Celeb Urdu writers to publish new works

Five noted Urdu writers are set to publish their latest works, including an autobiography, before year end.

Intezar Hussain has completed the final draft of Justajo Kia Hai, an account of his days in Bulandshahr, India. Hussain told The Express Tribune that he had handed over the draft to the publisher and expected the book to be available in markets before year end.

“I have recorded memories of my days before partition,” he said.

Hussain’s last book Chiraghon Ka Dhuan was an account of his days in Lahore.

It also narrates the events leading to his migration from Dibai in Bulandshahr following partition of India. He said he had been encouragedby Muhammad Hassan Askari, the critic, to shift to Pakistan. Novelist Abdullah Husain is publishing a work after more than 10 years. Husain, whose last published work was a novel, Nadar Log, said he was in the process of compiling short stories he had written following the publishing of the novel.

Full report here Express Tribune 

Portrait of a rebel

The Convert is about Maryam Jameelah who converted from Judaism to Islam and became a hard-line defender of Islamic values and culture.

The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism is about Maryam Jameelah, the well-known conservative and hard-line defender of Islamic values and culture, currently living in Lahore. She has been publishing books, articles, and pamphlets since the 1960s. Some of the recurring issues are “condemning Western efforts to influence the Muslim world or criticising the ill-begotten efforts of the modernising reformers of Islam” (p.84). The Convert is predominantly about the conversion of Margaret Marcus, as she was born, from Judaism to the Jamaat-e-Islami brand of Islamic ideology.

Margaret or “Peggy” Marcus was born in 1934, but did not begin to speak till she was four years old. By this time, her anxious parents, Myra and Herbert, had taken her to various psychiatrists. When she finally began to speak, it was in complete sentences. Very much like the apocryphal, but well-known story about Macaulay, whose first words were, “Madam, the agony is abated.” Her mother described Margaret as hyper-sensitive and of a nervous disposition, but “she was considered an exceptionally gifted young girl. Her paintings were always praised in school and she had a beautiful singing voice” (p.109). At the summer school, where she was happy learning how to dance, she was severely condemned by the director and requested not to return as she had no flair for the art. Likewise with her painting — upon being informed by Mawdudi that painting was not looked upon kindly in Islam, she gave up painting till the late 1990s. Later, she was unable to complete her course at the University of Rochester as she had a nervous breakdown. By the time she began her correspondence with Maulana Abdul Ala Mawdudi, founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, she had been diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia and had had a “fifteen-month long stay at the New York Psychiatric Institute and later the Hudson River State Hospital” (p.125). The other correspondents included “mature Arab Muslim leaders deemed reactionary fanatics by the New York Times”, such as Sayyid Qutb of the Society of Muslim Brotherhood and Shaykh Muhammad Bashir Ibrahim, leader of the insurgency against France and a member of the Islamic clergy (p.140).

Full report here Hindu

City of artistic splendour

Lahore's artistic riches belie popular perceptions of the place. From miniature paintings of the Mughal era to present day cartoons, there is much that is waiting to be discovered.

In 982 CE an unknown writer described Lahore as ‘a town with numberous districts', in which there are ‘markets and idol-temples, pine trees, almond trees and coconut trees…. All the inhabitants are idolators and there are no Muslims there'. Raiders came down regularly from the North, but it was not till 1014 that the Ghaznavids built the first Muslim settlements. After 1187 the city was one of their two capitals, and became the entrepot through which the Central Asian rulers established themselves in India. Today it is one of the most vibrant cultural centres in the subcontinent.

Marg's new book is a more comprehensive survey than the sub-title suggests. It includes a chapter on contemporary political cartoons, which have been periodically suppressed under martial law but are still alive and flourishing. The cartoonist's art is the vital corrective that prevents a society from sinking into corruption and tyranny, as the writer points out.

Full report here Hindu

Discovery of a new poet

My seven years in Lahore (1940-47) to make a living as a lawyer were a dismal failure. I continued to live on my patrimony to the last day.

I philosophised that living at other peoples’ quarrels was not worthwhile. When I was driven out of Lahore and returned to Delhi, I gifted away my law books, black gown and lawyer’s collar tabs.

However, I lost many Muslim friends who had no problem in my staying on. I also met one man who looked down on me and never lost an opportunity to belittle me. This was Veer Sawhney. Like me, he also failed to make a living as a lawyer and lived on his patrimony. This included a spacious bungalow with a garden not far from the high court. From the first day we met he decided to dislike me. I returned the compliment. So it went on day after day. He was a shameless name-dropper and claimed to be close to VIPs, including the Prime Minister of Punjab, Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan.

