The 'destiny syndrome'

"Pakistan will be worse after Musharraf" is a headline in a leading western current affairs magazine. Though it looks like a very innocent observation, it is loaded with disastrous meanings. A banana republic may afford the luxury of having an image like that, but by no means a nuclear power. This image is not there by some accident but is an outcome of a concerted effort and campaign by General Musharraf to convince the people at home and folks abroad that he alone is the destiny of Pakistan.

The president tells his benefactors abroad that if he fell, Pakistan will fall into the hands of the Taliban and scares his own people by portraying that if he was not there, nobody can stop a punitive strike by the US against Pakistan's nuclear assets. Some international lobbies, which are uncomfortable with the nuclear capability of Pakistan, also try to portray a similar image of Pakistan to convince the US policy makers that Pakistan can't be trusted with nuclear technology because after Musharraf the bomb could fall into the hands of the terrorists.

These assertions by both Gen Musharraf and some international lobbies need to be examined closely. If Pakistan, after fifty-six years, still remains so fallible that without one man it could lose sense and go bizarre then maybe one has to also admit that it doesn't deserve to exist as a state. But if it is a viable state then its destiny can't be tied to one individual.

What Musharraf is trying to project is not a new phenomenon. Every military dictator in history, regardless of time and space, has thrived on this kind of image. From Africa to Asia to Latin America every military ruler has suffered from the "destiny syndrome" by first convincing himself that Providence has brought him to power in order to change the destiny of his country and then tried to tell his people that after him the state will fall into undeserving and wrong hands and he alone is the country's saviour.

But, what history tells us is that all such dictators considered themselves to be the last chance for their countries took a fall but their states survived. We heard such sermons for ten years from Gen. Ayub Khan, for three years from Gen Yahya Khan, and for eleven years from Gen Ziaul Haq. While they were in power they also tried to confuse the nation about their indispensability but once they were gone a consensus emerged among the opinion leaders and historians that their rule did more harm than good to the nation.

In order to justify their rule, these dictators commit an unforgivable sin by shattering the nation's self-image and confidence. They pick on all institutions and leaders, whom they perceive to be a threat to their rule, by casting them as corrupt, rogue, incompetent, and opportunist. They manipulate the national institutions to make them timid, destroy the civil institutions by inducting a battery of army officers into civil institutions, introduce politics of horse-trading and bribery to create a new constituency for themselves.

Gen Musharraf's rule has been no exception. During the four years, he has mercilessly subjugated the judiciary through the PCO, shamelessly rigged the referendum and October 2002 elections, consistently inducted over a thousand military officers in civil departments, lavishly dished out residential plots and agriculture land to his military officers, covertly manipulated the media, and continues to distrust his own graduate parliament. As a result, his four years of rule have instead of building national institutions further weakened them. But, there is a silver lining in all this.

There is a tendency to criticize the past democratic governments but we fail to acknowledge the gains of the democratic process which lasted from 1988 to 1999. We must bear in mind that this was not a free democratic process. First of all, we must bear in mind that it was not a free democratic process. It was run under the shadows of the military establishment through Article 58-2 (b), the presidential power to dissolve parliament arbitrarily.

Despite that, because the system continued to run uninterrupted for eleven years, some positive political developments took place and have become irreversible. These developments give us hope and confidence that Pakistani state is not a one-man state. It has developed strong foundations for evolving its institutions. If the democratic process is allowed to continue without manipulation, we will see a consolidation of these trends.

The first most powerful and positive development that has taken place is the freedom of the media, which has become so powerful that in my opinion it alone possesses the power to check any democratic leader or government from misusing power. The media has performed this role very effectively during the governments of both Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.

It was on account of this newly acquired power of the media that Gen Musharraf couldn't impose full censorship on the media and had to intimidate it in a clandestine manner. On top of this, the globalization of information revolution has virtually made it impossible for even the most closed societies to censor information today. So, we Pakistanis can take pride that ours is one of the most developed media in the context of developing societies.

The second major development is the emergence of a stable mainstream two-party political system. The threat of regional nationalist parties challenging the federation receded during the '90s and most of the regional parties joined national mainstream politics. The roots of the two-party structure became so strong that despite his full effort, which involved full administrative and military resources, Musharraf was not able to dislodge the two major parties from the scene.

