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appreciation
Woman's
pen A
word about letters
appreciation Harris Khalique has written poetry in three languages with equal ease. And compared to others, he is also one of the finest voices of contemporary Pakistan The advantage of writing on
local literati is that one gets away with mediocrity without any Harris Khalique's poetry wins many distinctions: for one, he writes in Urdu, Punjabi and English - each in a voice which belongs completely to that language, without the 'feel' of translation, which is the case with most non-native writers of English. The other minor distinction, which, to emphasize, is a distinction, is that Harris does not have to pay the publishers in this country to get his poetry published. (Not an honour that most young poets can claim!) The other distinction is that although his Urdu verse is influenced by classical poetry, he does not employ its symbols: there is no chilman, rukh-e yaar, or the ubiquitous, gul-o bulbul. Obviously, the absence of classical symbols and allusions is no real distinction in itself (as their presence); however, what replaces them is a host of other symbols from urban life: rich uncles without an occupation, handicapped children, fishermen of Karachi, middle-class working woman, and cities - especially Karachi. Every generation and time has representative voices in literature. And while great poets are able to find an original voice, a whole generation of poets sing their songs in the voices they hear. This, by the way, is no fault - and a writer cannot be relegated as lesser if he sings in the voice of the times. Mushir Anwar points to
Harris's 'plain speaking' poetry, a quality which "frees him from the Kuch kaam thay apni marzi ke Kuch kaam faqat zaroori thay Phir waqt bohat hee thora tha Aur saaray kaam zaroori thay In his English verse, the
plain-speaking continues, but is of a different kind. Here, the poet She and I would talk of our country, dust can hold it together for so long, of Gog and Magog licking up the walls of sanity, of people and their struggle, wounds unhealed and seasons we fear. The sibilance of sorrow creeping behind us, we wished we chat till the world ends and the world always ended. -- Harris Khalique And while you wipe your glasses I shout for a cup of tea. To celebrate the success Of this new mood, we relax Discussing art and poetry, And with a loud yawn preterm it The over-ripe sun as it Drops softly into the sea. -- Taufiq Rafat Writing about Harris's poetry, Mushir Anwar says, "Harris is very much a poet of what remains, not just the remains of the day, but the remains of life proper, the humdrum of existence, the tedium and ordinariness of things, and the joy that is there in being commonplace, even banal." Whether Urdu or English, Harris draws his subjects from the ordinary, and without bestowing any extraordinariness upon them he sheds them in a new light. Take for instance, one of his most remarkable poems 'I was raised in Karachi': When a child always asked my mother, "Why can't we give names to numbers and numbers to names?" It took her twenty-five years to come up with a reply. "Son, we name the streets and count the people." Three Unknown Men Killed on M.A Jinnah Road read the morning newspaper. But that is not all. To claim a poet, and any poet, to the realm of ordinariness and the remains of life proper is difficult to hold forth beyond a certain point. Indeed, if one attempts to leash the poet to the ordinariness of his subjects, it runs it in the danger of making it one-dimensional. The claim of poet on words is, in part, his attempt to grasp the ungraspable with the words he employs. And very often we see Harris's voice and subjects veer off in directions which cannot be talked about in the monotone of existence. Consider the poem, 'An old tale told afresh': Hogging desire Goes gallop after prey, Tramples it. Love, sure-footed, Walks across the soul, Comes back, stays. Seldom understood without each other. Some of Harris's finest poems are reminiscent of realistic paintings where characters are invisible from the painting but are vaguely reflected in a mirror hanging in a corner. This, obviously, raises questions about what has been left uncreated and why; and this is the source of the mystery which surrounds his otherwise starkly realistic pictures. An instance from his poem, 'Flamingos': Lying on our backs in shining sand we were watching flamingos and the flamingos were watching us. Each wave would bring some surf to tickle our feet. We wished we were simple beings. There are no final words to be said on Harris Khalique's poetry. One only wishes that this poet, who is devoted equally to running his non-profit company and political work, devotes more serious time to his poetry. And there is no gainsaying his gift to lend an honest voice to our times where there is much noise but few real voices. If he continues making verse, we know that some of today would remain worth hearing tomorrow.
