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review One-trick
pony A
word about letters
review Vaars are a
valuable part of Punjabi poetry -- a folk perception of history and an Title:
Des Diyan Vaaran (Punjabi) Publishers: Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture, Lahore Though great poets like Baba Nanak, Najabat and Shah Mohammad have also penned them, a bulk of 'Vaars' including elegies of heroes like Dulla Bhatti, originate from folklore. Folk itself can stem from an eclectic variety of sources, such as a group or a people's collective memory and verses by unknown bards. In Des Diyan Vaaran, the poets are mentioned by their names and, although professional bards of a humble caste, they possess great substance. Regardless of a variety of sources in this genre, it is a valuable treasure in Punjabi poetry, a folk perception of history, an expression of popular will in celebration or revolt. 'Vaar', which literally
means an era/period, is a historical account composed in poetry, sung and Dr Bhutta has had the good fortune of having worked for a few years under the guidance of the great Punjabi scholar, late Prof Asaf Khan. He has also learnt from many a great teacher including Najam Hosain Syed. He acknowledges his debt to these worthy men of letters in the book. Punjabi, the fourteenth major language of the world, according to the UN figures, is suffering an utter neglect in Pakistan. In East Punjab, where it is a medium of instruction from class one up to the masters level, it is equally threatened by the English language and domination of the media by other languages. The difference between West and East Punjab is colossal. There dozens of Punjabi dailies and magazines are published and read by hundreds of thousands while only half a dozen financially struggling magazines and two minor dailies are published in Pakistan. The tragedy of East Punjab is that all the great names of Punjabi language belonged to areas that now fall in Pakistan. The abode of all classical Punjabi poets and the dialect used by them is that of West Punjab. West Punjab's another shortfall is a lack of recording, documentation and publishing of this disappearing treasure. As an expert in this field, Dr Bhutta is an asset of national importance. His first book, titled Kuliat-e-Shah Azim, was published 15 years ago by Pakistan Punjabi Adabi Board. He has written nine books since then and except for one book -- that of his own short stories -- the rest are a valuable anthology of folk songs and narrations of history and literature. Dr Bhutta, besides teaching full-time at the University of Punjab and writing for Punjabi magazines, spends time in the field where he found and recorded master narrators of Punjabi folk such as (the late) Mian Kamal Din. The book under review includes four Vaars narrated by Mir Chughatta and one each by Mir Bahram and Mian Jani. The narrations and poetry are written records of oral narrations of seventeenth, eighteenth and early twentieth century. Also included are dramatic and artistic introductions by these three masters. In addition to the introductory narrations, there are lengthy interjections in each episode of these stories. There are two Vaars about the chief of the Chaddhar tribe; the spelling of this Jat clan (Chaddarer) that lives on the borders of district Jhang/Gujranwala/Sheikupura along the banks of River Chenab. Noora, the chief of Chaddhrar clan, remained a popular folk hero in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century. Dara Shikoh, the brother of Emperor Aurangzeb, and Shahdat Khan Lakhera, a chief mentioned in these narratives, help fix the time. With the kings, governors (Sawan Mal of Multan province and his son Moolraj) and better known as local rulers e.g. the Sials of Jhang, you can fix the dates of these Vaars. The Vaars were sung in rhythms of 'Sarkhandi' and 'Roshni' and apparently free-flowing but characteristic rhythms of 'Dholas'. Who were these authors? They were 'mirasees', the clan of musical performers and keepers of 'shajras' (family trees) of major clans. But, despite their low caste, these performers were very creative and imaginative. Theirs is a centuries old tradition. There are good reasons to believe that when our Hindu ancestors converted to Islam, the Brahmins with their rich heritage of musical arts, narratives and family records became 'mirasees'. The Muslim rulers already had their own crop of 'Muslim Brahmins', i.e., the Mullahs and the Syeds. Ramu Brahmin (bahman) in Heer Damodhar and Karmoo Bahman in Mirza Sahiban are significant examples. Nobody notices that aristocratic Sahti elopes with Ramu Bahman in Heer Damodhar and Karmu Bahman tries to flirt with Sahiban in the poet Peelu's Mirza Sahiban. The last of these wise oral historian bards, Mian Kamal Din lived in the twentieth century and died in the twenty-first century. It was again Dr Saeed Bhutta who collected his masterpiece narratives in the book, aptly titled, Kamal Kahani. Two Vaars of Noora Chaddhrar included here are by Mir Bahram and Mian Jani. These masters truly deserve the title of 'Mir' (The Chief) and 'Mian' (The Master). These are now only used for religious teachers -- Syed/Pirs and elders. But none deserves the sobriquet better than Mian Jani and Mian Kamal Din. What are these Vaars? These are folk history -- as perceived