By Nadir Ali

Vichchoray da Dagh

(Punjabi)

By Dr Shamsher Singh Babra

Publishers: Wichaar

Publishers, Virginia

Price: Rs 400

Pages: 322 (HB)

Email: wichaar@wichaar.com

Unblossomed Bud

A Saga of Intellectual Rebels

Sikh National College Lahore 1938-1947

By Dr Shamsher Singh Babra

Publishers: Five Rivers

Publishers Inc. Washington

Price: Not mentioned

Pages: 228

Email: wichaar@wichaar.com

By heart of Punjab I do not mean Lahore, the terribly enlarged heart of Punjab. I mean a "Punjabi village" which by its community life and tradition, language and idiom -- including a farmers and craftsman's working life, vocabulary and folklore -- represents the heart of Punjab.

Dr. Shamsher Singh Babra is a renowned economist, has been a Divisional Head at the World Bank, a visiting fellow at Oxford, a consultant at the UNO and has appeared as an expert at the British House of Lords. His Punjabi book, Vichchoray da Dagh, is about Chotian Galotian, his native village in Sialkot at Gujranwala-Sialkot district border where he lived until his graduation from Sikh National College Lahore 1947. Unblossomed Buds, his other book in English, is the first sizeable document about the historical and revolutionary Sikh National College. It is also the key to Vichchoray da Dagh, which is arguably the best book written about a Punjabi village with the ability to thrill and move its readers to tears.

The Punjabi village -- as my generation born in the nineteen thirties, or the author's, born in the twenties knew it -- is almost dead now. Punjabi village died without anyone writing its obituary or, as in this case, its elegy. It is a historical document because, with an economist's discipline, the distinguished doctor has collected data from fellow villagers all over the world.

Truly, the book has many authors like judge Bhagat Singh, a writer himself, whose detailed account appears in the book. Diwan Singh's life account -- a revolutionary who was sentenced to "Kala pani" and was shot dead by the Japanese in 1944 -- has been included as a distinguished son of the village. The book is many things at the same time -- it is a poetic and scholarly account, is gossipy at times and at places reads like a lover's lament. Sometimes, it appears disjointed but, to another villager like me, the slips are as important as the scholarly observations.

A famous book Punjabi Century by Prakash Tandon appeared in early nineteen sixties; later it turned into a trilogy and appeared as Punjabi Saga and became popular because of some vignettes of Punjabi rural and city life. It was the author's autobiography who ultimately became the boss of Lever Brothers India and a denizen of Bombay. Where that book gave only some bits and pieces of life in a Punjabi village, Dr. Babra has created a brief compendium of the life in a Punjabi village. Every aspect of life -- cultural, social, economic, tribal, religious, historical, agricultural, scandalous, political and memorable -- has been covered. The village map and period photographs have also been included. The village in 1946 had a population of 3000, much larger than an average Punjabi village in mid-century, with an area of 1175 acres, averaging 10 acres per household. There were 1050 acres under plough. The ownership was 75 percent Sikh Jats, 7 percent Sikh Ramgarias ( carpenters), 12 percent Muslim Jats, four percent Muslim Arains, one percent Khatri Sikhs and a Kashmiri who was an oilmaker/cotton carder (Teli). The population was 52 percent Sikhs, 39 percent Muslims, seven percent Christians, two percent Hindus. Dr. Babra has many other statistics -- giving the number of wells, village ponds and land covered by passages, ponds and village commons.

The ownership history by castes and by non-agriculturalist castes would need another book. But, in its present framework, the book is a unique record of the village which is both typical and atypical.

Nor does it read like a dry record. It is an unputdownable story of the daily life in the village that reads like a novel; the stories of various feuds, fights and fairs in the village with each character so vividly recreated that it literally comes alive.

I have suggested that Unblossomed Buds, published many years earlier, is a key to Vichchoray… Being a student of the Sikh National College explains how the author reached the heart of Punjab. Sikh National College, in its brief life of ten years, indeed represented the political heart of Punjab -- nationalist, leftist and secular. It reluctantly kept the word Sikh in its name for reasons of funding that came from Sikh donors. The tragedy of the Sikh community is also reflected in this college's history. Its principal Niranjan Singh was the brother of famous Master Tara Singh. But, unlike his elder brother, Niranjan Singh was a secular, pro-Congress nationalist.

The college was founded by a group of pro-Congress and anti-Akali, left-inclined teachers from Khalsa College Amritsar. Thus the history of this college, its faculty and alumni, is a missing chapter from the history of Punjab. Muslims and majority of Sikhs will not accept this version of Punjab's history; all the more reason why this chapter becomes central.

