Ejaz Haider
Could it be that we feel that writing for lucre is distasteful; that we need to cloak it in holy garbs for it to acquire meaning? Or that vanity is something that we should be ashamed of, damn the fact that it is the engine that drives much of the world?

I must thank Intizar Husain Sahib for considering my ‘anti-column’ a fortnight ago worthy of a prompt. It is a singular honour for me, a hack, to catch the eye of one of the greatest living writers in Urdu.

In commenting on my column, Intizar Sahib has revisited the question of why a writer writes, and for whom. This was a burning question in the days of ideologies and revolutionary fervour and informed the disquisitions of many a writer when independence struggles were raging in the colonies.

What intrigued Intizar Sahib was my assertion that I write for myself and have no pretensions about changing anything, a statement that he thought was more likely to come from a literary writer (poet) than a journalist. But this was just part of what I had said. Allied with the assertion that I write for myself was another statement: that I write because I am paid for it. In some ways remuneration is more important to this exercise than even a supposed inner urge to write.

For instance, I don’t think I could do a Samuel Pepys. It wouldn’t give me much satisfaction if my personal diary was discovered and declared as one of the most important primary sources for the period in which I lived after the earth had consumed me. Living through history is good, but it is far more satisfying, and in some ways pressing, to live nicely and be famous while one is around and can soak up the sun.

An ideology-less world might have pushed the issue raised by Intizar Sahib to the sidelines, but it would be a mistake to either consider it irrelevant or passé. Let me say that I deliberately do not make a distinction here between writing in general and writing for newspapers because, just like the issue of purpose in literary writings, some quarters continue to insist that hackwork should necessarily be wedded to a higher purpose, or at least something concrete.

Perhaps we need a different framework to discuss this issue; or perhaps the answer to the question requires a bit of honesty. I say honesty because while Jean-Paul Sartre was big on writer’s responsibility and philosophical activism, on the good authority of Paul Johnson, he “did nothing of consequence for the Resistance…. He was Resistance-minded in theory, mind and spirit, but not in fact”.

One could say that it is not the writer’s job to actually become a part of a movement or, if required, pick up a gun. But the problem with this argument is that while movements may be influenced by ideas, ideas per se do not bring down the walls of Jericho. That requires action. And action, quite often, involves the use of violence. Sartre was quite happy informing us that “violence, like Achilles’ lance, can heal the wounds that it has inflicted”, but he would have none of it beyond this clever formulation. He was more interested in words and skirts, and not necessarily in that order.

Which sends me back to the idea of writing for oneself and because I get paid for it. What might be wrong with that, I ask.

History is the law of unintended consequences. So it is with everything, including writing for oneself. If it’s good and can create an impact beyond the writer, that’s wonderful and I am certainly not one to cavil about that. Indeed, I shall be very happy to win fans because it is good for my vanity. But must I explain a large following, if I am lucky enough to have it, as the product of a burning desire in me to write for the world and Aunts Agatha and Dahlia because I have a writer’s responsibility to change this world? Such a stance, I think, may suit a PR man or a propagandist but doesn’t become a writer who takes his vocation seriously.

And I do, which is why I write for myself and, within my own constraints, try to set the bar as high as I can. There’s nothing more exhaustively satisfying than competing with oneself. In any case, charity begins at home; so it’s legitimate to first gratify oneself before shining the light on the world. Additionally, writing for self is also akin to falling in love with oneself and that, if Wilde was right, is the beginning of a lifelong romance. But most of all, if nationalism is the refuge of the scoundrel, the claim that one writes to change anything, or does so for any reason higher than vanity is the refuge of a dissembler.

Why would one seek to explain a conduct so private and subjective, if not downright selfish, as altruistic? Could it be that we feel that writing for lucre is distasteful; that we need to cloak it in holy garbs for it to acquire meaning? Or that vanity is something that we should be ashamed of, damn the fact that it is the engine that drives much of the world?

I think so. It could also be that the readers want to place a writer on a pedestal and the writer may think, legitimately enough, that he must play along and not disappoint them by conceding that he is as much human as anyone else. The fact, however, is that most of us write because at least some have acquired a certain facility with words and with free-market competition in the publishing and newspaper industry, writing pays much more than it used to. One doesn’t need to live in rags, drink ersatz tea (dhudh-patti) and smoke bugla to come across as a genuine writer about to be martyred in a great cause, and the sooner the better. If you don’t believe me, ask JK Rowling.

Add to that the fact that it takes more doing to create a good piece of ‘un-purposive’ writing than a purposive one and all the squares are nicely filled out. In any case, what happened to absorbing just the beauty of something well written, painted or presented; must one always try to find a higher meaning in a work of art?

As Ghalib said: Nahin gar saro barg-e idrak ma’ni/ tamasha-e nairang-e surat salamat

Ejaz Haider is Consulting Editor of The Friday Times and Op-Ed Editor of Daily Times. He can be reached at [email protected]
Source: Daily Times
Date:7/15/2007