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feature Idleness
or determination
Zia Mohyeddin column
feature The days when
fiction was characterised by imaginary galaxies, rings of power, witches and
wizards casting life-long spells just at the move of their wand are gone.
Fiction always has its way of manoeuvring with mindsets. This is the era of
juicy vampire sagas, anti-establishment tales, violent battlefields in
faraway lands and stories which play mind games with you as you go along with
them. Most
of the young adults these days are devouring fiction like Hunger Games and
Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones is based on
the best-selling series of novels, A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R.
Martin and it may be the biggest television showcase if you want to take a
peek at contemporary fiction. It is fantasy epic that is set in
quasi-medieval somewhere-land. It is very visually descriptive in terms of
violence and sexual content. It fleshes out on notions that war can get as
ugly as man can make it, families can be very insidious and that if you have
power, you have nothing to fear. Power has always been glamorised in fiction
but this time it is shown as the ultimate means of survival. Embedded in the
narrative is a vague global-warming horror story as well. Rival dynasties vie
for control over the seven kingdoms. This is a territory where summers are
measured in years, not months, and where winters can extend for decades. You
read about numerous bloody disputes in the region and if you are watching the
television show, the series showcases numerous beheadings and also offers you
slashed throat close-ups very casually as well. The show also turns into a
sexual hopscotch sometimes. It can be described as soft-core porn with a
heavy on going plot. The imagined historical universe of the seven kingdoms
gives the free license of sexual intimacy amongst its brethren and it is
hardly confined to any kind of emotional exchange; for example King Joffrey
Baratheon is born out of an incestuous relationship. The action in The Hunger
Games on the other hand takes place in a fictional future in which teenagers
are forced to hunt and kill one another in annual competitions designed to
entertain and suppress a highly controlled population. The Hunger Games is a
young adult novel written by Suzanne Collins. Collins conceived the idea of
this, bestselling fiction while flipping television channels. On one channel
she observed people competing on a reality show and on another she saw
footage of the invasion of Iraq. The infusion of the two gave birth to Hunger
Games. This shift in fiction is
towards a more fanatical level— where reality is infused with fantasy and
in some cases, even science fiction. But what makes the young adults of today
give in to this change? Mahnoor Wali, an
International Business student watches Game of Thrones. “The plot is very
unpredictable and the characters are interesting. The elements of fantasy in
the show are very unique. The show takes you to a different realm but not in
a conventional way,” Wali said. She said that violence could be toned down
a little. Wali added, “I think the strong sexual content in the show is
unnecessary and the fact that nudity is only restricted to women is very
degrading.” Amna Wahid, a recent
college graduate, disagrees with Mahnoor about the sexual content. She adds,
“Fiction like True Blood, Mystical Dragons and other vampire sagas portray
these things in a non-childish way. Adult version of these things makes it
interesting.”
Soophia Khan is
Neuroscience student who finds Hunger Games to be very accurate according to
the times we live in. “ The power is with the elite and the poor don’t
have much options but to live according to the rules made by the elite,”
Khan says. Aysha Raja, the proprietor
of The Last Word says, “Fiction like Harry Potter came from a carefree
time. Hunger Games is an anti establishment book with a conclusion of using
people for sport. People find this entertaining. I think it is healthy
because it is a great example of people relating to what is happening in the
world around them. With the economic crisis going on, it is clear that
establishment has failed the younger generation. It is an opportunity for
youngsters to find what they recognise. That is the knee-jerk to what is
happening to the world. Great literature has violence, Game of Thrones shows
vivid battle scenes which is remorse but that is how literature has always
been.”
Idleness
or determination A dear friend
visited us recently and brought me a book she had bought in India. Although
everyone was intrigued by the title, it was the author’s name that caught
everyone’s attention. Where have we seen the name Saeed Mirza? We asked
each other since it seemed familiar but neither could pin it down, for the
context in which it appeared. Ammi: letter to a democratic mother is the
writer’s debut novel, and originally written in English. A brief
description suggested it was a “magical tale of love and romance to a
personal testimony of growing up in India to a discourse between history and
politics that presses into service Mulla Nasruddin, Studs Terkel, Ibn Senna,
Eklavaya and Ra’abia Basri.” The post-modern and
post-colonial in me were hooked. The shocker, however, came in the next
paragraph confirming the author was indeed one of the pioneers of the Hindi
Art Cinema. Or as the book stressed “a pioneer of the New Wave, progressive
cinema in India” even if his first film was made some twenty years after
Ritwik Ghatak’s Ajantrik. A question that nags many
of us who write in English raised its head: why would a person so
quintessential to the Hindi art cinema opt for English as a medium of
expression for writing a novel, not a popular but literary one? Would
