Bagh-o-Bahar: the garden whose spring won’t come to an end
Originally planned and written as a textbook for the British officers who were to be trained and taught Urdu at Calcutta’s Fort William College during British rule, Bagh-o-Bahar’s popularity spread beyond the pedagogic circles, and within 20 years or so of its publication it was so hugely popular that it evoked the envy of many. At the same time, it also invited the wrath of the Lucknow school of Urdu literature that thought ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ was nothing but a deviation from standard Urdu idiom and Mir Amman, being a ‘Dilliwala’, was simply not up to the task of writing standard Urdu.
The Lucknow school’s answer to ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ came in the shape of ‘Fasana-i-Ajaaib’, a dastan written in a tortuously ornate language laden with metaphors and poetical expressions. At times, its prose so much rhymes that ‘Fasan-i-Ajaaib’ sounds like poetry. Though first published in 1843, ‘Fasana-i-Ajaaib’ was written by Rajab Ali Baig Suroor in 1824. In his foreword, Suroor is quite sarcastic about Mir Amman’s beautifully plain and colloquial Urdu and what he meant to say was that Bagh-o-Bahar’s Urdu was not on a par with that of ‘Fasana-i-Ajaaib’, which was the correct, idiomatic and standard language. Though ‘Fasana-i-Ajaaib’, too, survived the vicissitudes of time, today it basically serves as a sample of a classical style of prose that is no more favoured, but was very much in vogue till the 1850s when modern Urdu prose began taking shape. ‘Fasana-i-Ajaaib’ also serves as a gratuitous display of richness of Urdu’s vocabulary and Suroor’s mastery over it. ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ and ‘Fasana-i-Ajaaib’ are, in fact, not only the epitomes of two different styles of prose and the literary rivalry between Lucknow and Delhi, but they also portray two different ways of thinking, one supporting the modern and the other clinging to the old-fashioned traditional mould. So Bagh-o-Bahar’s another distinction is that it was a precursor of modern Urdu prose.
Mir Amman benefited from ‘Nau tarz-i-murassa’, a dastan written by Mir Ata Hussain Tehseen in 1774, which, in turn, is based on a Persian tale. But Tehseen’s book was written in a language peculiar to his times and tastes: ornate and artful but artificial. Mir Amman changed it into a vivid and colloquial language. While writing the dialogues, he reproduced the language spoken by the men and women in the street, keeping an eye on idiomatic and literary expressions when narrating the events.
Another aspect that lends Bagh-o-Bahar credibility among the literary and academic circles is its ability to capture the phenomenon known as Indo-Muslim culture. It describes the norms, etiquettes, rites, rituals, attires, foods, utensils and jewellery. It narrates courts, banquets, receptions, royal processions, means of travel, decorative pieces, hobbies, beliefs, prayers, weather and even the names given to the servants. It is a portrait of the sub-continental culture and values painted by a maestro. And that too in a language that is almost entirely comprehensible even today.
Mir Amman is also held responsible for spreading the erroneous belief that some consider being true even today: Urdu is a ‘lashkari zaban’, or ‘camp language’. Mir Amman in the foreword of ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ declared that Urdu was a camp language since it was born in the camps of the Mughal troops during the reign of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, conveniently ignoring the fact that texts of Urdu poetry were available as early as in the period of Ameer Khusrau or even earlier. Mohammad Hussain Azad repeated the myth in his ‘Aab-i-Hayat’, thereby lending credibility to a false statement that held water till it was corrected by linguists in the 20th century, albeit some still find it difficult to swallow the truth. But linguistics tells us that languages are not formed that way and Urdu is by no means a ‘camp language’.
Published for numerous times by a host of publishers, ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ had suffered at the hands of some unscrupulous publishers whose sole aim was to mint money. Not only did they reproduce the text from the older and erroneous versions, they ignored the typographical errors as well, adding thereby new errors to the classical text worth reading and analysing meticulously. This went on, though some better versions too were published, but it was not till Rasheed Hasan Khan published his annotated and edited version of ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ in 1992 when we had an authentic and reliable one.
Having got the corrected version, it was for someone like Suhail Abbas Khan to evaluate the literary merits of a work like ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ that needed to be judged thoroughly for its various aspects. Deeply engrossed in classical Urdu literature with a perfect eye for grammar, prosody and rhetoric, Suhail Abbas was just the right fellow for the job. When one surveys the extent to which Suhail Abbas has thrashed ‘Bagh-o-bahar’, one is truly amazed. No grammatical or rhetorical aspect of ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ has escaped him, whether it is the lexicon, idioms, verbs, adjectives, nouns or morphological variations, Suhail Abbas has dealt them with rapt attention and erudition they deserved.
Suhail Abbas Khan, a young scholar from Multan currently serving the Osaka University, deserves full marks for the work he has done. Now we hope he will bring out another research work that will be as much worth-reading as his work on Mir Amman’s classical piece.
