“Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone”.
These famous lines by American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) have been naughtily changed by comic writer Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) to make us laugh. Burgess says “Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone”. See, the world laughs with Burgess, as you just did!
Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai (also spelt Chaghtai) was a humour writer who laughed all the way to his grave despite his numerous painful ailments. As Ismat Chughtai, his sister and a fiction writer in her own right, has mentioned in a pen sketch titled Dozakhi, Azeem Baig was suffering from a host of extremely painful diseases but kept his sense of humour, never complaining, rather making others laugh, knowing for sure he was going to die pretty soon. Azeem Baig Chughtai kept the world laughing through his writings and is considered one of the foremost humorists of Urdu of his times. Writer with such a sunny disposition can never be termed depressed, though some critics, such as Vazeer Agha and Dr Muhammad Sadiq, have opined otherwise.
Azeem Baig Chughtai had been suffering from different ailments, including tuberculosis, but what caused greater troubles was the incident of poisoning. Azeem Baig Chughtai was practising as a lawyer at Jodhpur when Nawab of Jaora, a great admirer of his writings, invited him to come over and serve as chief justice. Chughtai accepted the offer and moved to Jaora, a princely state in the British India.
But some royal practices were very strange for Chughtai. An intellectual with a liberal and progressive mindset, he thought some of them were totally ridiculous. Being a creative writer and humorist, he wrote a book named Khurpa Bahadur, a satire on the Nawab of Jaora. The Nawab realised the sarcastic work spoofed him and decided to punish the writer secretly. As disclosed to this writer by a member of Chughtai family, a descendant of Azeem Baig, the humorist was slow poisoned. His bodily strength started to wane. Luckily, the doctor there had sympathy and asked Chughtai’s wife to take him away. So they quietly left Jaora. Back in Jodhpur, he apparently recovered a bit. But the poison had had its effects and he suffered from the consequences till he breathed his last.
As narrated by Ismat in Dozakhi, considered one among the best in Urdu pen sketches, during the last days of his life, Azeem Baig was suffering from TB, stiffed legs, tumour and some other medical problems, yet he was as jolly as ever. This streak of cheerfulness and playfulness pervades his humorous writings. Aside from humorous novels, Azeem Baig Chughtai wrote humorous short stories and essays, too.
Now a selection from humorous essays and stories by Chughtai has been published by Oxford University Press Pakistan. Titled Nigarishaat-e-Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai’ and subtitled Mizahiyya Tehreeron Ka Intikhab, the book is compiled by Dr Muhammad Tahir Qureshi and offers 14 hilarious pieces, including some pieces that made Azeem Baig very popular. In his intro, Dr Qureshi has mentioned that Azeem Baig Chughtai’s date of birth had been a subject of discussion among researchers but Dr Hina Afreen in her doctoral dissertation has proved that Chughtai was born on August 12, 1898, in Ghazipur. His father was a government officer and his mother was daughter of Munshi Umrao Ali, a famous Urdu novelist of his times.
Initially he wrote some books and articles on Islam and Islamic practices, such as pardah, or veil. Being a feminist and liberal thinker, he faced certain problems and his books such as Quran Aur Pardah, Hadees Aur Pardah and Tafveez (advocating the power of divorce being delegated to the bride at the time of nikah), became controversial.
An ardent supporter of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s views on modernism and a critic of moulvis, Azeem Baig Chughtai later on turned to fiction writing and many of his short stories and novels paint a young girl or a young wife who is not submissive and even helps her husband beat the odds. Shareer Bivi (Naughty Wife) can be cited as evidence.
In those days, a mantra Aye aurat tera naam kamzori hai, was much in vogue. As it may be translated as ‘O woman, thy name is weakness’, it sounds like Shakespeare’s famous quote ‘Frailty, thy name is woman’. But Chughtai wrote a book named Shehzori, or strength, and said Aye aurat tera naam shehzori hai (O woman thy name is strength). Chughtai’s books gained a new popularity with the telecast of Shareer Bivi as a serial from PTV in the 1970s.
The book is a timely reminder as this unique humorist was beginning to slip away from our memories. Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai died on August 20, 1941.
Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2021
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