A lot of women writing in the Western world have delivered works of astonishing voice -- of clarity, courage, wit and intelligence By Mina Farid Malik "Well-behaved women rarely make history." -- Laurel Thatcher Ulrich The first thing I notice
about these women, as I prowl through the book jackets, is that There is a considerable amount of writing done about this; how women's ink is clearly different from men's and so on, but at the barest bones of it a lot of women writing in the Western world have delivered works of astonishing voice. By voice one means clarity, courage, wit and intelligence; women writing with complex imaginations in ways that are strangely simple -- Jean Rhys writing her unforgettable Antoinette Cosway, for example, with a suppleness that makes it difficult to believe the spare, unflinching prose is but fiction. Doris Lessing wears an open-necked black shirt on the back of Perennial's edition of 'Martha Quest' that shows a lot of wrinkled neck. I think this is brave. I like the hand she rests on her chin, the faint sneer, the direct wryness of her gaze. It does matter what you look like, particularly as a woman, but Lessing seems to be amused by all this fuss over faces and names - what does it matter what direction your hair grows in or if your name sounds like something rude if you are writing with style, with honesty, with unutterably wonderful talent? She doesn't give a hoot for what you think of her sagging skin and intellectually, neither should you. But as D.H Lawrence would agree, human beings are inherently geared to appreciate and privilege beauty, and so book jackets have author pictures that often constitute the entire back page of it. Men can get away with
frowns and squints and ugly cardigans, but everyone likes a pretty But the eyes have it, again, and what would prompt a person who has read neither to privilege an Atwood over a Byatt? Prizes count -- again, recognition decided by a limited group of people with a certain aesthetic that does more for book sales and CV value than it does anything for the writing itself. What else would you go by? It is impossible to compare any of these women in terms of literary value or talent because they all embody a uniqueness that cannot be callously lumped together in pigeonholes neat and colourless as 'subject matter' or 'stylistic concerns'. Does it really boil down to preferring one face to another (or one colour, one font, one title) when it comes to being singled out by the undiscerning reader? In all likelihood, yes.
A word about letters By Kazy Javed Of literary histories Maulana Muhammad Hussain
Azad's 'Adab-e-Hayat' is one of the few books I have always Apart from this important information about the poets of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 'Aab-e-Hayat' was read and admired more for its style than the information it carried. Maulana Azad's book has not lost its charm but its academic significance has lessened considerably. Students of literature consider it old-fashioned, asserting that the technique, methodology and style of writing literary history has changed since the days 'Aab-e-Hayat' was written. Dr. Ram Babu Saksena and Dr. Muhammad Sadiq were the two scholars who first wrote books on the history of Urdu literature.following the modern trends. Two latest books on this subject have come from the pen of Dr. Jamil Jalibi and Dr. Tabasam Kashmiri. But they are incomplete books. The third volume of Dr. Jamil Jalibi's book, 'Tareekh-e-Adab-e-Urdu', containing more than a thousand pages, was recently published while its fourth volume is still awaited. On the other hand, the first 872-page volume of Dr. Tabasam Kashmiri's 'Urdu Adab ki Tareekh' appeared in 2003 and he is presently working on the second and the last volume of his book. The publication of these books has created interest in the methodology of literary historiography -- a subject that had so far remained unattended. The newly established
University of Sargodha recently organised a two day national Many of the participants asserted that history is not simply mere amalgamation of facts and events of the bygone days. A historian has to collect and narrate them but they should be presented within some ideological framework. Some of them emphasised the need to draw a distinction between literary research and writing of history. The job of a writer of literary history is to review the evolutionary process of literature and judge its significance, value and quality whereas a literary researcher is expected to discover facts of literary importance. Some of the participants also pointed out how literary historiography and research are confused in our country. It is mistakenly believed that a historian of literature should also perform the function of a researcher: He should bring out new facts about the writers of the past and their literary achievements. Consequently our literary historians are more keen to provide new information about the lives of writers and poets. The scholars gathered at Sargodha pointed out the need to pen down literary history in the wider backdrop of political, economic and cultural history. Mirza Ghalib will now play a role in developing better understanding between the literati and people of the South Asian subcontinent. A recent newspaper report says that two organisations, Bazm-i-Ghalib of Karachi and the Ghalib Institute of New Delhi have inked an agreement under which a yearly Ghalib Conference will be held on a rotational basis in Pakistan and India. The two organisations will also give Ghalib Awards to outstanding Ghalib scholars. "The award" Tanveer Kazmi, secretary of the Bazm-i-Ghalib, was quoted as saying "will go to an Indian scholar when the conference is held in Pakistan and to a Pakistani scholar when it is held in India." The first Ghalib Conference is going to take place in Karachi in the first week of the next month. Indian ghazal singer Jagjit Singh is expected to be one of the main attractions of the conference. Describing Ghalib as the "shared asset of our two countries" he has reportedly agreed to sing the great poet's kalam on the opening day of the Karachi conference. Kazmi says five Ghalib experts would be invited from India to attend the first conference while a similar number of scholars would be invited from various parts of Pakistan. Ghalib Conference can certainly play a role in developing cultural and intellectual basis for international understanding in our region. However, it is important to carefully select the topics for such moots. Mirza Ghalib was one of the first supporters of modernisation in our part of the subcontinent and this aspect of his thought needs to be specially highlighted. The sad thing is that many of the senior Urdu writers, poets and scholars of our two countries have not been able to get rid of old prejudices. Consequently, they have contributed very little towards strengthening peace and stability in our corner of the world though they were in a better position to do so because of their common language, literary and cultural heritage as well as, in many cases, personal relationships. Their new generation, however, is coming up with new ideas and enthusiasm for a peaceful and prosperous South Asia.