When Hayat Khan died, Veer was there for the funeral embracing other mourners and wailing loudly. He entertained in Nawabi style — all males except the latest entrant in Heera Mandi (Lahore’s red-light district).

His wife returned to her parents. He stood for elections for the Secretary to the High Court Bar Association. I put my name up for the only reason of giving him a drubbing. And I did.

Our fortunes changed on Partition. I returned to the comforts of my father’s home. He had no where to go to. The last I met him was when he was wandering around Connaught Circus. It was cuite a surprise when after 70 years I had three collections of poems with a letter from his son Ashok Sawhney were delivered at my doorstep. The letter claimed that the books were published in London and India. I am pretty certain they were vanity publications, paid for by himself because there are very few takers for poetry. I refused to meet him.

Full report here Deccan Herald

The Books Interview: Mohsin Hamid

You've moved around a lot. Has that had an effect on your fiction?
I've lived almost a decade in the UK, a decade and a half each in the United States and Pakistan, a year or so in the Far East and in the Mediterranean. Currently my home is in Lahore, so I suppose I'm part of a reverse diaspora - the diaspora of members of the Pakistani diaspora who live in Pakistan. All of it, every life experience, affects my fiction, because my fiction comes from who I am.

What made you move back to Pakistan?
Ever since I left Pakistan to go to college in the US, I'd planned to go back. And I did, several times, for year-long stays. But I never relished the idea of working for someone else in Pakistan. The professional scene here can be frustrating. I also never relished the idea of having children who would grow up far from their grandparents in Lahore. Recently I became able to make a living from my writing, and last year my wife and I had a baby girl. The time had come to move back.

I come from an enormous and very close family. I have over a dozen aunts and uncles in Pakistan, dozens of cousins. I have many close friends. I have received so much love in Lahore that the city always pulls me.

How does Lahore's cultural scene differ from London's?
There are many cultural scenes in Lahore, just as there are in London. And there is a celebrity culture here, just as there is in London. But in Lahore, the celebrity scene doesn't drown out the rest quite so much. Lahore is much cheaper than London, so money is less of a crushing pressure on culture. There are incredible things happening here in cutting-edge music, conceptual art and experimental fiction. It's difficult to compare the cultural scenes in the two places. I love both. But there is something earthy about Lahore. When a poet says something that is true, people spontaneously grunt their agreement, and that moves me.

Full interview here New Statesman

Outsider, at home

The instructions on the board said:

Do not throw litter, use dustbin
Do not walk on grass, use cemented surface
Photography is allowed

Not an amusement park, or a museum or a botanical garden. This was at the Wagah border, instructions for everyone, including passengers on “foot” coming into or going out of India to Pakistan. Seems really innocuous after all the papers, permissions, waiting, angst and agony this kind of going across — as opposed to taking a flight or the bus — could really entail. On that I scored, given the general love that all kinds of people share for music and poetry in both countries. Really, culture needs to be taken more seriously, it cannot be just another Track on some Indo-Pak peace agenda.

Invited recently to perform by the Faiz Ghar as part of events for the launch of the centenary celebrations of the phenomenal poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, my trip to Lahore was a mix of exciting, pleasant, emotional and strange experiences. Faiz Ghar itself is an eclectic space set up in memory of Faiz to celebrate and express the culture of the country through dance, music, plastic arts, theatre and, of course, poetry.

Tracing the journey of music
My engagement with North Indian music genres generally has me interested in the travels of musicians at least in the last century and the transference of music across these countries. So this opportunity to perform in Lahore was indeed an honour I was happy to accept. Pakistan has also had a rich history of classical music and in fact it was in Lahore in the early 20 {+t} {+h} century that some of the best musicians of South Asia performed to very interested listeners. Partition, and with it the need to establish a separate identity, affected culture severely. So much so that it is said legendary Kirana exponent Roshanara Begum, who migrated to Pakistan, announced that she will give up her Riaz since it seemed like no one was interested in listening to her in the country and Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan decided to return to India. Also, with Partition, several Gharanedaar Muslim musicians moved to India and so did their future Hindu and Sikh patrons. Except for Radio Pakistan, music was hardly ever heard. The setting up of the All Pakistan Music Conference (APMC) way back in 1959 came in response to this situation and made it possible for yearning audiences to listen to greats like Nazakat Ali Khan, Salamat Ali Khan, Amanat Ali Khan, Fateh Ali Khan and Barkat Ali Khan. These were some serious efforts to rejuvenate the seemingly lost but rich heritage of classical music in Pakistan. These concerts and seminars are held even now.

Full report here Hindu