A piece of Faiz’s poetry looks like any other poetry. Black printed script on white parchment. The staid, two-dimensionality of parchment. The mundane blackness of the script. But as the reader’s gaze sweeps upon the verses, he is conscious of a clamor therein; a raging storm extricated within the dull entrapments of font and page, pining to be let loose, to disturb the tranquil air, to prod awake the sleeping conscience, to alter the course of the clouds, the blow of raucous winds, and flow of mighty rivers. Yes, these grandiose metaphors do complete justice to Faiz’s poetry, because the end he sought through it aimed to challenge the rude tenacity of the status-quo in Pakistan. As a common man, he was strongly disillusioned by the lack of social justice, freedom of expression and democratisation which defined the political landscape in Pakistan throughout the years between 1950 and 1980. Through Faiz’s poetry, dictatorial regime was confronted with uncompromising hatred, with the common man being encouraged to decry it thus:

  Bol ke lub azaad hain teray  Bol, ke zubaan ab tak teri hai  Bol, ke sach zinda hai ab tak!

Chashm-e-num, jaan-e-shoreeda kaafi nahin. Tohmat-e-ishq-e-posheeda kaafi nahin

Come, gather your possessions, O people with injured hearts. Come, O Friends, Let us go and get killed.

Thanks to the world media, we are known around the globe by our various identifiers - some good, some not so good and some which are just plain wrong. We are cricket fanatics, extremists, terrorists, we even think that giving polio vaccine to our children will make them infertile! Don't even get me started on how the Indian media depicts us ─ that falls, without a shred of a doubt, in the 'just-plain-wrong' category. Pakistan, however, is a lot more than what the world perceives it to be; Pakistanis are hospitable, kind and generous people. Keep on reading and you might well agree with me later. Back in the day, houses in villages didn't have refrigerators (or electricity for that matter). So when they had to prepare food for the guests (read: chicken ─ guests must be fed chicken only) they would just grab a chicken from outside their house or borrow it from their neighbours, slaughter it right away and cook it then and there; easy and simple with a personal touch of warmth. Let me share an incident which I remember my grandmother telling us. One day my grandmother went to see her new neighbours. She sat with the lady of the house and her daughter. They had tea, talked a little about village politics and the soaring dairy prices. Near lunch time the women got up and started to catch a hen right in front them. My grandmother asked the ladies to stop as it was unnecessary to slay the poor bird because she would not be staying for lunch anyway. When the hen was caught the elder woman turned and replied politely,

“Fiker na karein, ye aap ke liye nahi hai. Iss ka andaa dainey ka waqat ho gia hai.” (Don't worry, this is not for you. This is its time to lay eggs.)

Recently moving from Canada, where I’ve lived practically my entire life, to Pakistan, I’ve had to do a lot of learning.  Here are few of the things I have learnt since coming to Pakistan: 1) My mother-in-law asked me to clean char maghaz. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="320"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] I was relieved to learn that I was supposed to clean seeds and not four animal brains. 2) There is no uncle by the name of ‘lal baig’. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 3) Don’t’ wear bronzer in Pakistan; rather than getting compliments on a healthy glow, aunties will recommend Fair and Lovely. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="225"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 4) Chukandar (beets) and chuchandar (mole) are very different. You should have seen the look on my husband face when I said I put chuchandar in the curry. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 5) The concept of not littering is practically non-existent. After carrying an empty can for 20 minutes in search of a trash can, I was forced to throw it where my flat disposes trash, in a pile behind the building. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="370"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 6) You will get many evil stares if you call a Zuhljina a horse. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="245"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 7) While we are on the topic horses, there is a difference between gora (foreigner) and ghora (horse). To my dismay, it was people who were visiting the office from a foreign embassy, not a bunch of horses. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="319"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 8) Green smoothies are unheard of – nobody makes spinach smoothies. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="499"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 9) Milk can be stored in the pantry, it never goes sour! Is it even milk…? [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="320"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 10) No matter how loose ones clothes are or the hijab on my head, I am not modestly dressed unless I carry a dupatta; yet it does not matter if it’s net or completely sheer. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 11) Flagyl, the pill for stomach problems of all kinds, is my best friend. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Source: Reactiongifs[/caption] 12) Bharay huweh tindeh is the most uselessly annoying dish to prepare in the world.

