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q&a From
her angle Past
glory, futur efears A
word about letters Aslam Rahil Mirza did an Urdu translation of Shaikh Ayaz’s Sindhi autobiography under the title Duniya Sari Khwab some twenty years ago which was published by the Ilfaz Publications of Lahore. It was a small book of just one hundred and four pages. The book did not attract many readers. Similarly Urdu and Punjabi translations of his poetry were also made available to readers, but they too were ignored. , perhaps our literary community and literature reading public lacked the sensibility required to appreciate the great Sindhi writer’s work. Shaikh Ayaz was not happy with many of his contemporary Sindhi writers. He believed that they had become indifferent to their indigenous culture and literature. Urdu had knocked down the literary traditions and gave a boost to emotions, ideas, idioms and sensibility that were not rooted in local culture and soil. Making a deviation from the popular trend of his time, he chose Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai as his guru and made up his mind to tread Bhitai’s path.
q&a By Bilal Ibne Rasheed The News on Sunday: Beautiful from this Angle is an irreverent satire on contemporary Pakistani society and culture. What inspired you? Maha Khan Phillips: When I
was starting to put my ideas together for this novel, I remember walking into
a news agency in London. TNS: Any autobiographical elements in the novel? MKP: It’s amazing when you write something and everyone assumes it is about you. But no, no autobiographical elements, other than the fact that I based the farm scenes loosely on the farm that I grew up on near Rahim Yar Khan. Thankfully, my experience was nothing like Henna’s. I come from a very relaxed, artistic, and creative family. TNS: What do you think about the current state of Pakistani English fiction? MKP: I think that for a lot of our celebrated writers, the question is amusing, because Pakistani writing in English has been “discovered”, while they themselves have been writing for a decade and beyond. For me though, it is lovely. It certainly benefited me in the sense that people are paying attention to what is coming out of Pakistan. And as a reader, I am awed by the talent and the diversity of voices and narratives. I just wish that more Urdu writers were translated into English. TNS: How was your experience with the publishing industry? Were you able to find a publisher easily or was it the same old story of getting rejected by a dozen publishers before finding one? MKP: Oh, plenty of rejections! TNS: What do you think is good writing and bad writing? I am talking about fiction, of course. MKP: Gosh. I don’t know. I only know that when I read something I love it stays with me, and I have an emotional response to it. TNS: You have used gossip columns, newspaper extracts, and emails to advance the plot. Where did this idea come from? MKP: My cousin Kamiar Rokni and my friend Raaheen Mani both had, for a while, columns in The Friday Times. When I was trying to come up with Amynah’s voice, I immediately thought of their columns and the fact that they were dynamic and interesting. Newspaper extracts and emails seemed like an obvious way to move the story along quickly. TNS: What are some of your literary influences and how have they shaped your writing? MKP: I read everything. Absolute trash. Literary writers who are brilliant beyond imagination. Comic books. Non-fiction. Children’s books are a particular interest. One of my favourite writers is Jane Austen. Emma is actually a great satire, with a lot of trashy elements. I love Margaret Atwood and her dystopian novels — I’d love to write something set in the future. And David Mitchell, Angela Carter, Philip Pullman, Gregory Maguire, Elizabeth Gaskill and all the classics. My favourite Pakistani writers by far are Kamila Shamsie, Mohammed Hanif, and Nadeem Aslam. Then again, I also enjoy a mind numbing Regency romance when I’m in the mood. I don’t know what that says about me, or my writing, but there you go. TNS: After reading your novel, one starts distrusting most of the rape victims, NGOs, news channels even, Pakistani journalists, documentaries etc. Did you intend it to be so cynical and iconoclastic? MKP: If one book, that is very clearly satirical, can make anyone distrust most rape victims that person needs to have a very serious look at their own attitudes. Of course, I wasn’t trying to downplay the trauma — and awful ubiquity — of rape. Even the idea of such a thing is repulsive. What I was doing, instead, was questioning the way some stories of suffering are taken and packaged and marketed to a gullible world that is intent on demonising Islam. Why don’t we point the finger at Pakistan’s lack of a speedy and fair judiciary, or a functioning independent police force? Or the fact that our institutions are failing, that education is a mess? There are many factors at play here that leave women (and men) in our country vulnerable. And when it comes to the media, I do believe in the CNN effect, and I do believe that we write stories and move on and forget about them. I hope the book makes the point that women are often very capable of exploiting other women. Not everything has to do with religion. TNS: How much of editing has gone into the novel? MKP: A lot. It started out being told from the point of view of all three characters. There was an FBI agent as well. Without giving too much away, someone else dies instead. But it was way too disjointed and needed a lot of work along the way. TNS: Although Amynah, the protagonist, is