Writing is not something natural despite the fact that most of the things we think and do are recorded i.e. they are put in writing.

Written language doesn’t have a long history. It made its appearance about 5,000 years ago first in Mesopotamia in the Sumer region while oral traditions had ruled for eons. They are still alive in large parts of the world including the region we live in. All kinds of human experience and knowledge, esoteric and exoteric, have been transmitted orally. We in our contemporary times tend to disbelieve it because of our reliance on the written word afforded by available tools of literacy that have drastically reduced our need and capacity to memorise.

For those who doubt the effectiveness and reliability of oral communication, two examples will suffice. In Islamic culture ‘Hafiz’ is a revered figure. Hafiz is an Arabic word which literally means protector or guardian. Hafiz is someone who commits the Holy Quran to their memory, preserving it to ensure its continuity and accessibility. Such an oral text has been/is as reliable as the written text. In the subcontinent, we find much older oral traditions that preserved Vedas and other religious literature. “The Rig Veda was preserved orally, but it was frozen, every syllable preserved for centuries, through a process of rigorous memorisation. There are no variant readings of the Rig Veda, no critical editions or textual apparatus, Just the Rig Veda,” writes Wendy Doniger in her book The Hindus.

According to a story, Max Muller who edited Rig Veda had it recited by three different Brahmins in Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. Each of them pronounced every syllable of the text as other two did. Similarly huffaz (plural of hafiz) in diverse Muslim societies would recite the Quran without any variation. It were oral traditions that recorded our past for us in the absence of easy accessibility of written word. In ancient times, books were a rarity in the subcontinent. Climate and faith are the main factors responsible for exacerbating the situation. Heat, especially wet heat and brown ants destroyed any written book or a written text in a short span of time. Vellum (lambskin, goatskin or calfskin prepared especially for writing on or binding books) was a taboo.

Only the privileged could boast of having books or personal libraries because of the high cost involved. Substitutes for books for common folks were storytellers, bards, balladeers, poets and raconteurs. It’s interesting to note that oral texts, not all, recited by artists concerned with oral traditions, became written texts in a historical process. Examples are innumerable. But the opposite of it is also true; written texts would turn into oral texts. The recent case is that of Heer Waris Shah. Originally it appeared as a written text. Bards took it up and it became immensely popular across Punjab. The story was already made familiar by Shah Husain and Damodar Das but its new version fired the people’s imagination. It would be recited or sung in the evening gatherings which were a part of our culture.

When the introduction of the printing press in the mid-19th century made the mass publication of books possible, the editors and publishers collected the oral versions and made a new written text (they labelled it ‘asli te vaddi Heer’, original and complete Heer) out of them. And it was full of interpolations. Curiously, this written text again became an oral text. Written texts have however never had widespread use due to our peculiar historical conditions. The reason as mentioned above was scarcity of printed material. Another reason has been the language issue; people’s language in our area has been denied its legitimate rights. It has neither been used as a medium of instruction nor employed as a means of general communication at official level. Foreign languages imposed on the people have resulted in the deplorable low literacy level.

Of the literate only a small percentage is left with an appetite for reading beyond textbooks. How abysmal the situation is can be guessed from the fact that print line in each publication in English, Urdu (imported languages that have been forced on the people) and Punjabi tells us that its edition carries 500 copies. Five-hundred copies in a country with a 250 million population! Small number of copies makes the publication so costly that it scares away the average reader. The publishers in an effort to sustain their business have to depend on the public libraries. Their pricing strategy seems painfully simple; their publications are priced keeping in view the target buyers; libraries which lead to the exclusion of general readers. Libraries are far and few. And fewer dare enter them.

Writing as said in the beginning is not something natural. Even the most literate and erudite minds are somewhat averse to writing. In our cities across the country an impressive number of literary conferences and litfests are organised every year but you will rarely see a paper, researched or otherwise, presented. Our exalted minds exultantly indulge in talks at the stage as panelists and repeat their lofty ideas in a highfalutin language ad nauseam. Writing is purely a human act, acquired, and developed with the passage of time. Two things have changed history in a fundamental manner; invention of language and written word. Language is no doubt the greatest human achievement or invention. It is what led us inexorably towards a world distinct from the animal kingdom. Its power threatened even God as the biblical story of the Tower of Babel shows. It was a quantum leap forward in the history of human evolution. It separated us from other species on the planet in the sense that we had acquired a tool that made us articulate, enabling us to make sense of the world around us in a coherent manner. Second, quantum leap forward was acquiring the skill or art of writing which made it possible for us to accumulate experience and knowledge which had the cumulative effect on human evolution. That most of our people are averse to or shy of written words shows that they are not fully developed humans. They would make the optimum use of language if they were reading and writing. But such a failing “won’t stop them living to eighty.” — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2025