Dr. Babra in the last part of the book looks like a partial witness of the partition events in Lahore, mainly because we have mostly read the accounts written on our side. He cannot be blamed; having been arrested on a false murder charge in early 1947 in the midst of pre-partition riots and having lost his village, his entire impressionable memories and possessions with the partition. He was released from this predicament as luckily the habeus corpus petition was heard by Justice Teja Singh of Lahore High Court. This account can be called partial only in retrospect. The sad partition chapter forms only a footnote to the book but is very significant. It is an accurate and truthful account of a man so terribly hurt by the events of 1947. We rarely find such accurate eyewitness accounts from such unimpeachable sources.

The account of pre-partition Lahore and of the wonderful but forgotten history of Sikh National College is given at length. The book project was conceived at an old boys' get-together in 1992 to honor late Prof. Kishen Singh, famous for his leftist/rational interpretation of the Granth Sahib. Dr. Babra travelled all over the world to collect accounts of the small, one hundred in all, surviving members of the faculty and old students. Dr. Babra is a man possessed; possessed above all by love, the essence of the teachings of Guru Nanak.

One small non-Sikh alumni Ranjit Nainwala's case is an interesting but typical case. He was thrown out of the famous Holkar College Indore of Central Province (now Madhya Pardesh) on charges of seditious activities. He knocked at Prof. Niranjan Singh's door who, through personal contacts in the University of the Punjab, got permission to admit him when no other college in the whole of India accepted him. In the author's words "Ranjit and many such students had become charged with the spirit of freedom: Mohan of Mahlpur, Raghbir Basi and Man Mohan Singh were among them". So was our Prof. Sharif Sabir, who has not been mentioned in the book. Prof. Sharif Sabir who is one of the best scholars of Punjabi language famous for his editing of Heer Waris Shah and many other Punjabi classics also went to Sikh National College. He was the student of famous Prof. Pritam Singh.

The last chapter of the book is the most significant. Most of us have not read many non-Muslim accounts though these abound in English books published in the West and in India. This is a very painful account. The point of view is naturally of a non-Muslim living in Lahore and his village until after partition.

Unfortunately, Unblossomed Buds is not available in Pakistan. Vichchoray da Dagh is available at the Sahiwal address of Wichaar Publishers courtesy Prof. Manzur Ejaz and Dr. Shahid Amjad, formerly of World Bank, and now founder and head of the Lahore School of Economics. One hopes Dr. Shahid Amjad will arrange their availability and distribution in Pakistan. The launch of the first book was arranged at Lahore School of Economics in November 2008. That is how one got hold of the two books as gifts from the author.

Ch. Anwar Aziz, formerly a minister of Mr. Bhutto's government, arranged the author's first post-partition visit to his village, where thousands turned up to greet him. Dr Babra's father's house still stands. The author paid for the rebuilding of the Gurudwara which stands as a monument to the visits of 4th and 8th Guru of the Sikh religion to the village.

The Sikh National College faculty included besides Principal Narinjan Singh, Professor Kishan Singh, Karter Singh Duggal, the famous writer and the famous Prof. Pritam Singh who died recently. Sharif Sabir and thousands of others were taught and inspired by them. Each member of the faculty was a gem of commitment and knowledge. Other colleges in Lahore had their strengths. Government College produced the ICS class and ruling elite of both the Punjabs, DAV college was a bastion of Hindu nationalism, Islamia College was a centre of rising Muslim nationalism where many poor Muslims of Punjab found shelter. Dyal Singh College was a left-leaning college. But Sikh National College was the heart of Indian Punjabi secular nationalism and leftist political ideology.

Among its alumni, majority of whom were Sikhs but not so by design, were Prakash Singh Badal, later chief minister of East Punjab and many other politicians, members of legislative assembly of Punjab. Many prominent entrepreneurs and scholars are spread all over the world. Dr. Babra contacted each one of them to record their memories. This long list of old faculty and alumni appears at the end of the book.

The Story of a Widow

By Musharraf Ali Farooqi

Publisher: Picador India, 2009

Pages: 249

Price: Rs950

Musharraf Ali Farooqi's The Story of a Widow, despite its title that makes one wonder if it is a raunchy tale of a widow (damn you Desperate Housewives for making widows sleazy), is a quaint, charming story of a newly-widowed woman in Karachi, and the trials and tribulations of her past and present, replete with family dramas, backstabbing relatives and more.

