AUTHOR Muhammad Saleemur Rahman is a polymath. He is a poet, translator, fiction writer, lexicographer, critic, playwright and literary journalist. His literary career spans seven decades with a long list of literary works to his credit, making him one of the most experienced writers and translators in today’s Urdu literature. He writes in Urdu and English, and this odyssey of his has earned him name, fame and honours. I here used the word ‘odyssey’ as he had translated into Urdu Homer’s Odyssey at the age of 22 and, 68 years later, the journey goes on, as he has just turned 90.
Born on April 12, 1934 in Saharanpur, UP, in British India, Saleemur Rahman lived in Aligarh as his father Aqeelur Rahman Nadvi, a poet, taught Persian at a school at Aligarh (Mukhtar Masood was his pupil as is mentioned in Masood’s Avaaz-i-Dost, page 236-7). Saleemur Rahman migrated to Pakistan in 1952. Here he worked for Nusrat, an Urdu magazine published from Lahore by Haneef Ramay. A testimony to Saleemur Rahman’s editorial acumen are some remarkable issues of Savera, a prestigious Urdu literary magazine that he joined in 1963. Some 60 years later, he is still somehow associated with it, albeit there have been some hiatuses. Saleemur Rahman wrote a literary and cultural column in Pakistan Times, an English newspaper, and also reviewed books for it for decades.
He has drunk deep from the fountains of literature and his hugely vast study and understanding of world literatures is astoundingly great. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons why translation is a realm where Saleemur Rahman excels.
But let us not forget his own creative works as Saleemur Rahman is a poet and fiction writer, too. A collection of his poems, titled Nazmen, or Poems, was reprinted a few years ago. Some critics believe Muhammad Saleemur Rahman’s poems are epitome of modern poems. Vazeer Agha once wrote that poem is essentially a Western genre and it reflects the sentiments that the West experienced with the advent of Industrial Revolution: individualism and aloofness. We in our society met with the same feelings when industrialisation began here, Agha added. A feeling of aloofness, reflected in his creative works, comes to Saleemur Rahman naturally, emanating perhaps from a feeling of being uprooted and alienation. In real life, he is known to live a semi-reclusive life and shuns literary gatherings. Readings, a bookshop in Lahore, is now perhaps the only rendezvous where you can expect him to turn up — and chat with him over a cup of tea.
His recent book, plainly titled Afsane, Drame, Novel Ke Chand Auraaq, is a collection of short stories, plays and a few pages from a novel in the making. But this simplicity is a reflection of his philosophy of life: plain living and high thinking. His short stories, too, carry an aura of alienation, often expressed in surrealistic style.
On the other hand, his choice of classical works, either for translation or editing, covers a broader spectrum of colours, ranging from old to modern, melancholy to naughty and highly imaginative to scientific. Just have a look at Urdu translations that Saleemur Rahman has carried out: Jahan Gard Ki Vaapsi (Odyssey by Homer), Teen Behnen (The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov), Khala Navordon Ke Afsane (sci-fi by Frank M. Robinson and others), Ernest Hemingway (a critical study by Philip Young), Qalb-i-Zulmaat (The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad), Amn (modern German short stories, essays and poems), Chalta Purza (Lazarillo de Tormes, a 16th-century Spanish novel by an anonymous author), Gumshuda Cheezon Ke Darmiyaan (selections from world literature), Samandri Bagla (The Seagull by Anton Chekhov) and Pahar Ki Avaaz (The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata, the Japanese Nobel Laureate).
His translations into Urdu for juvenile readers include: Sulaimani Khazana (King Solomon’s Mines by Rider Haggard), Ghaibi Insaan (The Invisible Man by H.G Wells), Shararat Ka Putla (The Stories of Till Eulenspiegel, a trickster in German folklore, adapted for children by Erich Kastner) and Bachchon Ki Alf Laila (tales from Arabian Nights), in several volumes. Saleem Sahib believes that a translator should remain close to the original text and that is why his translations can be termed ‘faithful’.
He has also edited some classical Urdu works and they are: Mazaameen-i-Firaq (by Nasir Nazeer Firaq), Kana Bati (by Mir Baqar Ali Dastan Go), Tilism-i-Gohar Bar (by Muneer Shikohabadi), Aseer-i-Zehan (philosophical essays by different Western thinkers), Riaz-i-Dil Ruba (a novel by Lala Gumani Lal), Tavaareekh-i-Raaslas (a novel by Kamaluddin Hyder Lakhnavi) and Dard-i-Jan Sitaan (by Nasir Nazeer Firaq Dehlvi). The Naked Hens is a collection of Urdu short stories that Saleem Sahib translated into English.
His critical works in Urdu are Mashaheer-i-Adab: Unaani, or famous Greek authors; and Muntakhab Adabi Istelahaat, a detailed glossary of critical terms that he compiled in association with Suhail Ahmed Khan. Saleem-ur-Rahman’s other works include Rubaiyyat-i-Sarmad (Sarmad’s Persian quatrains translated into Urdu).
Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2024
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