a little too catty, the reader feels sympathy for her mainly because the third-person narrator has partiality for her. MKP: Yes, I see what you mean. She is awful in many respects. But you can’t have a main character that you don’t emphasise with, as a writer. At least, I can’t! You don’t have to like her but you do have to understand her. TNS: What are your views regarding creative writing courses? What do you think of the institutionalisation of fiction writing which used to be a solitary pursuit? MKP: Creative writing classes get a lot of flak for churning out the same type of writing, over and over again, for letting people think that they can be “taught” to write. I have to say that was not my experience. For me, it was great to be in an environment where your writing is talked about and nurtured and you get to look at other people’s experiences, and enjoy other people’s work and think about it. The people on my course were brilliant writers, and I felt like the whole experience was a privilege, and I was lucky to have that. We had to write a novel in order to graduate, something I would never have done on my own, and I met my agent through the course, which was helpful. There must be lots of people like me out there, who wouldn’t have had the confidence to put their writing in the public domain without being in this kind of environment. From her angle Maha Khan Phillips’s debut is a fast-paced, light-hearted read Beautiful
from this Angle Beautiful from this Angle,
Maha Khan Phillips’s début novel is a brilliant satire on contemporary
Pakistan. Although it has been The story revolves around Amynah, a girl from an ultra-rich family, whose mother is sleeping with an MNA and her father has gone to London with his mistress. Amynah is smart, intelligent, and a happy-go-lucky-fellow who writes a gossip column for a local newspaper, takes drugs, and sleeps around. Mumtaz, the daughter of a drug-baron, and Henna, the daughter of a politician, are childhood friends of Amynah’s. The author has intelligently used emails, news items, and gossip columns to progress the plot and keep the readers guessing. Amynah’s satirical gossip column is politically relevant and socially important. “These classes are supposed to teach them how to deal with us in a civilised, sensitive way, how not to step on any toes, as it were.” And, “I saw a serving girl come to empty the ashtrays and refill the olive bowls. She was no more than 12, and her hands were shaking… I started to imagine what it must be like to be her.” The author has also used the extracts of a novel her protagonist Amynah is writing, which is a satire on British girls of Pakistani origin who are made to return to Pakistan in order to get married and who start thinking their freedom and liberty have been snatched in the name of Islam. One feels the draft of Amynah’s novel has been done too neatly and that it lacks the draft-ness. Perhaps, a little deliberate clumsiness would have made it look a bit more realistic. An important point made in the novel is about the hypocrisy of NGOs working in Pakistan. While these NGOs claim to be working for poverty alleviation and female emancipation they have an agenda of their own, which has more to do with minting money and climbing on the social ladder to reach an influential position. The expression is attractive and the prose controlled and crafted which shows the considerable amount of editing gone into the novel. Although Amynah is a bit too catty, one does sympathise with her for she remains a humane character throughout. The puns and wicked euphemisms add a charm to the narrative. “Babes, it was a Fokker. There were like ten of us on it. I hate these bloody small planes.” “See, size does matter. Are you with your friend?” and “Once, Amynah had gently suggested [Henna] that Javaid might need to be road-tested.” Beautiful
from this Angle is available at Liberty Books. —
Bilal Ibne Rasheed
Past glory, futur efears MJ Akbar’s Pakistan is a country that will neither collapse nor stabilise By Sarwat Ali Tinderbox M.J. Akbar is one of the leading journalists and opinion
makers of India and when he writes a book about the Muslims of the Actually he is writing about himself, a Muslim who now lives in India but the circumstances of the recent past, the making of Pakistan and then the warring relationship between the two countries has had a direct bearing on all the Muslims of the subcontinent, even those who live in India. To understand the situation of a country which was created out of a fear that the “majority Hindus would kill the minority Muslim, but where actually Muslim is killing Muslim” has forced him to delve into the particularity of our history with an attempt at tracing the reasons for the situation deteriorating into what it is now. He calls Pakistan a product of twin attitudes — past glory and future fears. And it lies embedded in the history of the minority having ruled a majority for about a thousand years, the development of an institution where religion and political was entwined, the making of a psyche fuelled by the sense of superiority, righteousness of the cause, but laced with the insecurity of being the minority. Akbar begins from the very beginning, as if tracing the socio political intellectual history of the Muslim settlement and then rule in India. This of course reaches a more crucial turn with the decline of the Muslim rule and the gradual shattering of the comfort zone that the political ascendancy had taken for granted. The later rulers as they lost their grip of power also made way for other foreigner Muslim rulers to invade India and lay pillage