Today, all independent experts admit that the PML-N and the PPP still remain the two leading parties of the country. The leaderships and cadres of these parties have successfully resisted the persecution and bribes of Musharraf government giving birth to a new political culture of principled politics.

Mr. Javed Hashmi, acting president of the PML-N, and some other leaders are still behind bars. The senior leaders of these parties had an open offer to change their loyalties and become ministers. But, they chose to remain loyal to their parties. Even though Gen Musharraf did manage to break some elements of both parties in the shape of PML-Q and PPP-Patriots through the arm-twisting tactics of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and intelligence agencies, he couldn't destroy the main structure of the two parties.

Due to political consciousness of the masses, Gen Musharraf's king's party, PML-Q, failed to take off as a political entity despite heavy showering of official and intelligence agencies patronage. It breathes as long as it remains connected to the oxygen supplied by Gen Musharraf's machinery. For a political party to become a popular entity it either needs an ideology or a charismatic national leader. The PML-Q has none. Likewise, the MMA is a product of an accident. Gen Musharraf used its rise to blackmail the West in order to resist pressure for more democracy.

Moreover, due to the absence of national leadership from the country, there was a temporary vacuum in the national politics which the MMA found easy to fill. It is the fear of the return of the national leadership that makes both Musharraf and the MMA strange partners. So those who doubt that Pakistani politics can be swayed by extreme elements are thoroughly mistaken. Unlike India, where politics has fragmented in favour of regional parties, in Pakistan the democratic process has consolidated in the shape of two national parties, which is a very positive development.

The third development is that we see the beginning of a maturity process in Pakistani politics. From 1988 to 1997, the two political parties were locked in a fierce political battle. Both pursued politics of victimization against each other. The horse-trading tactics and the presidential power to dissolve the parliament were the two major factors which allowed the president to resort to conspiracies against democratic governments by playing off the two parties against each other and also provided a short cut to the opposition parties for lobbying with the establishment to get its adversary dislodged.

Finally, as a result of several setbacks all democratic parties came to an understanding to cooperate with each other in fighting this menace through the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments in the Constitution, which removed the president's power to dissolve the parliament and put a restriction on floor crossing or horse-trading.

This trend has further consolidated in the last four years through participation of both the PML-N and the PPP, the arch rivals, in the Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD). Both contested elections against each other in October 2002 elections but despite the heat of the election campaign they continued to remain partners in the ARD.

Both have signed a declaration apologizing to the nation about their past mistakes and agreed upon a code of ethics for the future. There is much more tolerance among the cadres of the two parties for each other than ever before. These are some positive signs in our political system which augur well for the future of democracy in Pakistan.

The fourth major development is the empowerment of the judicial process which took place during the eleven years of democracy. Although democratic governments are often charge-sheeted for not respecting the judicial institutions, we should not confuse democratic governments with the democratic process. It's the same as discarding Islam for the wrong doings of the Muslims. The democratic process has its own dynamics, which is evidenced by the activism shown by the judiciary during that period.

To be concluded

Off chicken, on bird flu!

What has the ongoing bird flu done, besides bringing about a dramatic drop in the sale of chicken? There is some sense in looking deeper into the matter. It is more than doing without the chicken tikka or the chicken sandwich which may have been part of one's routine, and which sooner or later will return! Of course the bird flue will go away. And the chicken meals will resume.

A colleague of mine, who is forever focused on the larger implications of a decline in credibility and a public cynicism of all official assurances and statements, underlines this point in the case of the widespread disbelief of all categorical assertions that argued that all the chicken were safe, and that this particular virus was not dangerous. That it would not affect human beings. Really?

For the sake of background one may point out that the federal cabinet approved on Wednesday the recommendations of the health ministry to ban inter-provincial movement of all chickens, and destroy all affected birds in the southern parts of Pakistan. These measures have been taken to avoid the spread of bird flue that has infected chickens in Karachi and its adjoining areas. And as a matter of precaution, the cabinet also approved a ban on the import of chicken birds from the suspected areas. (Many readers have been guessing what areas are "suspected").

And the ministry of health has been asked by the cabinet to advise the provincial health and livestock departments to ensure that destroyed birds are not used for animal or other feed. This was an APP story from the federal capital, Islamabad, a city known for its beauty too!

