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review Time after time Neruda
the defiant Zia
Mohyeddin column
review Faiz may have thought the task of poetry was to universalise a particular but Agha Nasir has come up with a list of a hundred poems which he thinks he can be related to causes, personalities and happenings By Sarwat Ali Hum jeetey jee masroof rahe Agha Nasir. Sang e Meel Publications, 2008 Price Rs.750 Pages 349Agha Nasir took
upon himself a task which many people may find very useful. He chose to It has often been asserted that there should be a link between the objective happenings and the poet's life because that makes it easier to draw a relationship between the creator and the created. Usually examples are quoted of literary and artistic production in various other parts of the world, particularly the West, where it is supposed that the link between the two is less tenuous and surreptitious than it is in our literature. To pin down the motivation to a particular instance in our major form, the ghazal, is tantamount to reductionism. The problem or the pitfall -- that literature may be seen just as a documentation of an event in history that has happened and may then be assessed to check the veracity of the facts quoted in a literary piece in comparison with what the historians or the journalists have written or recorded -- is real. Literature has always prided itself from being different to journalism, history or topicality. In our literature it is basically very difficult to put a date on a poem. The ghazal as a form was considered to be operating in a timeless world because it spoke of the human condition, the contours of which have remained the same no matter how much they have changed. It was later, in the nineteenth century, that mechanical time became a factor to be weighed in the very stylised form of the ghazal, and a new tension emerged between the timeless paradigm of the form and the more temporal happenings in history. Critics in particular have despaired about putting a date on the literary creations of our poets. Urdu poetry has been the reflection of the age that created it, and that age has been one of the most turmoil-ridden periods of our history. The Central Empire had collapsed and the country was being hacked into pieces, precipitated by the attacks from the western borders. By the middle of the eighteenth century, Bengal had fallen to the East India Company and in the next hundred years, the golden period of Urdu literature, especially poetry, saw the last vestiges of local sovereignty frittered away. But try putting a date on Mir or Sauda or Anis and the quest would peter out as calculated guesswork. Why were these poets so averse to the day to day tragedy that was unfolding in front of their eyes? Only Nazir Akbarabadi is given credit for recording in his poetry the time that he was living in. These poems reflected the ordinary everyday events -- the festivals, the customs, the cultural foibles and gave us an objective account of the society that he lived in. It was not the well-wrought stylised idiom of the ghazal that transcended the specifics. If Ghalib had not written letters about the events of 1857, it would have been very difficult to glean information about what was happening because his poetry does not draw a one to one relationship between the motivation and the creative output. Though, it is true that poets after him, probably under European influence, started to write poetry that could be linearly ascribed to a cause. Iqbal, unlike the classical poets, even gave a title to many of his poems, thus handing a pointer to the reader in his understanding of the verse. When the caravan of poetry reached Faiz, his approach remained that of the classical poets. He too feared reduction, mere documentation and distinguished himself from poets who had their fingers on the pulse of the times and were doing just that. It was the task of poetry to universalise a particular and not to be tied down to it. Habib Jalib's poems can more easily be ascribed to causes, occasions and happenings. Faiz left that task to Agha Nasir and he has come up with a list of a hundred poems which he thinks he can be related to causes, personalities and happenings. In many poems Faiz, too, has given a title to the poem making it easier to track down the source of inspiration like, for example, the one in the memories of Sajjad Zaheer, Mukhdoom Muhyuddin or Major Ishaq and go in search for poems written on Mian Iftikharuddin, Hasan Nasir and Comrade Mansoor ."Lao to qatal nama mera ", originally a line from Wajid Ali Shah Aktharpiya was written on the execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. When violence was instigated in Karachi after Fatima Jinnah's election he wrote "kaheen bhi, khaheen bhi nahi hai lahu ka suragh", and when he was taken handcuffed on a tonga because the police van had broken down he wrote "aaj bazaar main paa ba jaulaan chalo". As students of literature are we any the wiser for it? As students of political and cultural history, we certainly are. It also may be of benefit to those who want