The Story of a Widow has no sarcastic phrases, no flowery language, and yet its matter-of-fact tone manages to endear one to the book. While it is certainly not a riveting read, Farooqi manages to make one empathise with Mona the protagonist despite the many flaws in her thinking and reasoning. Although one was torn between wanting to slap Mona silly and a minute later want to give her a hug, it is the contradictions in Mona's personality that make this book worth reading.

The Story of a Widow describes the twists and turns in Mona's life that befall her after husband passes away, the clichés and explanations used to describe widows in Pakistan by one's extended family (usually accompanied by a sigh and tsk-tsk), her meeting a new man Salamat Ali, and how her relationships with her daughters changes following Mona's coming of age, even at the rather advanced age of 50.

Salamat Ali's character is quite wonderful and without giving too much away, makes one wish that the book had been called The Story of a Widower, since his character has the essential elements in a cad: sex, sleaze and scotch, which one would want to read more about.

But where Mona and Salamat's characters are well sketched out, the daughters' characters leave much to be desired. Their characters' complexities go unexplained till the last quarter of the book, by which point no one really cares about them anyway.

The Story of a Widow paints pictures of a time and culture that is long gone and mostly forgotten. The older women wear saris as everyday wear, tea is still a proper social affair; a certain old-fashioned charm can be found in the description of the households and the characters of this book. What's not old-fashioned about the book is the way widows are treated by their relatives; even today, one finds real life Monas in their families, women who try as they might, are either not allowed to live the rest of their life peacefully, or are judged by any choice, as simple as the colour of their sari, that they may make.

The most interesting character, although only a photograph was the portrait of Mona's late husband's Akbar Ahmad, whose description and subsequent expressions throughout the book, delighted one. Farooqi was inspired to write this novel, after he saw a similar portrait hanging in another widow's house, who was about to embark on her second marriage.

So how does an image lead to a book? Farooqi says the rest of the characters were imagined like the story. "All fictional characters are composites of people we know, or impressions we have of them; while they are drawn from life, they are not of actual individuals."

Farooqi says he wrote the book in ten months or so. "I had the complete outline before I started writing. There were some changes made to it during the writing (in an earlier version Salamat Ali had a different fate) but the story did not change in its essence."

The depiction of family politics and scheming by relatives is perhaps something that most Pakistanis can empathise with. One wonders if they were based on real-life characters and events. "No, they weren't", says Farooqi, "All families, like all offices, are playing grounds for closet politicians. When seen from a child's eye the family world looks very innocent. Its layers of relationships and politics become noticeable when one grows up. A storywriter experiments by developing imaginary scenarios from these observations, and populating them with imaginary characters. The success or failure of the experiment depends on how credible it sounds."

Farooqi's claim to fame, at least in Pakistan, has been his translation of Amir Hamza, which generated rave reviews in both the local and foreign press. Hence one is rather curious how Farooqi went from translating epics like Amir Hamza and Hoshruba: The Land and The Tilism, to a book like The Story of a Widow. Farooqi says he likes the disparity in styles, but it doesn't dictate his choices in fiction writing." For me, the content of a work of fiction dictates its style. The language of the novel I am working on currently is more baroque. On the other hand, the language of the graphic fable Rabbit Rap, being written simultaneously, is very different from the baroque language of the new novel and the sparse text of The Story of a Widow. With a work of translation one is bound to the language of the original, although one still has to make choices of style."

Musharraf Ali Farooqi started his career as a sub-editor for The News, and moved to Canada a few years later. His former colleagues say he was extremely popular, a non-conformist and quite witty. The wit shines through even in a simple question I put to him about his writing process and where he writes. "The first requirements for good writing are a good-sized piece of bread and a sweet cup of tea in which that bread can be dipped and eaten. I can write anywhere, on the buses, while sitting on a street corner -- although it helps greatly if one has a chair. But I cannot write near crying children even if I am given a chair."

Farooqi includes many of the great Urdu writers as his inspirations. "Among Urdu fiction writers, Azeem Baig Chughtai, Muhammad Khalid Akhtar, Shafiqur Rahman, Syed Muhammad Ashraf, Ghulam Abbas, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Naiyer Masud, Syed Rafique Husain, Manto, Ashraf Subuhi and countless other writers whom I read when growing up. Most of my reading in my adult years was in translations from foreign languages. My all time favourites among old masters are Alexander Dumas, Dickens and Victor Hugo-- reading them is always pleasurable."