From reports so far this bird flu (some people find the expression as amusing, even though it is no laughing matter) is only a Karachi problem. Once again something Karachi specific has taken place, and one is cautiously reminded of the Tasman Spirit chaos that took place at the Clifton beach.

Remember the fish that citizens stopped eating, and one is wondering to what extent countrymen elsewhere in the land went off Karachi to steer clear of our troubled waters. For all the assurances that were given to the public that the fish being marketed were being caught from outside the affected and polluted Karachi beaches, no one really ever believed.

That is what has happened once again. Then too there were high profile media appearances by political leaders, ministers, bureaucrats, all. They kept saying that the fish were absolutely safe. No one ate fish! They are now saying that the chicken being sold in Karachi is safe, and prices have dropped in the process of all this flu flutter, but even the most careless amongst us, who eat chicken all the time offer flat refusals, and are adamant that they are going to stay off all meat in fact. (Keep in mind that Eidul Azha is here, tomorrow. And a kind of meat carnival is about to unfold).

All kinds of people have gone off meat. If there is the heart patient who has gone off chicken for the while, so has the housewife who would rely on chicken for all her important meals when the family was playing host to special guests. No risks with chicken, please. It is affecting people's budgets, this staying off chicken, but so compelling is the fear of this avian flu that no one wants to take a chance.

So what if city Nazim Naimatullah Khan's committee has stated that "there is no such virus in poultry that can affect the human body". The committee had a session in the office of the EDO health during the week. It was attended by the representatives of the Pakistan Medical Association, the Pakistan Poultry Association, and other "experts", all of whom concluded that the virus under mention (H-7 and H-9) could not get into the human body.

So there was no harm in having chicken meat. Even eggs were safe, one hundred per cent! But even eggs are being avoided. The chicken and egg business has been badly hit and the problem is one of credibility, further interpreted the colleague mentioned above. And he listed various examples of how the people were distrustful of all official clarifications on the matter.

The fact that the World Health Organisation has also joined into contend that "to date no human case of H5N influenza, which causes deaths in chickens and humans has been detected in Pakistan" has made no difference to the market. But the fact that over 3.5 million chickens have died of another virus (H7N3 and H9N2) detected in the poultry farms of this city was accepted by the WHO, do note.

It would be interesting to see what media planners and manipulators, and advertising smart alecs would do to try and handle this situation were they to be given this assignment by the Poultry Owners Association. This is where we hit a larger communication problem: the erosion of public confidence in clarifications, press statements, press releases and claims that say that "all is well".

For all the "all is well" stuff that a gullible public was given for five decades plus, they now take their own quiet decisions. And with all official media controls having gone weaker with time and technology, the result is so obvious: Bird flu, dangerous or not, they want to stay off chicken for now. And so the poultry trade suffers.

In passing one may mention that this present crisis in the city's poultry industry should also be seen in conjunction with the well known unhygienic operating conditions in which the poultry industry in the city is, and the grossly unsatisfactory meat storage, processing and transportation are public knowledge. As indeed is public helplessness too.

But here, in a way, there is perceptible an expression of the fact that wary consumers have chosen to play safe, rather than be sorry. True chicken meat is cheaper than mutton and beef, and it is a better option as a food item than vegetables and pulses, explain some men and women who have a better comprehension of how kitchen budgets are managed; but precaution is better than cure, seems to be the over-riding factor. The reaction to bird flu shows that the public knows how to protect its interests, even though it may be regarded as an overreaction.

On this subject one wonders what has happened to the sale of such items like chicken tikkas and chicken haleem or the Kentucky Fried Chicken, which reminds one of such citizens who contend that this bird flu caution has given them a good break from meat, and a good way to switch to vegetables and pulses. After all there is Eidul Azha that is here, and with all of February to spread out its lovely days and nights in the month ahead, there is every reason to look forward to lots and lots of "meaty meals" all the time.

A time to forget about calories and cholesterol is here, a season to put medical opinion and prescription aside has begun.

Focus on Eidul Azha, if you please. Even though the sound and smell of sacrificial animals has been mild and low, the religious festival is here. One is truly reminded of the extended celebrations of Eidul Azha over the years, of how it has changed, and how it become a rather "subdued" sort of event. One is unsure if "subdued" is the appropriate word.