to study the relationship of the creative process, how a cause can motivate and what its outcome is. As written by I. A Rehman, Faiz always decried this exercise and even when Agha Nasir suggested such an enterprise he was lukewarm about it, neither saying yes nor no. Agha Nasir is a mild-mannered man and that also explains the mild-mannered approach that comes through in his writings as well. His writings have been full of compassion and feeling. He has, through his compassionate approach, tried to understand the people that he worked with, and also those who happened to be his friends, and treat them as an enigma, as bundles of contradictions and as riddles which needed to be understood more. He has used the same approach by exploring his close relationship with Faiz, his personal knowledge of the times and the poet's reaction to it. Time after time Naheed Qamar has dealt with the concept of time in Urdu fiction with an analytical and clear mind By Abrar Ahmad Time is a fascinating,
perplexing and absurd concept. The days, months and years as life span when The concept of time has both scientific and metaphysical connotations. It remains abstract even at the scientific level, though intense efforts have been made to understand it. It is interesting to study this phenomenon in literature, especially when it is done by Naheed Qamar, one of the finest modern poets, in her book titled Urdu Fiction Mein Waqt Ka Tassawur. The topic is explored and planned with creative excellence in a systematic manner – by dividing the book into four chapters: The ideological debates; Concept of time in Urdu Dastaan; Concept of time in the Urdu Novel; Concept of time in the Short Story. The opening chapter deals with attempts made in different disciplines to unfold the mystery of time. It is the most revealing, informative and enlightening account, relevant even to those not interested in literature alone. Mythology is explored from animism to the linear and cyclic concepts of time. Then the variable is studied with religious reference where both the philosophical concepts are dealt with referring to philosophers like Aristotle, Plato, Inb-e-Rushd along with a study of Hindu and Greek mythology. Alongside scientific advances starting from the big bang theory, the findings of Newton, Einstein and Stephen Hawkin are summarised winding up with the Big Crunch Theory. The most ancient form of fiction "dastaan" is then taken up by revisiting "Dastaan-e-Amir Hamza", "Bagh-o-Bahar" and "Fasana-e-Ajayb", perhaps for the sake of continuity, as one doesn't find 'time' as an issue in these tales. The following chapters deal with the question directly. Fiction writers discussed in special sections with an organised focus are: Qurratul-Ain Hyder, Intezar Husain, Enver Sajjad, Jamila Hashmi, Khalida Hussain, Rasheed Amjad, Mustansar Hussain Tarar and Ahmad Javed. Others like Sami Ahuja, Mansha Yad, Mirza Hamid Beg and Zahida Hina do not get a detailed mention. It is only Qurratul-Ain Hyder who has used "time" in the broadest possible perspective. Time is an integral part of her exceptional vision. It is a recurring throb of her great novels. Her sublime fiction owes a lot to her enviable command on history which could not have been understood without a visionary perception of time. It gets philosophised in her works and maintains an eternal relevance. Enver Sajjad is essentially a modernist. His socio-political approach infuses in his rather abstract work, an awareness of time, chaotic in resonance. It is an existential question with Khalida Hussain who deals with it as an absurd phenomenon in a broad philosophical perspective. Jamila Hashmi in Dasht-e-Soos addresses the mystic and religious flavour of time in a captivating narrative while Tarar chooses the locale of an extinct civilization and visits time in a cross-sectional manner in retrospect. Rasheed Amjad has a spontaneous creative expression, invoking a language which uses abbreviations and repetitive forms of the most familiar conversations with one's own self. Hence time, for him, is a predominantly subjective concept. Ahmad Javed, in his short stories, keeps in line with the current times. Charged with resistance, his works portray an individual is facing the merciless fading away of time. A couple of irrelevant authors find their way into the thesis which could have become even more authentic with the inclusion of people like Asad Mohammad Khan and Nayyar Masood. Naheed Qamar has dealt with the select fiction with an analytical and clear mind, and has succeeded in unfolding the frame of time in which these authors resided. In works done with purely an objective intent, a sort of dryness creeps in and infuses a sort of textbookish boredom. On the contrary, the book under review persistently offers a subjective flavour to the reader -- owing primarily to the poetic self of the author, which displays an affinity with the concept of time independent of the project under process. The book is not only an objective analysis of fiction but is also an enchanting narrative due to inferences and creative remarks made by the author.