to the cities and countryside. The loosening of the political power also made the integration of the two communities open to question as it was feared that the minority which itself comprised of converts would be sucked back into the majority. So in the later phase the emphasis shifted from integration and inclusiveness to what he calls under Shah Waliullah, a protection of “Islamic purity” and “theory of distance” as a prescription for the community that was threatened by the cultural power and military might of the infidel. A conscious effort at maintaining a difference on all levels including that of culture between the two communities had to be made. Due to the genetic makeup of the ideological state Pakistan and the inability of the followers and leaders to make Pakistan a secular state as Jinnah had envisaged, Pakistan is in danger of becoming a jelly state — a quivering country that will neither collapse nor stabilise. Akbar says that there is sufficient textual as well as anecdotal illustration to indicate that Jinnah did not fully understand the theocratic forces that would claim Pakistan. He believed that ties of travel, trade and investment between India and Pakistan would remain unaffected. Akbar therefore calls Maudoodi who mapped a path for the conversion of Pakistan into an Islamic state as the “Godfather of Pakistan.” In this state as a first step he advocated the creation of a cadre of “saleheen” or the pious ones from the professional classes to take over the state at its functional level and break the power of the “unislam”. Maudoodi’s nine point agenda for the Islamic revival included a theory of Islamic sciences a cornerstone of which was a revision history. Akbar may be on the right lines when he has gone along the course of the genesis of Pakistan and its natural development which has made Pakistan to almost reach a dead end. The fear of the minority that had power far beyond its numbers has been so potent that no other strategy or political move could counter it. There is almost an air of determinism in the creation of the country and then its subsequent growth as an independent one. If so then one should resign to fatalism. If not then Akbar has not mentioned other options, like the post-partition relationship between India and Pakistan and how the policies of India, the Kashmir Dispute, the creation of Bangladesh and now the rising water dispute has further exasperated the relationship between the two countries and driven the polity of Pakistan to the edge while preparing ground for the acceptance of radical ideas in view of this Indian intransigence. Indian policies have not for a moment given the space to voice an opinion which is pro India and calls for an area that is free of military tension. Instead, Akbar blames Pakistan from the word go of exporting jihad as early as 1947 in Kashmir. This tension has bred insecurity and has benefited those who have wanted a strong military establishment to ward off threats from India. A conciliatory India with an amicable settlement of the Kashmir dispute and the non interference in the creation of Bangladesh would have allayed and partially corrected some of the alleged mistakes made in 1947. Akbar has not mentioned the radicalisation of the right based on religion across the world including that of the Muslim countries in the past three decades. Pakistan alone cannot be blamed for it. A modern state for him should be democratic, secular, ensuring gender equality and economic equity. Pakistan’s historical and structural weaknesses are such that nothing short of a transformation in country’s body politic and institutions are necessary. In this entire analysis it seems that M.J. Akbar has been guided by the “prophetic” sayings of Abul Kalam Azad. It seems that the entire book had been written to prove that Azad had a vision, an apocalyptic one though, and that what he had said is now proving to be correct. It can become a modern state only if the children of the father of Pakistan can defeat the ideological heirs of its godfather Maudoodi. Tinderbox is available at Liberty Books A
word about letters Aslam Rahil Mirza did an Urdu translation of Shaikh Ayaz’s Sindhi autobiography under the title Duniya Sari Khwab some twenty years ago which was published by the Ilfaz Publications of Lahore. It was a small book of just one hundred and four pages. The book did not attract many readers. Similarly Urdu and Punjabi translations of his poetry were also made available to readers, but they too were ignored. , perhaps our literary community and literature reading public lacked the sensibility required to appreciate the great Sindhi writer’s work. Shaikh Ayaz was not happy with many of his contemporary Sindhi writers. He believed that they had become indifferent to their indigenous culture and literature. Urdu had knocked down the literary traditions and gave a boost to emotions, ideas, idioms and sensibility that were not rooted in local culture and soil. Making a deviation from the popular trend of his time, he chose Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai as his guru and made up his mind to tread Bhitai’s path. Shaikh Ayaz, born in the famous old town of Shikarpur , began composing poetry at the age of 13. He completed his education from the University of Karachi and published his first collection, Sufaid Wahshi, which made him known in the literary circles of Sindh. The Partition of India in 1947 changed many things. Shaikh Ayaz too was changed. He stopped writing in Sindhi and turned to Urdu. His collection of Urdu verse Boe-e-Gul, Naala-e-Dil appeared in 1954. Those were the days when