The master of detail : Commentary on Shams ur Rehman Farooqui's Novel

Hello Friends,

I share with you the commentary on Shamsur Rehman Farooqui's novel by none other than Intezar Hussain.

However I am also saddened by Intezar Sahib's declaration that Farooqui Sahib's integrity as a critic can not be questioned. He also declares that no other novel has caused the similar stir since Umrao Jan Ada. In doing so he seems to advise us that nothing happened in the history of our literature since then.

These are the declarations that have always hurt our literature. The most objective readers of Farooqui Sahib's criticism, despite recognizing his stature, find that his biases are obvious and persistent.

He carried the flag of a particular point of view and declared that Zafar Iqbal was a better poet than Faiz, and spent considerable literary capital in making Faraq a pariah of Urdu literature.

Before Farooqui Sahib, T S Elliot did the same in increasing and decreasing the values of writers in the Capital Market of Literature. And it is now established that Elliot was a religious conservative with a rigid point of view. That does not make a critic objective.

It actually reflects the criticism marred by value judgment.

One of the major critics of all times discussed the profusion of value judgments in literature and theorized that it is not the role of the critic in engaging in value judgments on the works of literature.

He in fact directly commented on such practices by T S Eliot in these words:

"Value judgments are subjective in the sense that they can be indirectly and not directly communicated. When they are fashionable or generally accepted, they look objective, but that is all."

"..... It includes all casual, sentimental, and prejudiced value judgments, and all the literary chit-chat which makes the reputation of poets boom and crash in an imaginary stock exchange."

"The wealthy investor Mr. Eliot, after dumping Milton on the market, is now buying him again; Donne has probably reached his peak and will begin to taper off; Tennyson may be in for a slight flutter but the Shelley stocks are still bearish."

"This sort of thing cannot be part of any systematic study, for a systematic study can only progress: whatever dithers and vacillates or reacts is merely leisure-class gossip."

The novel under consideration is the First by Farooqui sahib, and despite Intezar sahib's declaration, it is the time and the readership and subsequent objective commentaries that will determine its merits and acceptance.

Intezar sahib's commentary is also reflective of an unhealthy practice in our literature where writers rely on critics and flaps for their popularity and acceptance.

I am certain that both Intezar Sahib and Farooqui sahib are not those practitioners.

Regards. Munir

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag13.htm

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The master of detail

By Intizar Hussain
AFTER a long time we have a novel in Urdu which has caused a big stir in the Indo-Pak literary world. Should it be compared to the stir that Umrao Jan Ada had caused in its times? And it has come from a writer who is primarily known to us as a critic and a researcher.

Who can dare question the integrity of Shamsurrahman Farooqi as a critic and researcher? His book Sher-i-Shor Angez published in four volumes is a brilliant study of Urdu poetic tradition with particular reference to Mir. His book Sahiri, Shahi, Sahib Qirani may be seen as an introduction to his detailed study of Dastan-i-Amir Hamza. The dastan runs into 49 volumes and Farooqi has planned to present a study of each in a separate volume. So, this study too is expected to run in 49 volumes.

Now Shasurrahman Farooqi has come out as a novelist, though in the book the research scholar is very much there providing full assistance to the novelist. In general, the scholar and the creative writer don’t go together. As a result, the attempt on the part of the scholar to write a novel has generally been seen resulting in a failure. The present scenario may be seen as an exception to what has been deemed a rule. Here, we see history transformed into a mode of fiction in a creative way.

So, Kai Chand Thai Sar-i-Asman is a novel of a different kind. It is undoubtedly the outcome of a scholarly study of a certain period in history. And the author sees no harm in acknowledging this fact. He even reveals his sources of information. Think of a novel with a bibliography appended to it in the end. It also includes the dictionaries, which have helped him to reconstruct the spoken idiom of that period.

The period of history, which has here gone through a fictional process, is very well known to us all. It is the last days of the Mughal Empire. The characters are almost all historical figures appearing here with their proper names. A number of them are more known to us because of their being part of the literary history of Urdu. No attempt to hide any of them behind a fictional veil is made. Apart from Ghalib, Zauq, Momin, and Dagh we see Hakim Ahsanullah Khan, Maulvi Imam Bakhsh Sehbai, and Nawab Ziauddin Ahmad playing their part as important characters in the novel. Then we meet the distinguished figures of the Red Fort —- Queen Zeenat Mahal, Mirza Fakhroo, Mirza Abubakar, and King Bahadur Shah Zafar. And how can we fail to recognise Nawab Shamsuddin and Mr Frazer? The murder of Mr Frazer was a great dramatic event of its time carrying with it a scandal which eventually led to the hanging of Nawab Shamsuddin.

The only character, who, though a real person, was hitherto dimly known to us, is a woman. It is now that she, as portrayed by Farooqi, appears before us in her true colours. She is a great woman, in the presence of whom even the queen of India, Begum Zeenat Mahal, dwarfs into a petty quarrelsome human being. This great woman happens to be the mother of a poet, who emerged as the most popular of the then India, that is, in the post-1857 era. Allama Iqbal called him “the last poet of Jehanabad”, with whom ends the great tradition of the classical ghazal. He was Mirza Dagh Dehlvi.

This woman, Wazir Khanum, emerges as the central character in the novel. In fact, it is her presence which imparts a romantic flavour to the book and gives form and meaning to the events and situations depicted in it.

Wazir Khanum grew as a dazzling beauty. Endowed with an independent nature she refused to submit to the will of her parents and chose an Englishman as her partner. As ill luck would have it, he soon met with a violent death. But living in Delhi as a widow she with her charms attracted the attention of Mr Frazer and Nawab Shamsuddin Khan at the same time. Nawab succeeded in winning her, which led to the hostility between the two men ending in the murder of Mr Frazer and the consequent hanging of Nawab Shamsuddin.

Now Wazir Khanum was a widow with a son in her lap. Her third husband too met with a violent end. The fourth was Mirza Fakhroo, the heir apparent to King Bahadur Shah. Now she as his consort made on entry in the Qila-i-Mualla. But the sudden death of the prince led to her exit from the fort. Once again she was a widow going to Rampur along with her son.

Here ends the novel, which may be read as a document of an age that forms the fag-end of the Mughal empire. Shamsurrahman is a master of detail. How subtly he has depicted the minute details of a life, which brings before us a whole culture, say the Indo-Muslim culture, as it flourished during the last days of the Mughals. And what a portrayal of the woman Wazir Khanam, who in her person, stands as the embodiment of this culture.