By Anis Nagi The end of the legendry
poet Pablo Neruda in 1973 was pathetic and cruel. The military dictator of Pablo Neruda was a prolific poet with more than thirty six poetic collections. His poetry was translated in all the major languages of the world including Urdu. Many modern Urdu poets have plagiarized his poems. The Colombian Novelist Gabriel Marquez regarded him the greatest poet of the twentieth century in any language. Neruda was equally popular in the Eastern and the Western blocks and was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize for literature and the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971. His meteoric rise as a poet started with his first book of poetry: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. The book was a craze and ran into many editions within a short span. This was the beginning of an unabated flow of poetry till his death. Neruda's poetry had many styles: from surrealism to the epic he mastered all. His poetry has two main themes: personal agony of an individual fighting against the destiny in the inhospitable world and the constant threat of annihilation culminates in his anguish; the second and more notable theme is that of the historical self of Chile emerging from the colonial past. Here his poetry seems to imbibe the influence of Walt Whitman. Neruda's very fertile imagination brings in poetry the unusual sensations, imagery and such commonplace feelings so essential to life but ignored by others. Pablo Neuda was not only a poet but was also a diplomat and a politician who struggled against military dictators in favor of the proletariat. He was a member of the Cuban Communist Party and became a Senator. He was also a presidential candidate but withdrew in favor of his friend Allende who was deposed by a military dictator. Neruda held many diplomatic assignments, Spain, Mexico, and as the ambassador in France when the Marxist government in Chile was overthrown. Neruda was a defiant man with tremendous courage to face the adverse circumstances. His escape from Chile and the subsequent in many countries is the stuff of legends. His stay in Capri in Italy with his beloved mistress and eventually his third wife Matilde Urrutia was part of the legends. Neruda was a romantic man with many affairs with women but his choice of wives was whimsical. He was posted in Batavia when he married in 1930 at the age of twenty six an eccentric banker, Haagenar, a Dutch by birth and had a daughter who subsequently died at the age of ten. He separated from her in 1936. For seventeen long years he lived with a political activist Delia del Carril and married her in 1943. She was twenty years older than him. And separated from her in 1953. During his second marriage, Neruda (at the age of 54) flirted with Matlide (who was 44 then) whom they met in Mexico. Their marriage was legalized in Chile in 1966. Neruda died issueless in 1973. They lived as husband and wife in Chile for about seven years. Matlide came form a poor family of southern Chile and started her career as a singer and finally settled in Mexico. She was a woman of ordinary appearance: short in height, freckled face and red Medusa like hair. The romantic Neruda was so fascinated by her that he called her his muse. and wrote two collections of love poetry (Captain's Verses and 100 Love Sonnets) depicting the intensity of his love for this woman. Some critics rate his love poems very high but, to me, they smack of licentiousness with a little poetic flavour. After the death of Neruda, the widow of the poet was neglected by all and shadowed by the authorities. Before her death in 1985, at 74 she wrote her memoir which were posthumously published in 1986 and its English version was published in 2004 under the title My life with Pablo Neruda. The memoir of Urrutia is a dull book focused on the egocentric widow hardly exposing the intimate details about the great poet. In his Memoirs and Passions and Impressions, Neruda is more eloquent about himself, his political and literary journeys and occasional glimpses of his sexual passion. Urrutia is very nostalgic about her days spent in Capri. She talks of her dogs, occasional booze parties at Neruda's residence. She fully enjoyed Naruda's wealth and reputation. She had the resources to provide adequate medical treatment 'when he was nearing death' but she neglected to do so. She could not arrange for an ambulance for Neruda for three days after his death. My Life with Pablo Neruda is a badly written book which even the translators could not improve. The events are narrated in a haphazard manner. Neruda's political activities are marginalised. She talks a lot about herself but readers are interested only in the life of Neruda. "You may have noticed…" In our part of the world
television has now become a medium for anyone appearing on it to address In these programmes which, technically, fall under the heading of 'current affairs' but which, in essence are politicized "Jerry Springers," the conversation, if and when you are able to hear it, is of such surpassing banality that if I were to describe it accurately, the permissiveness of the age world be put to shame. Television affects our lives more than any other profession. Its influence on all of us has been enormous. What other invention enables us to see a runner accompanied on his attempt at a record by a stopwatch, visible to millions of people at the same time? In the form of instant replay it has made it possible for us not just to see a batman's foot raised by one tenth of an inch above the batting crease as he is stumped by the wicket-keeper, but an assassination, a bank robbery, and a baby crocodile emerging out of its shell. These are some of the functions we do not seem to be aware of. The new incredibly wonderful techniques allow the camera to be placed in the most unexpected places not merely to snoop