One reason perhaps is the fact that with a growing and greater civic awareness that cattle markets and bazaars ought to be away from the heart of the city has taken a certain thrill and fun out of the experience of buying and bargaining for the animals. Children with families, particularly sons with their fathers, was an annual joy that was looked forward to. That too has declined; in a way before television walked into our lives, Eidul Azha possibly meant much for family togetherness than what it does now.

But then societal change has enveloped so much else. Not just Eidul Azha. Yet the intrinsic nature of the occasion remains unchanged and the lasting message of sacrifice in Allah's way a source of strength and direction.

Thinking of Eidul Azha in the sixties and seventies, makes one inevitably nostalgic and recall times that were not as hectic, and the city not as claustrophobic as now. When you bought the goat or the sheep from the street behind your house perhaps, and when the "qasai" was available for Rs50 or less per goat.

Now you don't know when the "qasai" will come, will he charge the same Rs500 as last time, and how many hours will it take to get to the cattle market on Sohrab Goth and back. Eid Mubarak all the same.

Defective vehicles issued fitness certificates

Most vehicles including trucks, containers, public transport vehicles and loaders plying on the GT Road are mechanically and technically faulty causing road accidents and breakdowns, besides spreading pollution.

This was stated at a National Highway and Motorway Police briefing here the other day. Since the motorway police took control of the GT Road from Kharian to Lahore sector in March last, some 25,000 defective vehicles, including trucks, broke down due to mechanical and technical fault. Fitness certificates to them had been issued by motor vehicle examiners and other relevant agencies. It is very alarming that defective vehicles were being passed and issued fitness certificates causing road accidents, besides an increase in environment pollution.

The National Highway and Motorway Police have demanded that executive power of issuing fitness certificates to vehicles should be given to NH&MP or an expert and a technical representative of the motorway police be associated with the committee/agency which issues vehicle fitness certificates.

Another issue was removing the broken down vehicles blocking the road in the absence of any arrangement of vehicle-lifter. It was suggested at the briefing that a heavy crane/vehicle-lifter should be arranged to avoid the road block due to break down of defective vehicles.

The GT Road from Kharian to Lahore is about 144km long which is in a deteriorating condition. It was stressed that the road should be constructed/widened, besides the construction of shoulders and service lanes at intervening cities and towns. Slow-moving traffic was also causing road accidents on the GT Road.

It was pointed out that since the motorway police took control of the GT Road from Kharian to Lahore sector as many as 300,000 challan tickets were issued to vehicle owners for violating traffic laws and Rs80 million were fined to them. It is not wrong to say that particularly light vehicles were involved in overspeeding which caused fatal road accidents and loss of life.

Dozens of people of intervening towns Ghakkhar, Rahwali, Eminabad and Kamoki were killed while crossing the road during the last few months. NH&MP started the checking of speed of vehicles by video cameras along the GT Road and fined them. Still the ratio of road accidents was alarming as the speed of vehicles had been fixed by NH&MP at 70km per hour in the city area and 90km per hour outside the city on the GT Road which should be reduced in city areas.

At the briefing, it was stated that NH&MP had closed about 337 U-turns on the GT Road from Kharian to Lahore sector to avoid road accidents while the remaining 143 would be closed shortly.

NH&MP inspector-general Maj Ziaul Hasan (retired) appreciated the performance of the Motorway Police and awarded cash prizes and commendation certificates to 32 officers at the annual award giving ceremony held at Kamoki recently. He also announced a special package for the motorway police, and said residential colonies would be constructed for them in Islamabad, Lahore, Gujranwala and other big cities besides allotting plots with the cooperation of the National Police Foundation and other agencies.

* * * * *

The second phase of the training programme of agricultural credit scheme was inaugurated by agricultural credit department director Syed Ishtiaq Ali at the State Bank here the other day.

The meeting was attended by Kisan Board vice-president Zaheeruddin Chattha, State Bank chief manager Saeed Hasan and agricultural credit department joint director A.D. Butt.

Speakers said the State Bank had launched a series of training programmes to implement the decision of the agricultural credit advisory committee to create awareness among the farming community and identify the difficulties being faced by banks in following State Bank's policies and programmes for enlarging the scope and volume of agricultural credit.