• Chop the tindeh,
• Peel the tindeh,
• Scoop out the insides,
• Cook the inside goop,
• Refill the tindeh with the inside goop,
• Find the other half of the tindeh and place it on top of the filled one,
• Tie up the tindeh with string and cook it again.
• Remove the string before serving?

Mangoes, especially the luscious Chaunsa, evoke happy memories of sultry summer evenings with my late father when a mango mania of sorts would prevail over our home. A connoisseur of fine food, he would narrate numerous stories of the famous 19th century Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib’s love for mangoes as part of the ritual of devouring them. It is well-known that Ghalib’s love for mangoes took precedence over his love for poetry and this oft repeated anecdote about a donkey is my favourite; a close friend of Ghalib’s, who saw a donkey sniffing and then turning away from a heap of mango skins remarked,

“Gadhe bhi aam nahi khaate” (Even donkeys don’t eat mangoes)

“Beshak gadhe aam nahi khaate!” (Of course, donkeys don’t eat mangoes)

Mirza Asadullah Khan chose possibly the most apt pen name for himself – Ghalib – meaning dominant. He rules the world of poetry of the Indian subcontinent to date. Greats like Faiz have taken pride in looking up to him. Centuries later, he continues to be the muse for millions.

“Koi ummeed barr naheen aati   Koi soorat nazar naheen aati...” (There is no hope to be found, There is no way out to be sought)

“Kahoon kis se mein ke kya hai, shab e gham buri bala hai Mujhe kya bura tha marna agar aik baar hota...” (To whom do I say the calamity that the night of grief is, I would not mind dying if death were just once)

“Yeh masa'il e tasawwuf, ye tera bayaan Ghalib,   Tujhe hum wali samajhte jo na baada khwaar hota...” (These problems of spirituality, this poetry of your's Ghalib, We would think of you as a saint if only you were not a drunkard)

“Ghalib is over-rated”

“Aate hain ghaib se ye mazaameen khayaal mein Ghalib  sareer-e-Khaama nawaa-e-sarosh hai...” (The subjects (for my poetry) come to me from divine hidden sources, The scratching sound my pen makes resonates like the sound of angels.)

We curse him while trying to cram verses from Deewan-e-Ghalib into our heads for our Urdu literature exams. We study him because we have been told to but if – by some miraculous, unfortunate realignment of the stars – Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, or Ghalib, was alive in 2014 rather than the 19^th century, I am sure he would have been found hiding under the deck of a boat trying to escape to Australia. The first charge levied against him would have been of being an Indian agent; he was born in Agra after all. Anchors would appear on television with proof of how RAW infiltrated his young mind as a child to use him as a weapon against Pakistan. Historical evidence would be used against him, if he is in favour of the creation of Pakistan, why did he not fight in the war of independence in 1857, instead choosing to stay at his home in Delhi writing in his diary like a pansy? Ghalib described the mutineers of 1857 as ‘traitors’, ‘filthy vagabonds’, ‘pitiless murderers’ and ‘black-faced thieves’ in Dastambu. The recording of him saying these words would definitely be played over and over again, especially on a show claiming to provide the bitter truth. How dare Ghalib say anything against the brave soldiers fighting for the freedom of this country? Surely, he must be arrested and tried under high treason. At the very least the channel that Ghalib works for should be banned for a couple of weeks. His lavish praise of the British is surely a sign that Ghalib par dollars lagay huay hai (Ghalib has been bribed with dollars). He is nothing more than a liberal fascist trying to corrupt the pure people of Pakistan by importing western ideas. He even wrote a qasida (laudatory poem) in praise of Queen Victoria, going against all the cultural values of Pakistan, which forbids men from flirting so openly, that too with a woman as old as Queen Victoria! Social media would be filled with comments like,

“Ghalib is no better than a glorified friend shipper.”