Mir Amman had hoped that anyone who would read ‘Bagh-o-Bahar’ would feel like visiting a garden. Even after the lapse of 207 years, his garden has not withered.
drraufparekh@yahoo.com
Growing suicide risk in the face of realities
A man in distress, which often triggers fits of anger, stands more chances of committing serious offenses, but taking one’s own life is altogether a different issue.
Views on suicide have been influenced by cultural views on existential themes such as religion, honour and the meaning of life. However, in Islam and Pakistani culture, suicide is considered a crime and the person who commits it is regarded as a coward.
Risk factors behind suicide, which is also a crime, include mental disorder and some physical illnesses. Many dictionaries also note the metaphorical sense of “willful destruction of one’s self-interest”.
Suicide may occur for many other reasons, including shame, guilt, physical pain, pressure, anxiety, financial difficulties or undesirable situations.
A suicide attempt is often preceded by certain signs which include talking about suicide or death in general, referring to things that “won’t be needed”, giving away possessions, feeling hopeless or guilty, pulling away from friends or family, losing the desire to go out, having trouble concentrating or thinking, experiencing changes in eating or sleeping habits, and engaging in self-destructive behaviour (drinking alcohol, taking drugs, or inflicting cuts, etc.).
In Pakistan, financial problems, injustice and academic failures top the list of the causes of suicide incidents.
In one of the recent suicide incidents, a couple collectively consumed some medicine on September 9 in a bid to end their financial woes. The wife died but the husband survived.
The woman had also tried the same method to end her life a day earlier, but luckily she survived after getting timely treatment at the Federal Government Services Hospital.
The incident took place in a double-storey house located in Sector G-7/3-4 where two sons of a retired ISI official resided. It came to light when the family of the elder brother living on the ground floor went upstairs to inquire about the younger brother and his wife, who used to come out of their room not later than 11am.
The man (MY) was engaged in a milk business and he married MA a year ago after both of them fell in love. The family members of the bridegroom strongly opposed the marriage and partially ended their relations.
MA, after the death of her parents, used to live with her uncle along with her three young brothers. She was a stockbroker at the Islamabad Stock Exchange and had invested more than Rs4.2 million pooled in by her family and friends. She purchased the shares of some companies, including a bank, using the account of her husband’s friend. The account was lying inactive but she reactivated it for her personal use.
According to the law, the employees of the stock exchange cannot invest money in the market.Initially, she got Rs3.2 million from a relative involved in property and beauty parlor business, and Rs400,000 from her uncle. Later, the couple mortgaged their house against Rs1 million and also invested the money in the stock market.
However, they suffered a huge loss due to the market crash, and demands of the lenders for returning their money drove them into distress. The situation also disturbed the couple’s family life and led to scuffles among them.
The stockbroker sought help of the federal minister for labour and manpower and also wrote to the prime minister for compensation.
A day before the incident, she went to her relative’s house along with her husband where the lender dishonoured them and treated them harshly.
Meanwhile, the woman’s relatives alleged that she was killed by her husband, besides claiming that the money was not invested in the stock exchange. They suspected that either the money was with MY or he had utilised it for some other purpose, may be to purchase a farm.
However, during the probe the allegations turned out to be wrong. The police believed that the couple collectively consumed some medicine to commit suicide due to financial loss. The final decision will be made after getting the chemical examiner’s repot of the woman, as the autopsy failed to establish the actual cause of death.
In the month of April, a young ice cream vendor shot himself dead at Aapbara. Umar Deen left behind a suicide note, saying he was heavily in debt and unable to pay it back because the power cuts had ruined his business.
Rashid Naqvi, 26, of Kotli district of Azad Kashmir, visited the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Press Club’s camp office in the afternoon of May 21, and handed out invitations to journalists sitting there to his self-immolation.
His invitation also said that “the acquittal of the killers of my brother Asif Naqvi was nothing but travesty of justice”.
“I’m not getting justice. I’ve decided that a society bereft of justice is not livable. So in protest I will immolate myself at 3:30pm today at Aabpara Chowk. I will be obliged for coverage of the event.”
Alerted by the journalists, a police party, with a magistrate, reached the scene just when Naqvi was about to put a match to his petrol-soaked clothes to protest the acquittal of men accused of murdering his brother.
The policemen tore away his robe, emblazoned with the words in Urdu Husool-i-Insaf Kay Leay Khud Sozi (self immolation to get justice), and bundled him into an ambulance and shifted him to a nearby hospital.
Once his body was cleaned, the police took him to Aabpara police station and put him in a cell.
A student, Fakhar Ali (18), committed suicide by shooting himself with a 30-bore pistol on July 14 after he failed to pass the matriculation exams. He was disappointed and disturbed as he failed in three subjects.
The police took the weapon used in the suicide in their custody. However, it was yet to be ascertained from where the victim got it and whether it was legal or illegal.
Similarly, a class-IX student, Kulzim Bibi (14), committed suicide by shooting herself with a double-barrel 12-bore shotgun after her failure to pass the exams on July 21.
She was disappointed and disturbed over the result which drove her in distress and she took the extreme step after two days. She found the gun of his paternal uncle and shot herself in the chest.