They said the proposed programmes would be continued up to April 10 which would be attended by mobile credit officers, agricultural credit officers and officers of various other banks.

The lost boat bridge

Just how did the huge invading armies, with all those horses, carriages, cannons and the massive paraphernalia of war manage to cross the River Ravi at Lahore before the British built the first bridge across it when laying the railway line from Lahore to Peshawar? Surely this is a question that must have crossed the mind of every Lahori.

Just a few months ago, Fakir Syed Aijazuddin published a delightful book titled Lahore Recollected in which he reproduced a photograph of Lahore's "Bridge of Boats" from J.H. Furneaux's Glimpses of India, published in 1895 in Bombay. If anything could easily satisfy my quest to visualize what stood across the river before the 'Shahdara railway bridge; was built, it was this one photograph. I had seen an old map of Lahore in which the location of the old boat bridge of Lahore was marked.

This map indicated the location with a dotted line. However, in the book by Aijazuddin, an equally interesting old map of Lahore shows the old boat bridge and its exact location. This prompted me to try to search for clues that remain of the old bridge, as well as try to retrace the old road that led to the 'original' bridge of Lahore.

Before dwelling on my small adventure, it would not be out of place to reproduce a description of conditions while crossing the Ravi River by William Moorcroft when he made it on 15 May, 1820: " The road to Shahdara is intersected by three different branches of the Ravi, separated in the dry weather by intervals of half a mile; but in the rainy season the two most easterly branches are united, and form an expansive and rapid stream.... the first two branches are fordable, but the third, which is the principal one, has a ferry".

It is very clear that the western-most portion always did remain the main flow of the river, with the eastern ones becoming part of the flow in the monsoons. Today, these portions are known as the 'Buddha Ravi', with one still, though very much a highly polluted outfall, falls into the river. The last one is where once flowed the river round the walled city, major portions of which still remain there around the walls of the old city. If you have been a student of geography, you will immediately acknowledge that the eastern most river is the original flow, while the current riverbed is its natural 'shifting' bed.

A British map of 1867 shows the 'bridge of boats' connecting the two banks of the Ravi at Mirza Kamran's baradari. The map depicts this as "Turgurwallee Baraduree". The word 'turgurwallee' is a corruption of the word 'targarh' or wire house. Either this is the first 'telegraph' wire house set up by the British, or it is where the rope, or wire, of the boat bridge was secured.

Before the railway bridge was built, a British superintendent of bridges was stationed at the "baradari", and it was there he had his residence. Later, this building was "fitted up as a Public Works Department rest house" as H.R. Goulding was to describe it.

With the Punjab annexed, the British stared immediately building boat and 'pucca' bridges across all the rivers in the state to improve the movement of troops and trade. The boat bridge over the Ravi was "declared to be the best of its kind and adopted as a model" as one description puts it. This brings forth the possibility that a boat bridge existed across the river before the British captured Lahore in 1849.

There are numerous references of the Sikh period where Maharajah Ranjit Singh has been described as riding across the Ravi. Given that he had the assistance of French engineers, it is a possibility that they had constructed boat bridges to facilitate their army crossings rivers with speed.

However, Moorcroft does mention that a ferry existed in 1820. It would be safe to assume that the boat bridge, which the British mention in 1854 "the old boat bridge" does clearly mean that it was in place before the British annexed Lahore.

All these interesting pointers made me walk, on both sides of the bank, in a trek searching for clues to the old boat bridge. I walked through the Ravi Park and the northern portions of Mominpura to see where the landing stages would have been. The manner in which the roads lead does certainly point to the fact that they all converged on one point just south of Ravi Park. People of the area still call it 'Pul Morr' or bridge crossing. Even though the old railway bridge is almost half a mile to the north, and the Ravi Road crossing was later to be called by the same name.

This pointer led me through Mominpura and on to the edge of the current Bund Road. The crazy unplanned construction that has become Lahore has removed all traces of any old boat bridge. My guess is that the securing ground lies buried under the current Bund Road.

