LITERATURE is a cultural construct and sometimes literary trends indicate the shape of a cultural phenomenon taking place under the surface.
On the surface, literary weather was fine during the year 2019. A large number of books were published on different subjects, enriching different genres; book fairs were organised, invoking huge responses, literary conferences and festivals received good crowds as usual, book launches took place and it seemed all was well in Urdu’s literary world.
But beneath the surface, some currents were moving in a direction different from the surface currents. Those undercurrents indicate some cultural phenomena that are not too perceptible but they do exist and point to a few disturbing trends. For instance, Urdu poetry seemed to be pushed on to the sidelines. True, the popularity of poetry is everywhere on the wane. In the west too poetry books do not sell well these days. But ours is a society that has always been drenched in poetry and though the days are gone when everyone had a flair for poetry and even semiliterate housewives too composed poetry, still we have poetry in our blood and its decline is an indication of a shift in society’s literary as well as cultural paradigm. The number of new poetry collections published during 2019 was almost at par with the past years but most of them were self-published, distributed gratis among friends and fellows.
One of the reasons why our society at large has suffered a lapse in the literary and especially poetical tastes is the general decline in standards of the usage of the Urdu language. Though the general decline in the standard of education or teaching of Urdu too has played a role in it; our new generation has been guided away from our cultural and literary heritage, intentionally or unintentionally, by diverting young minds towards the English language and literature. The predominance of the English language in our society has conveniently ensured that our coming generations are effectively blocked off from our cultural, historical, religious and literary traditions, whose sources are, mainly, in Urdu and Persian. So there is a striking disconnect between our new generation and our literary tradition. As a result we have very few new or young Urdu poets that are a delight to read or listen to. Just imagine what future holds!
Another disturbing trend was relying too much on social media for publishing one’s creative works. Eliciting a few hundred ‘likes’ was all needed by some budding writers to have a good night’s sleep, dreaming of becoming a literary celeb. Social media is a blessing on certain counts but limiting one’s creative talent to a bunch of sycophants, mostly friends requesting an equal number of reciprocal ‘likes’, is a folly that will not lead to literary success, especially in this era of fake news and plagiarised online works when online stuff is losing its credibility faster than previously thought.
This, in turn, has led to another trend: ever-decreasing number of new and young writers contributing to literary magazines. Though during the year literary journals seemed to flourish at the same pace, there was a catch: these magazines have a print run of hardly a few hundred copies and most of the readers are those who contribute too. As a result, about three to four hundred poets and writers read each other’s works. This brings literary magazines to the level of a social media clique wherein a handful of friends read and appreciate (sometimes they do not read, only appreciate) each other’s works and live happily ever after. The only difference being that literary magazines do not have the icon for ‘likes’ to press. On the contrary, the literary Urdu magazines that did really well in terms of contents last year include so many that it would be unfair to name just a few and leave out others.
Urdu research journals have a slightly different story. Mostly published by universities, these journals are recognised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC). They try hard to meet the HEC criteria. But of late, HEC’s funding has evaporated and as a result some of the research journals have reduced their print orders to even lower level, creating a situation where most of the society is unaware of the research being carried out, hence effectively cancelling out the very purpose of the research.
Another trend, interesting and somewhat contentious, is the model literary conferences and festivals are being adjusted to. For instance, a welcome change is an informal setting with informal style of discussion instead of reading out ponderous papers nobody seems to be interested in. But to the chagrin of many, activities that cannot be strictly labelled as ‘literary’ are becoming part of fests, for example singing and classical dances. This too is perhaps the dictum of the times as the new generation seems to be more interested in entertainment than literary or intellectual activities. But this gives conferences an air of a carnival or funfair, where only missing ingredients are rides, magic shows and entertainers, not to forget the jokers. But then some feel that jokers have always been an integral part of literary conferences in this country.
Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2020
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