“Iqbal nay kya khoob jawab diya hai iss RAW kay agent ko, ke tu kafir hai, teray dil mai Khuda nahee, Insha’Allah teen din mai Delhi mai Radio Pakistan goonjay ga”. (How well has Iqbal answered this RAW agent that he is an infidel; he doesn’t have God in his heart. By the will of Allah (SWT), Radio Pakistan would resonate in Delhi in three days).

“Imaan mujhay rokay hai, jo khinche hai mujhay kufr, Ka’aba meray pheechay hai kaleesa meray aagay” (My faith prohibits but infidelity attracts me, Ka’aba is behind me while a church is ahead)

Bas-ki dushvaar hai har kaam ka asaan hona, Aadmi ko bhi mayassar nahee insaan hona (Enough for it is difficult to have anything easy It’s impossible for a man to even act like human)

Aah Ko Chahiye is the second track in the Manto OST. The video seems more like a trailer with numerous sequences from the awaited movie flashing past in rapid fire, contrary to the bland and tasteless composition trying its best to complement it. The attempt makes you question why Pakistani filmmakers fail to understand how important music is for the success of a movie, especially with the audience from our part of the world. Some of the scenes from the biopic hint towards the numerous short stories penned by the master storyteller or the different anecdotes associated with his turbulent life. Sarmad Khoosat’s acting does push the envelope a number of times, only to be pulled back by Ali Sethi. It’s hard to tell why they chose to torment both Mirza Ghalib and Manto in the same breath. The composition’s emptiness was reciprocated wonderfully by the vocals – a key element in eastern music. A path that once giants like Jagjit Singh and Ghulam Ali walked, the ghazal fails to leave an impression on the listener and only adds to the angst about overhyped and undeserving artists that are roaming around scot-free in this troubled Pakistani music industry. [embed width= "620"]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x29fwxs_mirza-ghalib-s-aah-ko-chahiye-sung-by-jagjit-sing_music[/embed] As he attempts to revisit Ghalib through a powerless ballad, Sethi is literally caught this time with pants down, hands in the cookie jar. Hate to be the bearer of this news, but for those who don’t know, he will soon feature as a guest performer in the popular music show that claims to put out the ‘Sound of the Nation’. It seems the ghazal’s maqta, ‘Khaak hojaenge hum tumko khabar hone tak (I’ll be gone and dusted by the time you get to know), was written for our friend only, who is hell bent on doing what he is not good at.

September 1^st marks the birth centenary of Rajinder Singh Bedi, one of the most gifted and greatest fiction writers of the 20^th century, completing the quartet whose membership also extends to Saadat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chander, and Ismat Chughtai. Bedi was a son of Punjab, born in Lahore. While his output was not as prodigious as his three aforementioned contemporaries, his stories are memorable, chastising ancient beliefs and superstitions which keep the ordinary person ignorant and the women oppressed. He was not a doctrinaire blinded by ideology as many of his contemporaries were, but rather than giving us the heady slogans of revolution, he preferred to lay bare the oppression and its symptoms, and how they affect men and women psychologically, drawing out their hopes and fears and making them a part of himself as well as those of his readers, as they move from one feeling to another. Some of the most memorable characters from Bedi’s stories are women – Indu from ‘Apnay Dukh Mujhay Day Do’ (Give Me Your Sorrows), Munni from ‘Lambi Larki’ (Tall Girl), the eponymous Lajwanti and Jogia, and Rano from Bedi’s only novel, Aik Chadar Maili Si (A Sheet So Dirty). Bedi was also successful in the film world; his interventions in that department were more long-lasting than those of Manto, Chander and Chugtai. When he shifted to Bombay, he flourished in the film industry and in his 35 years spent there, he wrote screenplays, scenes, and dialogues of around 17 movies, including directing some of them. Almost all of these films proved to be high-quality, quaint, and memorable, however, never proving to be box-office hits. I was reminded of the essay below, which I have translated from the Urdu original for the first time, while ruminating over the recent spate of Pakistani films released in the last few months – Jalaibee, Wrong No., Bin Roye, Karachi se Lahore, Moor, Shah and the most anticipated one to be released next week, Sarmad Khoosat’s biopic on Manto. Despite being written a few decades ago from Bedi’s long experience as the ‘father of Indian parallel cinema’, many of the challenges it describes still exist in Bollywood and Lollywood, though more acute in the latter. Whether Pakistan’s recent wave of film-making is a new wave (a start to a truly revolutionary way of film-making like in Iran) or a tidal wave (wrecking everything in its wake) will be determined by how successfully our new film-makers negotiate these challenges. This piece is presented in the hope that it will not only rehabilitate Bedi’s reputation on the occasion of his birth centenary, as not just writer of bitter, often hopeless realities of life in his fiction, but also sublime humour, especially to those new to Bedi’s prose, and also give both film-makers and their audiences in Pakistan some points to ponder.

