jo sangam’, speakers agreed that Ayaz had great influence of Amir Khusro on him.

Saleem Baig Mughal, a professor of Urdu, said that Shaikh Ayaz had struggled against oppression in 20th century, which Amir Khusro experienced 700 years back as both faced class-based conflicts, domination of landowners, etc.

He said that Khusro used to take help from his do sukhnay to express his views as he had lived in regimes of 11 kings of his era while he served in durbar of seven emperors.

“What we can’t say in 21st century, Khusro tried to do it through his poetry in his own way,” he said.

Taj Joyo said Ayaz borrowed a couple of things from Khusro as he had himself claimed he had inherited Khusro, adding Ayaz had taken influence of every great poet.

Fahim Shanas believed that despite having a gap of 700 years (between Ayaz and Khusro) Ayaz was in fact a bridge between two eras.

He said that despite different periods poets often share common ideological lines.

Sahar Gul Bhatti sought to disagree that there were commonalities between Khusro and Ayaz though the latter had the former’s influence.

She said that Khusro had clearer concept of divine, but not Ayaz as he kept asking questions about wahdatul wajood.

Published in Dawn, December 25th, 2019