Antonioni or Kurosawa write their first novel in English? At a different time, the
whole issue would not have taken up so much of my peace of mind if for the
fact that another friend, a fine writer in her own right, had not emailed a
link to an article written by another fine writer from Pakistan. The article
by Mohammed Hanif was published in an English publication titled Tehelka. It
is a good article that raises the same interesting question and the
author’s humour is appreciated. In a lucid manner he
explains why he writes in English by drawing attention to the
socio-politico-economic situation in which he grew up, and most Pakistanis
continue to do still. I have talked about the
continuing tragedy in Pakistan of not paying attention to and doing something
about making local languages the medium of instruction. I may have also
written about how most Pakistanis grow up and/or reach college education
through a two-tier process of self-devaluation. Since it is not a conscious
process, most of us don’t realise when and how we insult ourselves. Hanif succinctly sums up
when he says, “When I was growing up in Pakistan, the complete inability to
read or write in your mother tongue was a prerequisite for upward
mobility.” Likewise, I have witnessed
family friends proclaiming that a Punjabi speaker can never pronounce the
urdu word “hai” correctly. He’s bound to pronounce it with the tinge of
a cow’s mooo! Similarly, I once heard another family friend, a graduate
from the prestigious St. Anthony’s High School in Lahore, making fun of his
brother-in-law, who belonged to a lower economic station, in the company of
his friends as the brother-in-law habitually mispronounced, with an
Urdu-inflection, the name of the then very popular, imported cigarette brand
among youngsters. Yet Mohammad Hanif confuses
the issues of lack of education in one’s mother tongue due to our
leadership’s short-sightedness and servile attitude, and why one does or
should choose to writer in a language. Although he rightly points out that
there was no college physics in Urdu, he doesn’t engage with the question
of its absence when there indeed was an Urdu physics for 10th grade. If authorities can produce
physics books prepared for Urdu medium high schools, why can’t they do the
same for college level? Even that discussion is secondary and is often like
beating a dead horse. My contention is with his answer to why he writes in
English. Before I go any further I
would like to present my own case of why I predominantly write in English,
both fiction and non-fiction. This is what I stated in my previous article
The Misshapen Twin published in this newspaper on May 27, 2012:
“As for me, since I make my physical and emotional home in the US,
English is the language I primarily write in and translate into. I am
emotionally closer to the literary community I interact with on daily
basis.” Hanif’s response is
multi-faceted. He writes in English, he says, because he “thinks and
plots” and has read great literature in English and since Graham Greene,
too, wrote his novels in that language. There is logic in there somewhere but
I’ll leave it to the reader to go hunting for it. He adds, “When I write
a political rant or a comment piece, I lean towards Urdu because there are
all these ready-made historical references, street slang and wordplay
bursting to be put to use.” Fair enough, but it gets better, for he admits
that if he’s pissed, he is more likely to curse in his mother tongue. This hints at the intimacy
and devaluation of the mother tongue that he and I have talked about, albeit,
in different vocabularies. More interestingly, this reminds me of an exchange
between Tagore and the noted actor Balraj Sahni, who switched from writing in
Hindi to Punjabi. When inquired why Balraj Sahni didn’t write in his mother
tongue, one of the reasons he gave to the great poet was that Punjabi was not
only a provincial language but a backward one too, not even a language,
rather a dialect of Hindi. To which the poet replied that a language
couldn’t be called backward or incompetent when a poet like Nanak had
written in it. He went on to recite Nanak in Punjabi. Balraj Sahni shot back that
that’s religious literature, and the Punjabi language lacked vocabulary for
modern secular literature. Tagore then reminded Balraj that there was a time
when Bengali too was perceived in such light by the educated Bengalis. That
Bankim Chatterji and he have given their language thousands of new words. And
that they have put their language on the world map and is no more inferior to
any other language. The experiment of
colonialism gave us an era of discontinuity, cutting most South Asians from
their native traditions and literature. Its effect persists in making things
worse for the coming generations. Its flow cannot be stemmed through
laziness. If it bothers a writer that he or she does not or could not write
in Punjabi, then effort has to be made, laziness has to be overcome. If one
can easily curse in ones mother tongue, then with effort and a little help
from friends one can write in her mother tongue. The intellectual laziness
and literary/artistic disconnect are but two sides of the same coin. Moazzm Sheikh is the author
of The Idol Lover and Other Stories
Zia
Mohyeddin column Talish was more
filled out now, a jovial, rotund man with cheeks that seemed to hold an egg
on either side. He leaned over, lifted me by the shoulders and said, “Come
and have some lunch.” He was, by now, an established movie star. I knew he
was to be in the film, but I hadn’t come across him because he was busy
with half a dozen other films, he told me. Talish used to bring his
own lunch, a sumptuous affair with all kinds of delicacies like gurda kebab
etc., People drifted in, uninvited, but he had a welcoming smile for
everyone. He didn’t like bazaar food; most of the food was cooked by him.