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consequence, and in rare instances, with high praise. This is because of the
absence of any real critical work - or critics for that matter! But this
instance is an exception and before relaying forth my own comments I must
acknowledge the existence of a superb essay on Harris Khalique's poetry by
Mushir Anwar , 'Roguish verses of a gentleman', published some five years
ago. Hence, to write meaningfully means that I would either have to reproduce
Mushir Anwar's critical assessment or try to work my way from there; either
way, I will have to acknowledge the preceding commentary by Mushir Anwar.
need to talk in symbols and create illusions of profundity." This, mind
you, stands equally true of Harris's English and Urdu works. One could see
this as a result of movement in using vernacular Urdu which was pioneered by
the likes of Munir Niazi in poetry and Abdullah Hussein in prose. Some of
Harris's Urdu poems carry such a stark similarity with Niazi that one would
be pressed to tell the difference! The following qat'a is titled 'Zindagi'
seems to find his voice in Taufiq Rafat, who continues to lend voice to a
whole generation of remarkable poets of the subcontinent. Observe the voices
in the following two excerpts:
they are all old, in the laugh-lined smile and lightening hair way, eyes
lively and jaws still firm, wearing something tasteful like a black sweater
jazzed up with a sweet hairband -- Alice Munro -- or an interesting necklace
-- Margaret Atwood. Ann Beattie is perennially young on the back of 'Love
Always', but in the puffy hair and padded shoulders way that nobody would
want to be remembered in; in any case this particular novel was one of her
earlier ones and since then she has moved on to flatter chin-length hair and
Indian print blouses. This interests me, on the whole. Images do, and this is
probably where women's writing holds its fascination: the way they see the
world.
woman, a smiling one even better. Combine this with a publisher's need to
sell a book and you have the sweet hairbands, arty patterned scarves and wry
smiles that ask you to humour this careful posing and move onto chapter one,
where the real point is. And what a point it can be! In 'Art Objects'
Jeanette Winterson writes that in "Middle English, 'real' was a variant
of 'royal'...to be royal was to be distinguished in the proper sense; to be
singled out". Acknowledging excellent writing is not an issue -- we know
how Janet Fitch can turn a phrase, how A.S Byatt can create worlds within
worlds, how Doris Lessing can quietly weave an atmosphere of inescapable
oppression. The larger issue is that being singled out is inherently public,
and therein lies the rub: the woman's pen is not an automatically public one,
but there is little point to writing that does not make its way to eyes and
bookshelves.
liked. Written during the last years of the nineteenth century, it
encompasses the lives and literary achievements of eminent Urdu poets
including Mir, Sauda, Aatish, Momin, Zauq, Ghalib and others. It also carries
selected verses of the aforementioned poets.
seminar on the teaching of history of literature and literary historiography,
attended by a number of scholars from various universities and academic
institutions. The list included Dr. Tabasam Kashmiri, Dr. Moin-ud- Din Aqeel,
Dr. Anwaar Ahmad, Dr. Rubina Tareen, Dr. Shagufta Hussain, Dr. Riaz Majid,
Dr. Saadat Saeed, Dr. Ziaul Hasan, Dr. Rashid Amjad, Dr. Nasir Abbas Nayar,
Dr. Sabir Kalorvi, Dr. Syed Aamar Suhail, Dr. Khalid Sanjrani and Tanveer
Saghar. Dr. Alamdar Hussain Bokhari, chairman Urdu Department Sargodha
University who conceived and planned the seminar was the host.