he came under the influence of Mohammad Ibrahim Joyo who persuaded him to return to Sindhi. Joyo once told me that the deviation of a fine poet like Ayaz from his mother tongue was unfortunate so he worked hard to win him back. The establishment of One Unit made it clear to the Shaikh that systematic steps were being taken to destroy the ancient Sindhi culture and language so he girded up his loins to protect the identity and heritage of his motherland. Soon he was recognized as the voice of Sindhi. A series of literary and cultural events were organised in Hyderabad to mark the 88th birth anniversary of Shaikh Ayaz who died on December 28, 1997. Various writers and scholars visited his grave in Bhit Shah Graveyard and laid wreaths. They included, among others, chairperson of Sindhi Language Dr Fahmida Hussain, poet and director of Shaikh Ayaz Chair at Khairpur’s Shah Abdul Latif University, Dr. Adal Soomro director general of the Sindh Culture Department and noted writer Mohammad Ali Manjhi and secretary of the Sindhi Language Authority Taj Joyo. A literary conference held in Hyderabad to pay tribute to the great poet also saw the launch of the two recently published volumes of his collected works. New books University of Gujrat has succeeded in developing its academic identity in a short period under the able leadership of its vice-chancellor Dr. Muhammad Nazamuddin. In addition to teaching and academic activities, the university has also published some books during the past five years. Sufism ki Awami Bunyadeen is its latest offering which has been compiled by Sheikh Abdur Rahid, additional registrar of the university, under the guidance of Altaf Ahad Qureshi who heads the Punjab chapter of the Pakistan Academy of Letters. The book consists of fifteen papers presented at a seminar organised by the Academy in Lahore past year. It is not a book of traditional articles on Sufism. It carries papers on topics of the popular foundations of Sufism, globalisation and Sufism, the struggle for people’s sights and Sufism in the Indian subcontinent, common points between socialism and Sufism as well as significance of Sufism in the age of consumerism. The papers have been penned by some of our noted intellectual and academic figures like Fakhar Zaman, Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali, Nabila Kayani, Dr. Muhammad Ameen, Dr. Saadat Saeed, Prof Syed Shabbir Hussain Shah,Dr. Mohsin Mughiana, Dr. Nasarullah Khan Naser and Furrukh Sohail Goendi. Mahmood Rahim is known as a poet as much as he is known for his passion for Halqa Arbab-e-Zauq, the oldest literary organisation of South Asia. He remained associated with the Halqa’s Islamabad chapter for many years and later on established its chapter in Saudi Arabia. His first collection of poetry appeared in 1984 under the title Anna ki Faslain. Of late, he has not been well, but has managed to bring out two books of poetry. One is titled Kinhoon Aakhan and carries Punjabi ghazals and poems mostly composed during the past two decades. Mahmood Rahim’s other book carries Urdu ghazals. Both the books have been published by the Naqsh Gar Publications of Rawalpindi. Shakir Ali remembered Meanwhile, the Pakistan National Council of Arts arranged a function in Lahore to remember the celebrated painter Shakir Ali on his 95th birth anniversary. Intizar Hussain was there to chair the event and he talked about the bygone years when Lahore was known as the hub of literature and arts in South Asia. The Coffee House and Pak Tea House were two noted rendezvous in the city for artists, writers, poets, journalists and intellectuals. Shakir Ali, who first emerged from obscurity as a short story writer, believed in encouraging close interaction among these groups. A number of noted artists and intellectuals were there to pay tribute to Shakir Ali who introduced contemporary trends in Pakistani painting. They included Madam Khurshid Shahid, Naeem Tahir, Nayyar Ali Dada, Dr Ajaz Anwar, Muhammad Javed, Ataur Rehman, Jamila Zaidi and Tauqeer Nasir. |
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There were five of the daily newspapers out on the shelf, and four of them
had negative stories about Islam on the cover, ridiculous ones, considering
that they were the leading stories of the day. “Muslim taxi driver refuses
guide dog for being unclean”, “Muslim teacher won’t take off her burqa
even though her students don’t understand what she is saying”. I decided
it would be fun to turn this media obsession with Islam on its head, and set
the novel in Pakistan. Satire comes from reality. And let’s face it; life
in Pakistan can be absurd sometimes. And of course it is a complicated place,
as we all know.
classified as chick-lit, it is certainly more than that. The story is told in
third person and the narrator obviously harbours partiality for the
protagonist, Amynah Faruqi. The cunning and punning narrator takes any and
everybody in contemporary Pakistan to task in an irreverent and sarcastic
tone. The ultra-rich; the subalterns; the jihadis; the American and Pakistan
forces fighting the war on terror; the reality TV shows; the landlords, the
lot of seemingly oppressed Pakistani women; the NGOs working for female
emancipation; the politicians; the journalists; the nationalist mindset; the
societal norms; the maulvis; the news channels like Fox News; the moral
policing; no one and nothing has been spared by the author.
subcontinent and the political development of the group either in the shape
of states, Pakistan and then Bangladesh or as a community living as a
minority in India his analysis has to be taken on a serious note.