He was an accomplished cook. From then on, he never let
me touch my packet of woeful sandwiches that I used to carry with me. My
protests were in vain. The “diet food” as he called it, was not good for
me. He thought I needed to put a “bit of shine” on my cheeks. Talish was
a genial host. My rickety Fiat refused to start one evening and it was Talish
who gave instructions for it to be repaired. He drove me home that evening
and had me picked up the next morning. His driver, one of his distant
cousins, took me to his home. Talish lived in Muslim Town, in a house full of
countless family members. It was soon after ten and he was busy having his
lunch packed. Even at that hour a huge feast of Baqar Khanis, Balai and
Khagina was laid out for me. The day at last arrived
when I had to don my overcoat and be ready to go in front of the camera. The
studio had been converted into a road with a pavement on one side and stalls
and kiosks on the other, I was meant to come down a ladder on to the
pavement, cross the street and move to a tea-stall run by a hard-hearted,
(but soft as marshmallow inside) Pathan, played by Talish, listen to his
harangue about the money owed to him by the good-for-nothing romantic lead,
look “meaningfully” and “searchingly” (director’s words) at the
Pathan so as to make him feel ashamed, reach for the inside pocket of my
overcoat, bring out a wallet and give him the money owed to him — and walk
away (without a word) looking at the world with eyes squirted. I rehearsed; the
“searching” look was a bit of a bind, but I think the maestro, at last
satisfied with my eye-squirting, decided to “shoot.” The moment for my
immortalisation arrived. I came down the first few
steps, paused, (as required) and looked at the scene on the street, took the
next step without looking down. Alas, the step on the poorly assembled ladder
had caved in. I tumbled, twisting my right ankle. Within minutes, it had
swollen beyond recognition. Lights were turned off. I
was lifted by the assistants and eased into a chair. The pain was agonising.
Fareedoon rubbed his hands, partly in sympathy and partly because he could
see a disastrous suspension of work. The “great director” put his hand on
my shoulder, sympathetically, and muttered something about amateurish
carpentry. This kind of a thing could never happen in Bombay, he muttered. Talish lost no time in
taking off his moustache and gear. He got some extras to put me in his car
and drove me to a doctor he knew nearby. The doctor’s clinic was closed. I
thought of Dr Zietger, an orthopaedic surgeon I had heard of. Talish knew his
whereabouts and took me to his clinic. Fortunately, the doctor was in. He
examined the ankle and declared that it had been fractured. He bandaged it
and told me that I would have to stay in bed with my foot aloft, held by a
strap. The man who wasn’t going
to live long had to lie flat on his back for the next four weeks. Talish
would come over to the Nedous Hotel, where I was staying, almost every other
day, bringing me more food than I could ever eat. I was a trifle embittered
by my predicament. He consoled me by telling me all the studio jokes. I
mentioned that an accident at work abroad would have enabled me not only to
free medical treatment but a pretty hefty compensation. He was moved by the
idea and vowed that he would initiate some kind of a scheme of compensation
to actors in case of a studio accident. With a quip on his lip, he was always
cheerful and sunny. I never saw him with a furrowed brow. The ill-fated
“finest” film, he told me, had come to a halt, not because of me but
because there had been a serious rift between Zia Sarhady and Fareedoon. Zia
Sarhady had gone underground. I left Lahore soon after my
recovery and I never saw Talish or Zia Sarhady again. *
* *
* * Thirty eventful years went
by. In 1987, I was appearing in a play at the Shaw Theatre in London. One
night as I was wiping off my greasepaint, there was a gentle knock on my
dressing room door. “Just a moment,” I shouted as I hurriedly moved
towards the sink to wash my face. I was half way through when I heard the
door open. Furious with myself for not having bolted the door, I turned
sharply to find the “great director” standing in the doorway with his
heart-warming smile. Zia Sarhady’s face was a
little more lined; his thick, speckled hair had turned snow-white. He
embraced me with great affection. A dab of Leichner No 9 was visible on his
left cheek. I offered him a tissue but he refused to take it. “I shall
treasure it as a momento of your wonderful performance,” he said, as he sat
in a chair. How does one begin to fill
a gap of thirty years? I think he sensed my awkwardness and began to tell me
how proud he was of me. He had kept a track of what I had been doing in the
intervening years. He had always wanted to see me on stage and had at last
fulfilled his wish. He had had his fill of disillusionments. Now he only
lived for “chance moments” like meeting me after all these years. No, he
wouldn’t accept a drink; he had some people waiting in the car. From now on
he was going to live in a quiet corner of Spain shedding goodwill to all. I was anxious to know why
he had abandoned The End of Night, and had he really gone underground? The
question died on my lips as I realised that it would be insensible to
encroach upon his saintliness.
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Zeeshan
Haider, a student of Economics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics is also a
huge fan of Game of Thrones. “Other than just the fantasy element in the
show I find the place setting and time setting very interesting. When it
comes to characters like Tyrion Lannister you continuously challenge your own
alliances. It is not appealing in the beginning but as I went on I started
questioning his character. I find the constant mind games in this fiction to
be very intriguing. The sexual contend adds viewership. In my opinion,
society has become more sexually liberated and violent than it was fifteen
years ago, just to give it some backing in the last decade, we have seen two
major wars, and suicide bombing has become so common and has given the
society a more violent touch. The militarised society has brought the culture
of violence with it. Violence has become an acceptable expression and
acceptable tool and hence we should be too surprised if it has become a part
of contemporary fiction.” He elaborates on the ‘violent’ aspect of the
show by claiming, that “if the society was to dislike violence, people
wouldn’t watch or read such fiction and if that were to happen, this
fiction would not be produced in the first place. If such fiction has a
massive following, it shows that the society accepts it.”