On the other side of the Ravi in Shahdara, the old road certainly does curve and hits a point, just opposite Kamran's baradari, which is also called 'Pul Morr'. It is clear that the 'baradari' once was part of the river's western bank. On the island there are definite signs of the boat bridge, with two solid brick structures now just on the surface of the eastern bank. On these were, probably, tied the ropes or wires of the old boat bridge.

The location of these fit exactly with the map description. Removed from the main road and the main line, there is no rational reason why these should be called 'targarh', except that they served as the staging post of the old boat bridge of Lahore.

There is even the possibility that the first telegraph wires across the Ravi were laid alongside the boat bridge, and that they were managed from the old 'targarh'. The story of Lahore's lost boat bridge needs to be told in greater detail, for it will always remain one of the enduring mysteries of the old city.

Shaikh Ayaz remembered

Born in a middle class family of Shikarpur (Sindh) in 1923, Shaikh Ayaz was a lawyer by profession. He had read poets of all languages of the world, some in the original and others in translation. It was his scholarship which ultimately got him elevated to the position of vice-chancellor of the Sindh University. However, his forte was poetry which he had started writing in 1940.

His early work was love poetry, no doubt, but he soon fell under the influence of progressive thought. Noticeable in his poetry is his antagonism to sycophancy and a rejection of the tyranny of the orthodoxy. A sufi by any standard, his was a voice of love, tolerance and reason. As usually happens with such people, he had to suffer hardships and was even imprisoned more than once. Yet he continued to strive for social change throughout his life. A humanist to the core, he was averse to every form of oppression and exploitation.

Shaikh Ayaz died in December, 1997, and it was in connection with his sixth death anniversary that the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) arranged a function the other day in its Lahore office. It was presided over by the noted poet and literary critic, Prof Aashiq Raheel, and Prof Ziaul Hasan was especially invited to express his views on this great poet of Sindh.

To start with, the local director of PAL, Kazy Javed, gave a detailed introduction about the life and works of Shaikh Ayaz, widely accepted as the greatest Sindhi poet after Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai. He has left behind 50 collections of poetry and prose and an unfinished autobiography. He was also a poet of Urdu and has not one but two published collections in that language, Booey Gul Nala-i-Dil and Nilkanth aur neem key Pattey, published in 1954 and 1988, respectively. However, his magnum opus is the translation in lucid Urdu verse of Shah Latif Bhitai's bulky Risalo.

The speakers that evening, who included Aijaz Ahmed Aijaz, dwelt mostly on the amazing variety in the prose and poetry of Shaikh Ayaz. Experimenting in almost every genre, his poetry ranges from the traditional to the modern. He is the one who revived the classical forms of doha, dohira, bait, kafi, and wai which had died down after Shah Latif and Sachal Sarmast. He also wrote plays in verse and prose poems. With a vast vocabulary at his disposal, he employed it effectively.

The mixture of Hindi, Sindhi and Urdu diction in his lyrical poetry had its roots in folklore. Free of artificiality and complexity, his poetry is steeped in the tradition of Shah Latif Bhitai and is representative of Sindh's cultural values. Shaikh Ayaz had some differences with his staff and students during his tenure as vice-chancellor of the Sindh University. He left the job rather disillusioned. Someone has aptly said that he was a much-loved and much-hated person and poet.

Dr Mubarak Ali, who served as a teacher of history during his days at the Sindh University, has portrayed him more as a feudal lord than as an intellectual. But there is no denying that he was defied by the masses of his province. Whatever the case, his greatness as a poet would always be recognised. Castigated at one time for being a communist, he turned to mysticism in his old age. He always had a statue of Lenin in his drawing room but replaced it during the last days of his life.

* * * * *

Rakhshinda Naveed is not a fresh entrant in the field of poetry. She became known in 1995 when she came up with her first collection, Phir Visal Kaisey Ho. It contained both ghazals and nazms. One of her poems appeared in the monthly Adab Dost under the heading, Allah-ji ke naam khat. That made me feel that she was better at the nazm. After sometime, I attended the launch of her second collection, Kisi Aur Se Muhabat, at a function held in the Lahore Press Club. It was presided over by Shahzad Ahmed with Razi Tirmizi and Khursheed Rizvi as the chief guests.

In 1999 she launched a literary organisation of her own but I would like to call it a movement. Naming it Roshnik, she introduced it as something promoting peace and security. It was inaugurated at her residence in the presence of Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Aslam Kamal and others.