and remembered by the people. History is the essence of any language. This is the soul of Punjabi language, rich in phraseology, poetic, witty, ironic; felt by the people, the characters and these master narrators. The passage of four centuries of these vaars, orally transmitted and sung, is a significant phenomenon in Punjabi history. The descendants of the authors preserved these narratives, performances were interjected by prose narratives that are masterpieces of Punjabi prose narratives; eloquent and dramatic. This performed prose is called 'vichar' (thoughts), and these are thought-provoking indeed! The tragedy is that there are no takers. The language of these vaars is Lehndi, spoken by the majority of Punjabis, also called Seraiki, but it may not be followed by those living in Lahore. It was Zia's time. We stopped the mass publication of Farid, Nanak, Damodhar, Shah Hussain, Bahu, Barkhurdar, Bullah, Waris, Sachal and (Khawaja) Farid because all of them, except Nanak, had written in Lehndi for the most part. Nanak also breaks into Lehndi at places. The tragedy is that we have stopped reading Punjabi in any dialect in Pakistan. Yes, today, we have the advantage of a very powerful media -- TV, computer, mobile phone etc. But how much air time or thought do they give to the Punjabi language? For the information of the readers, vaars are difficult to read and understand. I, too, had to return to dictionary time and again. Scholarship in Punjabi language is a thing of the past. The Punjabi scholars in Pakistan are an endangered species. As a member of this 'endangered species,' Dr Bhutta ought to be protected. He is a teacher and may inspire and train some people, as he was inspired by his own mentors. The other four vaars are all by Mir Chughatta -- about Bhattis, Balochis, Mangesas, Awans and Laleras and Niswanas. Apparently, these are about clan battles and cattle lifting. The vaars provide the backdrop to the thousand years old history of Punjab. Punjab, with the advent of the Persian wheel, was coming out of the pastoral into a settled village-based agricultural era: Another chapter to the intensive agriculture era was added by the canal network of the British era. Other than the canal districts, every big village in the Punjab boasts a thousand years of history. How can we know this history without knowing the language and its literature? In Pakistani villages we are moving into an 'age of barrenness' -- agricultural barrenness and cultural barrenness! There is a surprising role played by the so-called 'Kammees' -- the lower castes -- in these vaars. On the face of it, vaars are epic tales of the feudal chiefs and heroes. But in all the battles these Kammees appear by name as warrior heroes: For instance, Mammo Mochi (Mammo the cobbler -- Page 17), Gahna Maachi (Gahna the fisherman/tandoor-keeper -- Page 157), Khakhrana Mochi (Khakrana the cobbler -- Page 160) and Masti Maachi (potter) in another episode (Page 168). It is likely that there are other, lower-caste characters whose caste did not form part of their name. When one reads the first Kammee name, it takes you by surprise. Mir Chughatta went on to sing the praises of his bravery. No doubt the Kammees are used as petty criminal hands by the feudals today as well, but the characters in these vaars are a different variety. The British went on to brand some of these pastorals as criminal tribes. Ignorance can be native as well as imperial! But read the narrative again and other than the name of the father of the character there is no mention of bravery by caste, e.g. a Brave Bhatti Rajput, Jat or Awan. Most are Jat tribes in these vaars but some claim to be Rajputs at the same time. The participation of the lower castes is not incidental. The pastoral Punjab was definitely classless and casteless in essence. It was only the royal connection and the settled agricultural village that brought the caste system in. The study of caste system in the history of Punjab would be a complex exercise. It is not for nothing that this region of Punjab in Rig Ved is mentioned as ěpeople who believed in nothingî; not in the Aryan god of Varn (Colour/Caste)! Read these vaars even if it takes an effort. They are a priceless gift! Both Dr. Saeed Khawar Bhutta and the Institute of Punjabi Language, Art and Culture deserve laurels for this effort. Dave Eggers became a literary star with his debut book, but it seems with his last two books, Eggers is repeating himself By Ali Sultan In 2000, everyone was swept up in the hysteria surrounding Dave Egger's brilliant first book, the sweeping post-modern memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Eggers' achievement was enormous. Both of his parents had died, amazingly, one within a month after the other, leaving the author in his early twenties to raise his teenage brother. The book relates a heroic and winding tale of love between brothers, grief over sharing family secrets, and an examination of memoir writing from the inside out. At its worst, the book at times seemed like a bad David Foster Wallace imitation (a self-knowing meta-examination of an idea referring to another idea); at its best, however, the book was Whitman-esque, with long, rambling, sweeping passages of free-flowing thought, ambition, vision, mysticism, imagining the power of love, determination, and escape. After becoming the darling
