Here is before me a newly published book The Wings of Time, where a daughter is seen talking about her father. But she seems not content to depict him as just a father. She aims at portraying the whole man from the cradle to the grave. But let us first have an introduction with the daughter, who is Dr M.D. Taseer’s eldest child, Salma Mahmood.

She has a PhD in English from Cambridge University and has been writing on literature, history and art. She is also well-versed in Urdu and has been translating Urdu fiction into English. Before talking about her father Salma Mahmood thinks fit to give a brief account of her uncles, which appear to be innumerable. They all were fast friends of her father’s and so were uncles to her.

They included a number of literary luminaries such as Faiz, Patras Bokhari, Hafeez Jallundhari, Soofi Tabassum, Abid Ali Abid, a number of educationists, journalists, artists and childhood companions. Superior to them all was the great Allama Iqbal, with whom “Daddy was able to form an emotional relationship from his early days, and Iqbal spoke of him as one of the young writers in Urdu from whom he expected great achievements.”

They all come in her father’s life in different stages one by one and formed a luminous company of friends, first and foremost at the Barudkhana Haveli, in the Walled City of Lahore where, as she tells us, “Daddy grew up from the age of three. He was orphaned at that tender age and was brought to Barudkhana Haveli at dead of night, to be brought up by his maternal aunt Muzaffar Begum, his only living relative, and her large hearted husband Mian Nizamuddin, a Kashmiri landowner, and a scholar of Urdu and Persian.”

As portrayed by Salma Mahmood, this orphan child growing up comes alive as a naughty boy wandering in Barudkhana alleys along with his childhood mates Naggi (Dr Nazir Ahmed) and Ghulam Abbas, and revelling in luxury during summer afternoons eating kulfis and drinking shikanjbeen. But often he was seen near the old bed of Ravi, not very far from Barudkhana, “under a shady tree lying with his satchel under his head reading Dastan-i-Amir Hamza or Fasana-i-Azad”.

Thanks to his dramatic delivery of these dastans to his audience in the Haveli, his adoptive mother Bebeji herself soon grew as a storyteller and was now called Amaan Kahaniyan Wali. Such was the upbringing of this boy who had grown up in old Lahore living in a Haveli, a cultural phenomenon unto itself, which helped him to drink deep from the old spring of culture.

With this cultural background M.D. Taseer in his eagerness for higher education left this Haveli and proceeded to Cambridge in 1934. Salma Mahmood calls the 1930s a turbulent decade, with Cambridge emerging as the hectic centre of leftist intellectuals. She gives some glimpses of this hectic activity. And soon Dr Taseer is seen deeply involved in this activity.

“It was in London in 1935,” she tells us, “that Daddy along with Dr Mulk Raj Anand, future communist revolutionaries Jyoti Ghosh and Pramod Sen Gupta as well as Sajjad Zaheer met at the historic Nanking restaurant… to draft the manifesto for the Progressive Writers Association”.

And soon after this he fell in love (at first sight) “with a tall and slender woman of 24”. In late September 1936 this woman embarked on the journey to Lahore, where she was warmly received in Haveli Barudkhana.

Taseer’s romantic relationship with communism did not last long. It ended in a divorce. The other, with Christabel (Bilqees) was a success. On the occasion of their Nikah: “Allama Iqbal as Qazi, lying on a charpai while Mummy sat on a stool next to him and recited the kalma, dressed in a formal brocade shalwar qameez.”

Salma Mahmood has described well his father before her birth. She has given a good account of his intellectual life. She is keen to tell us how active he was as an intellectual during those years. But when he returns from England to his own land and is active as an Urdu writer provoking controversies, ideological and non-ideological, she seems not very enthusiastic to tell us about his achievements in the literary field.

On the other hand Taseer Sahib had cared to see, as she tells us, that her daughter should be well-versed in Urdu so as to be able to take interest and appreciate his Urdu verses. Not only that, he also insisted that she should be well-versed in Persian.

Of course she is seen here showing her interest in his ghazals but does not take into consideration his modern verse.

By the way, Taseer Sahib has also written a novel, which was published in 1948 under the title Kanval, but it went unnoticed. He has also some literary criticism to his credit. Add to it his disputative articles with reference to literary controversies initiated by him.

In fact his was a very dynamic personality, ever ready to cross swords with literary rivals or those opposed to him ideologically. One such battle was fought against the progressives in 1948. Salma Mahmood has thought fit to ignore this aspect of his father’s intellectual life.

So it was left for Aftab Ahmed Khan to tell us that Taseer Sahib, one of the founding fathers of the Progressive Writers Movement, had in 1946 developed differences with the policy of the Communist Party with reference to Pakistan. And he had communicated his differences to Syed Sajjad Zaheer. That eventually led to his saying goodbye to the Party. That in turn led to a big battle between the two.