Rakhshinda has now come up with the second edition of Phir Visal Kaisey Ho. Published by her own Roshnik, it has been thoroughly revised and enlarged.

As Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi said in his brief note in the first edition, which has been carried in the second one as well, Rakhshinda is basically a poet of nazm. Although I cannot dare to differ with him yet, being a ghazal fan, I am enamoured of what she has to say.

Rakhshinda does not appear tied down the expression of her feelings nor are her verses stereotyped or confined to a set pattern. I have found freshness in them.

* * * * *

At times I feel someone was a poet. It came to me when I went to attend the funeral of Intezar Husain's wife, his only true companion in life. Since I have myself been through the same experience, I realised how necessary is catharsis in such a case. I wrote numerous poems after the death of my wife. They were not of any standard and have hence remained unpublished. Yet they did help me get over my agony. I wish Intezar could do the same. He was a broken man that day, left all to himself in this cruel world. Almost every prominent writer of the city was there. But how could their presence compensate for the loss he had suffered?

The Ravi on Sharif Kunjahi

Ravi...2003 editor Abdus Samee (Urdu) and Saad Ahmad Dilshad (English); pp 406; published from the Government College University, Lahore.

This is the first issue of The Ravi since the college was given the status of a university and with it, the magazine completes 92 years of its publication. The first issue was published in 1911. The issue under review includes a Punjabi section spread over 46 pages in which a special Gosha-i-Sharif Kunjahi has also been included and a tribute paid to a non-Ravian scholar. Other non-Ravian poets, Ahmad Faraz and Muneer Niazi, have also been honoured in the Urdu section.

Politician-cum-writer Fakhar Zaman, while paying tribute to Kunjahi, says the latter was a classfellow of his father, the late Maj Zaman. It was Kunjahi who attracted Fakhar to Punjabi. Before that, he started his literary career with Urdu poetry. In Fakhar's view, Sharif Kunjahi is one of the two major living Punjabi writers of the subcontinent, the second being Amrita Preetam. It was Kunjahi who had brought Fakhar to Punjabi literary circles of Lahore in the mid-sixties.

On Kunjahi's recommendation, Fakhar was offered to preside over one of the sessions of Mela Shah Husain organized by the defunct Majlis Shah Husain, one of the most active organizations of Punjabi writers which used to arrange more than one session in the three-day mela at the national level in which Bengali, Urdu, Sindhi, Pashto and Kashmiri writers also participated. The late Hamid Ali Bela first emerged as a classy singer of Shah Husain's kafis from the platform of the Majlis.

The Majlis had enjoyed the support of Sharif Kunjahi as well as Ahmad Rahi, Ustad Daman, Muneer Niazi and others.

Kunjahi also started his literary career with Urdu poetry, and one of his poems against the Second World War was selected for the yearly anthology of the Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq. With the passage of time, Sharif became more serious about Punjabi language and literature. Fakhar says he was much impressed by three Punjabi poets, Sharif Kunjahi, Amrita Preetam and Prof Mohan Singh Mahir whose books, Jagratey, Naveen Rut and Savay Pattar were very popular among the Punjabi readers of poetry.

The first-ever literary session with Sharif Kunjahi was also arranged by the Punjabi Group (later banned by the late Qudratullah Shahab, the then secretary-general of the Pakistan Writers Guild), in which Munnoo Bhai also presented a paper on Kunjahi which became a part of Jagratey published in Lahore.

Sharif Kunjahi, being a teacher, paid more attention to serious work such as criticism, modern translations and lexicography. He is credited with the first-ever collection of critical essays, Jhatian which proved a trendsetter in Punjabi criticism. Sharif Kunjahi translated Allama Iqbal's Madras lectures into Punjabi. He also translated some longer Persian poems of Iqbal into Punjabi verse for the Majlis-i-Tarraq-i-Adab. His latest job is the translation of the Holy Quran in free verse, published two years ago.

Kunjahi has also compiled a short dictionary of Punjabi for the Department of Punjabi Language and Literature, University of the Punjab. He has two collections of Punjabi poetry to his credit. His biography, compiled by Prof Khalid Humayoon, has also been published. - STM