of the book world, it was inevitable that Eggers would not please Eggers' first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, published in 2002 by his own publishing house, McSweeney's Books, told the story of two friends blowing away an unexpected windfall of cash in a most peculiar way: by purchasing plane tickets that allow unlimited travel so long as you continue to travel in one direction. Over the course of a week, they proceed to travel all over the world, giving away their small fortune, obsessed with both the generousness of their mission and the need to keep moving to feel some sense of adventure and purpose in life. The book was filled with much the same urgency as Eggers' first book, although such a longing and intensity separated from the tragic events of the author's life came off as a bit pointless. Why were these middle-class Americans from the Midwest so guilty, so filled with anxiety, so obsessed with movement and momentum? Was it to escape despair? Despair over what? At least to this reader, it came off as angst for angst's sake, which isn't all that interesting. Eggers' latest book, a collection of short stories entitled How We Are Hungry, published in 2004, continues the themes explored in his novel. There are the obligatory Wallace-like clever story snippets, like 'There Are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself,' which is simply a few blank pages. It's interesting for a moment, but it feels like a gimmick. The major stories in the volume are almost all primarily concerned with young Americans abroad, searching for an authenticity or vitality that they cannot attain back home in the states. The book is infused with the hope that travel can be revelatory and life-changing; also hanging over these stories, however, is the depressing realization that you cannot escape your problems. The boredom suffocating these young people simply follows them over whatever oceans they have crossed. The protagonist of
'Another' rides through Egypt to be changed by visiting the pyramids; the Eggers is a very talented writer, no doubt. At times, his ideas and form can be striking and profound. In another one of the book's long stories focusing on expatriates, 'The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water,' the story (yet again) of two old friends from Wisconsin flirting with a sexual relationship as they meet up in Costa Rica to surf and lie in the sun, at various points cuts away to imagined dialogues between inanimate objects. Consider, for example, this exchange between God and the ocean, which takes place as the two friends walks towards the ocean to surf together: GOD: I own you like the caves. THE OCEAN: Not a chance. No comparison. GOD: I made you. I could tame you. THE OCEAN: At one time, maybe. But not now...I will spread myself like wings. I am a billion tiny feathers. You have no idea what's happened to me. Eggers is obsessed by power, force, vitality. His characters play out these dramas in their heads, wanting so badly to translate such bravery and wisdom and goodness in their actions, but always falling short. Eggers' artistic vision is that of the idealistic trying so hard to make a dent in the cold, hard world that we all must live in, but failing every time, despite their good intentions. How We Are Hungry suffers from the same unevenness that has plagued all of Eggers' work to this point. When he's good, he's great: He can wrap you up in the swirl of ambition and pain and sincerity of young people wanting to make a difference in the world. As in the conversation between God and the ocean, he can echo the boldness and grandeur of Blake and Whitman, imaging humans as players in the grand drama of the universe. What's lacking, however, is the reason, the motivating factor for such strong desires and longings. In A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers railed against the universe like Job, feeling betrayed and jilted by a God that would let such horrible things happen to such good young people; in You Shall Know Our Velocity, his characters railed against the greed and selfishness and inertia of Western life, which comes off as smug and condescending and not all that compelling. In How We Are Hungry, Eggers continues along the same path, with earnest characters wanting to break out of whatever box they are in, to connect with others and with the universe, but who are suffering from not much more than, well, boredom. But now Eggers seems like a one-trick pony. When the world first came across his style in his memoir, it flipped. Now that we're seeing it yet again in his third book, perhaps we, like his characters, are beginning to get a bit bored. A
word about letters One hundred years ago this year a new debate started in Lahore. Sir Pirtaul Chandra Chatterji was the vice-chancellor of the Punjab University in those days. He was a Bengali. Addressing the annual meeting of the university in 1908, he urged his students as well as the Punjabi intelligentsia to take the promotion of Punjabi as their duty. He said it was the language of the Punjab and the people of the province should take all the possible steps for its development and refinement. They should read and write in it. Sir Chatterji also advised them to translate scientific and academic literature into Punjabi. He expressed the opinion that if his advice was heeded to; Punjab would flower out as a developed language of the Indian subcontinent over a span of two generations. The supporters of Urdu and
