By Intizar Husain 

THE Urdu department at the OrientalCollege has, in recent years, brought out the research journal Bazyaft with the purpose of providing academic circles information about the research activities of Urdu scholars. The journal has been appearing intermittently under the editorship of Dr Fakhrul Haq Noori.

The journal’s volume number 20 offers us relevant information about a valuable manuscript, which was buried in the distant city of Vienna. The credit for its discovery goes to the distinguished scholar Mohammad Ikram Chughtai, who dug it out from the manuscript section of the Austrian National Library in Vienna.

The manuscript is a collection of letters, 58 in Urdu and one in Persian, written by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah to his beloved wife Malika Seemtun during his years of imprisonment in FortWilliam, Calcutta. Malika was in Lucknow where she had been left behind along with his other wives.

Chughtai has provided enough information relevant to this collection of letters. According to him, Shah had of his own will travelled to Calcutta in a vain attempt to win back his lost status as a ruler. While fighting for his case, the rebellion of 1857 broke out leading to the War of Independence. Lucknow too was in a state of revolt. From among his wives, Begum Hazrat Mahal came out leading the revolt. Lucknow seemed liberated for a while, but the British in Calcutta grew suspicious of Shah and so he was taken into custody and imprisoned at FortWilliam.

As a prisoner, Shah suffered from loneliness; an ardent lover of music, dance and drama, he was now compelled to lead a solitary life. And in Lucknow his wives were in trouble and he was unable to send them money. The rise of Begum Hazrat Mahal had created problems for them. It was during these years that, as pointed out by Chughtai, a correspondence developed between him and his begmaat. Their emotional letters became a rich source of consolation for this lonely man. He too was no less emotional while writing to them. And if these letters contain stray remarks condemning the revolutionary role of Begum Hazrat Mahal and the freedom fighters under her command, they should be seen as inspired by the version of the situation supplied to him by jealous begmaat. All other sources of information were closed. One more factor should be kept in mind. After all, the English were keeping an eye on what was being passed on in this exchange and the Nawab was careful to demonstrate his hostility to the freedom fighters.

All kinds of artistic expressions, like music and dance, were kept away. But the door of poetry as a way of expressing his sorrow and nostalgia was still open to him. So while writing these letters he felt free to give vent to his pangs of separation and personal sorrows and talk about his nostalgia for Lucknow both in prose and verse. And he developed a love for letter writing and also realised that they carry a literary value. So he instructed his begmaat to compile them. Chughtai has referred to the book in which these letters have been compiled.

But what about this newly discovered collection of letters written to Seemtun which was compiled under the title Seem-ut-Tawarikh? How was it lost leaving no clue for our researchers and how did it reach Vienna? Chughtai’s conjecture is that after Shah’s death in 1887, Matiya Burj was plundered and a number of valuable books and handwritten manuscripts were lost. Perhaps this collection was part of this lost treasure. Some foreigner might have purchased the collection and eventually sold it to the manuscript section of the Austrian National Literary. It was left for Chughtai to access this manuscript.

As researched by Chughtai, Seemtun was in trouble soon after Begum Hazrat Mahal rose to power. When she saw no way out, she informed Shah about the circumstances she faced. The letter acted as the starting point of the hectic correspondence between the two separated souls deeply in love.