Peerzada Salman

KARACHI: The second day of the four-day international Urdu conference was marked by some interesting critical presentations on Mir Taqi Mir and sharing of personal memories of Faiz Ahmed Faiz by his friends and colleagues at the Arts Council on Wednesday.

The first session titled Sarey zamaney Mir kay, presided over by Dr Aslam Farrukhi, was conducted by poetess Shahida Hasan. Dr Javed Manzar’s paper was on why Mir’s poetry was laden with sadness and also gave an account of the poetÂ’s personal predicaments.

Dr Fatima Hasan spoke on Mir’s influence on modern Urdu poetry. She said Mir’s poetry was timeless and the poet made his presence felt in every era. She said that not only the masters of Urdu poetry – Sauda, Ghalib, etc – acknowledged Mir’s greatness as a poet but the generations of versifiers that came after them were fully cognizant of his importance. In that regard she mentioned poet Nasir Kazmi’s thesis in which he’d discussed Mir’s influence on Allama Iqbal. Nasir Kazmi himself was impressed with the legendary poet, she added.

She then touched on contemporary poets who had no hesitation in admitting to Mir’s azmat. To support her arguments, she quoted many couplets, two of which were Obaidullah Aleem’s.

She also quoted Jamal Ehsani’s: Main wahan sir ke bal rasaee ki Mir ne jis jaga khudaee ki (I travelled there with great toil
Where Mir ruled the roost) Prof Sahar Ansari talked on the aspect of ishq (love, ecstasy) in Mir’s poetry. He said ishq for the poet was a subject as well as an experience – it is the epicentre of his creative pursuits. He said that out of the 37 masnavis that the poet wrote nine were on that particular topic. Be it metaphysical love or love for human beings, Mir had his own distinct mark on them.

Prof Ansari too quoted quite a few couplets which the audience thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated. One of them was:

Duur baitha ghubar-i-Mir us se Ishq bin ye adab nahin ata (Even my dust stays away from him/her That’s how love has conditioned me) Indian scholar Dr Qazi Afzaal Husain brought up an interesting point. He said in one of his lesser known books, Ibn-i-Sina wrote an entire chapter on ishq, in which, among other things, he told the readers that how an aashiq (lover) looked like. Referring to Mir’s couplets on the rangat (complexion) of an aashiq, he said Mir’s concept of ishq was part of a larger tradition, which hadn’t been studied properly.

Broadcaster Raza Ali Abidi claimed that Mir was the god of the Urdu language (Khuda-i-Zaban-i-Urdu), not just of poetry, because in his time the language didn’t even have a name. He said his poetry would never be outdated.

Poetess Zehra Nigah then came to the podium and recited some of the lesser known couplets of Mir. Using one of the couplets she highlighted Mir’s remarkable use of the letter ‘qaaf’ in a fluid and rhythmic way.

Tum waqif-i-tareeq-i-betaqati nahin ho Yaan raah-i-do qadam bhi ab duur ka safar hai (You’re not familiar with what feebleness does It makes a little distance seems miles away)

Dr Aslam Farrukhi shed light on the technical prowess of the poet and reiterated that Mir was a poet for all time because he made us learn how to embrace humanity.

The second session of the day, presided over by writer Intizar Husain, was on Urdu fiction in the 21st century.

As the first speaker, Raees Fatima read out a paper on the feminist consciousness in Urdu fiction. Giving a detailed background of women writers, she said Ismat Chughtai took Rasheed Jahan’s efforts to the next level, while Quratulain Hyder widened the canvas of the subject. But for some odd reason at the end of her speech she denounced the notion of feminism, saying literature couldn’t be compartmentalised.

Dr Saeed Naqvi talked about Urdu fiction being written in the west. He said those who immigrated to western countries took at least a decade to recover from culture shock. Their growth was vertical. He added that there were still people (Razia Fasih Ahmed, Jamil Usman, Mumtaz Husain, etc) who were doing their bit.

Ashraf Shad traced the history of Urdu fiction and claimed that after World War II geographical and ideological changes impinged on the genre.

Dr Qazi Abid spoke on four writers – Intizar Husain, Surinder Prakash, Enver Sajjad and Balraj Manra – and described how they employed mythology and symbolism to put across their ideas.

Mobin Mirza spoke on the subject Urdu fiction and contemporary consciousness. He raised the point that writers shouldn’t be confused with journalists.

Mobin Mirza’s argument was contested by writer Masood Ashar in his extremely thought-provoking essay which was on the issues facing mankind in the 21st century.

Commencing his piece quoting Arundhati Roy’s address to Wall Street Occupiers, he wondered whether we’d become zombies, because in terms of intolerance and extremism our society had crossed all limits. The entire world considered us a problem.

Yet, the situation (turf-wars, fundamentalism, etc) had made us insensitive. He said when ethnic riots broke out in Karachi in the 1990s Asif Farrukhi wrote some short stories and Intizar Husain penned a novel, but those two voices had also gone quiet.

He criticised those Pakistanis who were writing in English for not being effective, instead referred to Hanif Qureshi’s story My son the fanatic as one of the finest pieces written on the theme.

Dr Qazi Afzaal Husain informed the audience on the difference between a description novel and a novel based on events. He said Qurutulain HyderÂ’s magnum opus Aag ka darya was a description novel as were novels written by Intizar Husain. On the other hand, he said, Abdullah Husain’s novels fulfilled the general requirements of technique.

Dr Shamim Hanafi acknowledged the debate which started with Mobin Mirza’s paper and commented that man was at the heart of the Urdu novel, and if manÂ’s there, political goings-on were bound to occur.

Intizar Husain seemed moved by Masood Ashar’s thesis and said we were living in grief-stricken times, and perhaps we hadn’t been able to comprehend that fact. Either we were afraid of penning what’s happening around us or were unable to understand the experience. He argued that if we’re not able to grasp that experience, we shouldn’t be writing about it. It’s better than producing substandard stuff.

The final session of the day, presided over by Raza Ali Abidi, was on remembering Faiz Ahmed Faiz. It was an interesting session in which Raza Ali Abidi, Prof Sahar Ansari, Dr Alia Imam, music composer Arshad Mahmood (who conducted the session), poet Ifitkhar Arif and Dr Mohammad Ali Siddiqi shared their thoughts on the poet.

Iftikhar Arif chose to read out a poignant paper on Faiz.

Referring to Terry Eagleton’s book Why Marx was right, he said itÂ’s important to read Faiz with a renewed interest. He touched on the recent ethnic riots that took place in Karachi and also mentioned what happened in Lalukhet when Fatima Jinnah lost the elections to Ayub Khan and the latter’s son wreaked havoc in the city. He said that ironically during the recent acts of violence, TV channels ran a famous Faiz poem. Addressing the matter that how long Faiz’s poetry would live, he said it would live as long as Urdu lived and as long as regional languages were given their due right.

Sharing his memories of Faiz, Dr Mohammad Ali Siddiqi said he was such a kind a person that he wouldn’t say ‘no’ to anyone, which was why he’d often accept invitations to five or six lunches at a time. He recollected quite a few stories delineating the humane side to the great poet.

Poet Amjad Islam Amjad paid homage to Faiz in verse.

The last item of the day was the launch of three books (by Najmul Hasan Rizvi, Liaquat Ali Asim and Obaid Siddiqi).
Source: Dawn
Date:11/24/2011