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East is East and West is West
Last week, I had mentioned a thought provoking article Shamim Hanfi read at the International Urdu Conference, particularly his citation of Firaq Gorakhpuri’s view that Asian literature is no match for the European literature produced since the Renaissance. Despite holding Firaq in high esteem I was unable to digest this. Firaq was a great poet as well as the kind of critic I quote a lot. However, he had also been a teacher of English literature and I thought this quote came from Professor Gorakhpuri and not Firaq the poet and critic. Many people I have heard from have been ...
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VS Naipaul: Proud and prejudicial
“It is the best for all tame animals to be ruled by human beings. For this is how they are kept alive. In the same way, the relationship between the male and the female is by nature such that the male is higher, the female lower, that the male rules and the female is ruled.” This is what Aristotle said hundreds of years ago. It is a less than comforting thought that man has only evolved so much in the years following Aristotle. I say this after reading VS Naipaul’s latest attention seeking rant in Amy Fallon’s report in The Guardian. ...
Read Full PostQasmi according to Malik
Mansoora Ahmed, the adopted daughter of Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, has passed away. When Qasmi Sahib died, she was orphaned like nobody else was for sadly everybody’s attitude towards her changed in no time. I had just received Nadeem Shinasi, Fateh Muhammad Malik’s latest work, of which more than a quarter is dedicated to letters written by Qasmi Sahib to his dear friend. One of the letters made me pause. How could it have been published, I wondered? Just then the phone bell rang and Tasneem Manto asked if I had learnt about Mansoora’s death. Let me just say here that while ...
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‘On Unknown Seas to Unknown Shores’
On Unknown Seas to Unknown Shores’ is a selection of over 200 poems by Dr Maqbool Elahi published by Dr Ikram Azam’s Pakistan Futurist Institute and Margalla Voices, a literary forum. This collection of verse spans a period of over 60 years, from 1955 to 2010, and covers a range of subjects and themes that long life itself (Dr Elahi is in his 90s now) introduces besides work, travel and reading. Many of the poems have a personal reference as to occasion, locale, event or experience are bunched under different general themes: ‘Edifice of Destiny’, ‘We Meet to Part’, ‘Lonely Time’, ...
Read Full PostThe silent painter: Shakir Ali
To Lahoris today the building across the street from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan is a familiar sight. When it was first built, however, the passers by tended to stop and wonder what the structure was meant to be. The outer walls had over-burnt bricks laid apparently by poor craftsmen. Those who ventured inside were further amazed that a home could be so different. But then so was the man who built it for his residence. The place was Shakir Ali’s home. Earlier, he had treated the National College of Arts as his home and been content amidst its students ...
Read Full PostQasmi’s columns: Surprise, surprise
One can never really be sure about two things: death and Ataul Haq Qasmi’s M’aasir. M’aasir makes an appearance every once in a while and you are surprised that it has been published again. Gradually, the surprise gives way to a feeling that it is going to be a periodical publication. But the hope is dashed and you quite forget after a while about M’aasir, the journal that used to appear out of nowhere one fine morning and make your day. Now this special issue – every M’aasir issue is special – deserves applause for the great writers and the wonderful ...
Read Full PostWorks on Faiz and other books
Were he alive today, Ahmad Nadim Qasmi would have found the current fervour and growing unanimity of acclaim for Faiz Ahmad Faiz quite intriguing since he thought that his own sidelining as a secondary figure of contemporary Urdu poetry during the latter’s lifetime had something to do with class and lifestyle. With class and lifestyle gone with the man, now what remains, Qasmi Sahib would have wondered, but his poetry and his memory? Is that worth making so much fuss about? In the realm of the arts, relative greatness cannot be determined with a measuring tape. Faiz Sahib himself made no such ...
Read Full PostRemembering the old Coffee House
Not a day goes by without somebody in the media asking me about the goings on at the Coffee House or the afternoons and evenings at the Tea House. But everybody seems to be interested only in the patrons. Wonder if anybody at all is interested in the people who waited on them and how they survived and thrived in the midst of writers, intellectuals, artists and journalists. For I am reminded today of a Coffee House waiter. Once India Coffee House closed down, Munshi Ji, moved on to Zelin’s Coffee House. After Zelin’s too had closed down I once asked ...
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KLF 2011: The good, bad and ugly
I roped in some friends from my English Literature class to tag along with me to the Karachi Literature Festival at the Carlton Hotel this weekend, and we witnessed some enlightening talks and poor event management. We managed to catch the last bits of a talk on literature and extremism and therein began the bad. Noisy journos and social butterflies The talk was less of a discussion and more a press/socialite event with people standing around chatting to each other and cameramen rudely pushing their way around. Can someone please explain to me why journalists who were meant to cover the event ...
Read Full PostDedicated writers: The bright side
The days of calm and peace lie so distant in our past as to be a fading dream. What we have is chaos and anarchy, loot and extortion, theft and robbery, violence, murder and terrorism. Not many days go by without another blast killing many and causing wives to be widowed and children to be orphaned. It is natural for people in times like these not to take life for granted and for the feeling of transience to be heightened. Such are our circumstances but sometimes one comes across something that makes one wonder how it is that there are ...
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