IN recent times a greater interest in Urdu autobiographies has been witnessed and not only have celebrities written and published their autobiographies, but several research papers and dissertations, too, have been written on Urdu autobiographies.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, it was not so, but in those days, too, Mushfiq Khwaja was fond of autobiographies. He would read them with profound interest and collecting autobiographies remained his lifelong passion. His personal collection of books held hundreds of autobiographies. One of the earliest research works on Urdu autobiographies was Mushfiq Khwaja’s dissertation that he had written in 1958 for completion of his MA (Urdu) degree at Karachi University. A pathological perfectionist as Mushfiq Khwaja was, he never published his dissertation. But another of his work on autobiographies had published in Al-Zubair, which has now been published, after a lapse of some 56 years, in the book form and with quite appreciable additions and annotations.

Al-Zubair was an Urdu literary quarterly edited and published by Masood Hasan Shahab from Bahawalpur. In 1964, it had published Aap Beeti Number, a voluminous special issue on autobiographies. Aside from some critical essays on the art of autobiographies and excerpts from quite a few autobiographies by well-known authors, the quarterly had included a very long article by Mushfiq Khwaja, which discussed the genre and reproduced some of the rare and brief ones. Interestingly, the editor of Al-Zubair in his editorial had expressed the hope that his “first-ever” effort in the history of literary magazines would be appreciated. But in June 1964, Nuqoosh, an epoch-making literary magazine of Urdu published from Lahore, had also brought out a two-volume gigantic issue on autobiographies, dwarfing the special issue of Al-Zubair. One cannot say for sure which one was the forerunner but both had bathed the literary horizon in silver light that glows even today.

As mentioned by editor Masood Hasan Shahab, in those days there were not many autobiographies in Urdu that could be termed so in real sense of the word, but hundreds of authors had mentioned their profiles or biographical sketches in their books, letters and articles. Though many of them were buried in different sources, these were in fact biographies. No matter how informal or scanty they were or how hurriedly they were jotted down on the request of some friends or editors, these autobiographical notes or brief autobiographies served as important sources to the lives of several well-known and major poets and writers. Some served as authentic evidence to political, historical or literary events as well. Mushfiq Khwaja had dug up more than 85 such autobiographies published not as autobiographies but included in some anthologies, newspapers, travelogues or were part of some self-written introductions. So one of the remarkable articles included in 1964 issue of Al-Zubair, was one by Mushfiq Khwaja. Spreading over 250 pages, it brought to light some very interesting and informative biographical notes. This work by Khwaja Sahib was titled Mukhtasar Aap Beetyaan and has now been published in book form as Urdu Ki Mukhtasar Aap Beetyaan by Atlantis Publications, Karachi.

Edited and annotated by Dr Mahmood Ahmed Kaavish, the book has two parts: the first one reproduces the longish article by Mushfiq Khwaja on autobiographies published in 1964 issue of Al-Zubair and the second part consists of some important and rare biographical material found by Mahmood Kaavish during his research on the sources that Mushfiq Khwaja had quoted and reproduced. This led to quite a few significant discoveries. For instance, Maulana Abdul Haleeem Sharar had penned his autobiography and serialised it in his journal Dilgudaaz. Mushfiq Khwaja was able to find six episodes, but Dr Kaavish has now found and reproduced two more.

Mushfiq Khwaja had included autobiographies by only those authors who were alive in 1964 and ignored many pieces for certain reasons. Kaavish has traced those sources and has reproduced some more brief autobiographies as all of the authors who were left out by Khwaja Sahib have departed for their eternal abode. In addition, he has included brief biographical notes on many other prominent writers with proper references, making the book a treasure for those who love autobiographies or are carrying out some research on the subject.

Some of the autobiographies made part of the book merit a special mention for their style and the clues to the literary, social, philosophical and religious trends in different parts of the subcontinent in the eras that have gone by. Such pieces are by Nazm Tabatabai, Riaz Khairabadi, Abdul Haleem Sharar, Abdul Bari Aasi, Premchand, Meeraji, Manaazir Ahsan Geelani, Abdus Salam Nadvi, Dr Muhammad Ashraf, Hafeez Jalandhari, Sadiqain, Mulla Wahidi and Yousuf Zafar.

Atlantis Publications’ team, comprising Farooq Ahmed, Rashid Ashraf and Pervez Hyder, has been doing a good job as they have published, and in some cases reproduced, some very valuable books at a low price. The book under review too is moderately priced despite having over 570 pages and being printed on white paper. One hopes these efforts to promote book culture would go on.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2020