but to reveal. Over and above everything else the television is a lie detector which ferrets out insincerity with uncanny efficiency. In our urban society, the television, like the cell phone, is now owned by even the lowest paid families. And what do our fifty-three – or is it seventy-one – channels offer them? Bilge. What we see on our screens, hour upon hour, are talking heads spouting the most well-worn clichés. As a medium, tv has become bland and insidious. But it is here to stay in an ever-improving form elsewhere and an ever-declining form in our country. There is not much point in condemning it – and I don't. Indeed, I have a great deal to thank for it. It was because of my reputation as a bright spark on television that I was approached by an earnest director, in the early seventies, to play the lead in his film, a musicical thriller. As it turned out, it was neither a musical nor a thriller, or so I am told; I have no way of judging it because I never saw it. The film was to be made in Lahore which is now – and it is a sign of the crassness of our times – referred to as Lollywood. It was a very hot summer; the temperature never got below 40° centigrade. I was trying my best to prepare myself for long hours in the far hotter clime of a non-air-conditioned studio with all the 'brutes' generating their own intense heat. I used to switch off the air-conditioning in my hotel room and with the big window shut, sit in a chair and try to read. It became unbearable after twenty minutes. Two days before the shooting began I went to see the director, a short man with a Kashmir-white complexion and the body of a welter-weight boxer, to ask him about my role, and whether he had any special observations to make. The director who I learnt later had a vocational addiction to shouting at the crew, was courteous but reticent. His bluish eyes narrowed. "Jamil" (that was the name of the character I was meant to portray)."Jamil Ke maan baap nahin hein," he said ponderously. I replied that yes, I did know that Jamil had lost his parents in an accident. He nodded with a smile and said nothing. "Is there any specific aspect of the man you wish me to bring out?" I asked. To my surprise he began to sing a song that had been made famous by Saigol in the late forties.
Ay Katib-i-taqdeer mujhe itna bataa de" (O, calligrapher of fate, tell me this much…) He stopped after singing the first verse. "You sing very well" I said. He beamed, "I did take a few lessons on the harmonium." There was a long pause while I wondered uncomfortably if by some chance he expected me to sing in the manner of the late Kundan Lal Saigol. "Jamil," he said as though revealing a secret, "is a hero. So…" And he left it to me to imagine what that implied. Some years later I mentioned this incident to Peter Ustinov who, with a twinkle in his eye, said that the well of insensitivity was bottomless. He had worked with some directors who had been equally obtuse. When he was cast to play. Nero in the American epic, 'Quo Vadis,' Ustinov asked his American director if he could shed any light on the character of Nero. "Nero? Son of a bitch," said the director. Ustinov waited for further elaboration, but Leroy, the director was firm in his view. "Son of a bitch" he declared, this time more vehemently. Peter Ustinov spoke precisely, every word finding its place neatly in the subordinate clauses. He had much to say about the educational process of British public schools, especially the bumbling manner in which children were acquainted with the 'facts of life'. In Rugby, for example, the headmaster who was considered to be an enlightened man, once summoned all the boys who had reached the age of puberty to his study. After reassuring himself that the door was firmly secured, he made the following brief announcement. "If you touch it, it will fall off." The boys were then invited to fall back into their classes, now equipped to face life. But nothing tops the story Peter Ustinov has written in his memoirs. He arrived at the theatre one evening to find his colleague, Cyril Luckham, reduced to tears because he had been laughing too much. The cause of Cyril Luckham's joy was apparently, the first day of a new term at his son's school. The headmaster, obeying the instructions of a government by now aware of the dangers of ignorance, was compelled to explain the 'facts of life' to those of a certain age-group. Let Ustinov take over, "The poor headmaster had been rehearsing his speech all though the summer recess, and eventually, in a panic of prudery unable to bear the sniggers he could already hear in his head, he was reduced to composing a pamphlet, published at his own expense, which every boy found lying on his desk as the new term began. The pamphlet began with the following seven words: " 'You may have noticed, between your legs…' "
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ascribe the motivation of a hundred poems of Faiz.
finally come to a halt become timeless. It may cease to exist for us on an
individual level but is omnipresent till life stays on this planet. This
painful avareness and helplessness has remained an integral component of all
literary pursuits.
Chile, Augusto Pinochet, did not allow a public funeral. His funeral
procession was surrounded by the army. His countless fans and friends chanted
in his honor in the streets of Santiago. Pablo Neruda was laid to rest in a
private graveyard, but subsequently the owner got the grave vacated and the
poet was reburied in the premises of his house in Isla Nigra where his third
wife Mathalide joined him.
the nation. Nobody talks to an individual viewer. Everyone, from the gaudily
made up, moon-faced hostesses of morning shows to the ill-at-ease hosts of
the afternoon "Truth Seeking" sessions, takes up the cause of –
and invokes the authority of – the sola crore awam. A bigger cliché has
yet to be espoused.