Farooqi needs to be credited on three fronts for The Story of a Widow. First, for portraying and without using flowery prose, the difficulties married folks go through. From the lying to the penny pinching, husbands are not the princes that everyone makes them out to be. Second, for using a mere portrait on a wall as a tool to set the mood of each scene and succeeding in doing so. Third, for staying away from the clichés that seem to invade every novel in English that has been set in Karachi in recent years. And lastly, for writing freely about the way families, especially those in the middle and upper-middle class, function in Pakistan. Whether it is their reliance on their son-in-laws, or the way husbands are manipulated by their wives or how widows are treated in the Pakistani society, Farooqi bares all about the dynamics of relationships, especially complex ones involving a woman who marries for the second time.

"So does every woman" I ask Farooqi, "have a little bit of Mona, flaws and all, inside them?" "Someone may claim that The Story of a Widow is a universal story, but I neither claim nor disclaim that Mona is a universal woman," says Farooqi. "A story becomes universal if people from other cultures, other world views empathise with it. But I, as the author of a fictitious character, cannot make such a big claim about a character. If some people identify with Mona I feel pleased that I have presented a credible character. I really can't ask for more."

A tour of Sindh provided me with the pleasant opportunity to meet a number of writers, poets, intellectuals and teachers at various towns and cities of the province last week. They included Sobogian Chandani, Ibrahim Toyo and Rasul Bakhsh Paleejo, the three most renowned literary and cultural personalities of Sindh today, with whom I have been acquainted with for many years.

I went to Sindh as part of a writers' delegation, an idea of the chairman of the Pakistan Academy of Letters, Fakhar Zaman Sahib. The Academy and the culture department of the Sindh Government jointly sponsored the visit. The delegation included Safdar Balooch of Gawadar, Salim Raz of Peshawar, Ehsan Akbar, Rasheed Amjad, Khalid Iqbal Yasir and Zaheerudin Din Malik of Islamabad, Shaheen Mufti of Gujrat, Tahir Taunsvir of Sargodha and Salim Akhtar and Aezaz Ahmad Azer of Lahore. Agha Noor Muhammad played the host.

The delegation visited Karachi, Thatta, Jam Shoro, Hyderabad, Bhit Shah, Garhi Khuda Bukhsh, Runi Kot, Sewen Sharif, Larkana and Khairpur.

I gathered from this interaction that the writers of Sindh are concerned about the problems of their province. They understand and share the hardships and deprivations of their people and are troubled by the growing trends of aggressive religious fundamentalism in other parts of the country. Nevertheless, they believe that humanistic teachings of the sufi saints of Sindh militate against such trends and will not let them take roots in the province.

They greatly adore their language and culture and are determined to preserve them. However, I did not come across any Sindhi writer who downgraded other languages and cultures.

My impression is that many Sindhi intellectuals know more about the history, literature and culture of Punjab than many of their Punjabi counterparts. They believe that all the Pakistani languages are national languages and should be respected equally.

On the whole, it was an educative tour that has greatly helped in developing understanding among the literati of all the provinces of the country.

Mazharul Islam is a wonderful storyteller who believes writing is his life. Though torn between "writer idealism and the drudgery of maintaining a life", he keeps dreaming of the day when he will get a flat in Nathiagali and devote himself to reading and writing.

Ghoron key shehr mein Akela Aadmi was the title of his maiden volume of short fiction that attracted many readers and shocked many critics. Published in 1982, it played a significant role in introducing new trends in Urdu fiction during the last quarter of the 20th century. Mazharul Islam has three more books of short stories to his credit. He also published a novel, Muhabat: Murda Phoolon ki Symphony as well as a collection of prose poems under the title Ay Khuda. Some of works have been made available in Hindi, English and Chinese.

Christopher Shackle, the eminent British orientalist who is a specialist in Urdu, Punjabi and Seraiki languages, translated thirty of Mazharul Islam's selected short stories and some of his other literary pieces into English. Sama Editorial and publishing Services of Karachi under the title The Section of Love, Bitter Almond and Delayed Rains published these translations with the translator's scholarly introduction in 2006.

These translated stories received some wonderful reviews. Jon Ivan Palmer, a British literary critic and hypnotist, called Mazharul Islam a "camel load of anomalies". He wrote that his stories were not "simple ethnic tales or cultural whitewash, but profound human dilemmas standing next to Sophoclean tragedy and Homeric epic."

After his long associations with the Islamabad's National Institute of Folk Heritage, Mazharul Islam served as the director general of the Pakistan Academy of Letters. Currently he is heading the National Book Foundation.

He is actively planning to establish book clubs in remote villages of all the provinces of the country. He believes that these clubs will not require many resources. These clubs according to him would be set up in the house of a schoolteacher or some other prominent resident of a village who is interested in books.

The National book Foundation will provide books to these clubs with the aim to revive the reading habits that have gradually vanished from our culture. The Foundation will also invite eminent authors to deliver lectures at these clubs.