Hindi were not pleased with the vice-chancellor's speech. They raised hell
against him. Especially the supporters of Urdu were more infuriated and some
of them crossed the limits of civility in denouncing him for raising a voice
in favour of their mother tongue. They were being led by Munshi Mahboob Alam who hailed from Wazirabad in central Punjab and was editor of a popular dialy newspaper titled Paisa Akhbar published from Lahore. He wrote editorial notes and articles in his Urdu newspaper in which the learned vice-chancellor was taken to task. Labelling Sir Pirtaul Chandra Chatterji as 'ignorant', 'empty-headed' and 'benighted' fellow, Munshi sahib accused him of spreading ignorance. Munshi Mehboob Alam's standpoint was that Punjab has two languages. One is spoken by the unschooled and unsophisticated masses. It is named Punjabi. The other is the language of the refined and educated Punjabis. It is called Urdu. But Urdu is not an alien or borrowed language. It is only the refined and civilized form of Punjabi. "The Punjabis", he wrote, 'who cannot or do not speak Urdu are known as bulls. Now the Punjab University vice-chancellor has taken upon himself the task of turning all of us into bulls." Dr Navid Shehzad who teaches Punjabi literature at the Punjab University's Punjabi department, has written a detailed and informative article on the arguments that were exchanged between the supporters of Urdu and Punjabi in those days. Jamil Pal is publishing this article in his monthly Sver International, the April issue of which carried the second part of the article. ********** Tahira's stories Recently I had brief encounter with Tahira Iqbal at Faisalabad University where an international seminar was being held. I had read some of her newspaper columns and knew that she also wrote short stories which had won the admiration of some senior literary critics. Professor Fateh Mohammad Malik, for instance, counted her among 'the most promising new Urdu fiction writers.' Tahira Iqbal has so for published three collections of her short stories. She very kindly gave me a copy each of Rakhat her first collection and Gunji Bar, her latest that was brought out only a few weeks ago. Both the volumes, finely produced by the Dost Publications of Islamabad, carry 42 pieces and I have gone through most of them. Now I find myself in agreement with Professor Fateh Mohammad Malik. Tahira is certainly a wonderful storyteller. Set in the rural Punjab, her stories depict our village life with considerable grip on language and technique. Will she write more? I think she has many things to say and she will say them. ********** Halqa Arabab-e-Zauq The annual election of the Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq used to be a big event in the literary circles of Lahore till only a few years ago. Groups were formed, candidates were selected and enthusiastic efforts were made to persuade the members to vote for the favourite candidates. All this is past now. Nobody now seems to be interested in the affairs of the Halqa which is one of the oldest literary organizations of South Asia. Dr Younas Javed who has written a book on the history of the Halqa, says its maiden literary session was held in April, 1939. Last year there was only one candidate for the post of the secretary and another for joint secretary. So no elections were held. Same was the situation this year. Only Aamar Faraz stepped forward to offer himself for the post of secretary while Mudassar Naro expressed interest in the post of the joint-secretary. Though both have been elected unopposed, their sincerity and commitment to literature bodes well for the Halqa.
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performed and generally transmitted -- orally -- from generation to
generation. Yet, despite its great value, currently very little of it is
being documented or published in book form. Our new media has killed the folk
performances; it doesn't care much for history or good art. Similarly, the
publishing of Vaar books in the 'qissa' market, a thriving market till fifty
years ago, has dried up. Dr Saeed Khawar Bhutta has done some pioneering work
in this field. Both Dr Bhutta
everybody. His next endeavour was to launch the quirky literary journal
McSweeney's, known for its esoteric covers, breathtaking production values,
and varied roster of young writers and artists.
monumental structures turn out to be disappointing, but riding freely through
the desert on a horse provides a momentary release and thrill, although, of
course, that can't last forever. 'Quiet' tells the story of two old friends
meeting up in Scotland as their friendship escalates into romance; despite
the beauty and mystery of the countryside, however, their troubling pasts
come back to haunt them, ruining the life-altering possibilities of the trip.
In 'Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly,' the main character reaches the peak
of Mt. Kilimanjaro, only to be haunted by the specter of the death of a
companion. All of these Americans are trying to escape their homes and their
pasts; when it all comes crashing down on them in these foreign lands, they
are left distraught and alone.