Although film is child’s play but to make one is not. From the intent to the blueprint up until the film-making, there are hurdles that even a man with a big heart and kidneys will not be able to manage and most probably give out under pressure. A social film is not different from other films, but it is more difficult because it entails greater responsibility. Our society is a bit different with its several religions, races, provinces, languages, dialects, etc. The democratic system has given basic rights to everyone on an individual basis and equal rights on a collective basis. This is not to say that I am against these rights, but the important thing is that my brothers still do not know how to use these rights on an individual and collective basis. I remember when I wrote the film Mirza Ghalib, our first and last motive was that Ghalib’s poetry should be heard in every corner of the land and people should be introduced to his thoughts and the greatness of his poetry. The story is just a ruse with the help of which you write down the reflections of the society of that age. Therefore, Bahadur Shah Zafar says, “Neither a voice rose nor a tear shed. The rule of the Emperor of India was reduced to the bank of the Jamuna.” The Mughal period was ending and British imperialism was gradually spreading its claws. How saddening that when Mirza Sahib arrives at his beloved’s place after his release from prison and knocks at the door, there is no response. At that moment, in a plain but painful sentence, he sums up the whole map of the period, “Hey where are you, dilliwalo (people of Delhi)? Have you taken to sleeping during the day now?” But even then, some people wondered why was Mirza Sahib’s love life was presented as if he was not human and he had no heart. What a heart he had, one finds out by reading his letters. The mention of historical films is a mere obligation, because in reality they do have more than one social angle. But what does one do about the fact that with it there is also the indication of some purpose. For example, it is not easy to make a film about Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The opinion of two historians regarding the reality will not concur, then that purpose will not let the individual angle of his life onto the film screen. You will have to obtain clearance from many institutions and when you obtain clearance, the form of the script will have changed completely, so much so that you will be unable to recognise even your own face. A conversation will also take place, one which resembles the following dialogues –you are very nice, I am also very nice, health is wealth, etc. and if you go against their suspicions, entrenchments will be made, your life would be in danger and you will not be able to go out of the house. It is better if you do not make a film about Zebunissa, because she was Emperor Aurangzeb’s daughter and therefore like Julius Caesar’s wife, above all suspicion and doubt. Her love for Akil Khan, the Governor of Multan will not only be treated suspiciously, but its health, I mean, the health of the tale will be deemed absurd. Why go far? Recently, Satyajit Ray, whom the world acknowledges as a great director, made a film which showed a nurse who took to prostitution at night, forced by her domestic circumstances. Now that was an individual matter which had nothing to do with professional nurses as a whole. But chaos ensued upon this. The nurses started a movement and Mr Ray had to apologise to them. I ask, isn’t it a strange thing that on one hand people demonstrate against films like Mirza Ghalib and Sanskar and on the other hand, the Indian government declares them the best films of the year. The president himself presents the makers with the swarn padak (gold medal) and the Maan Patra. The conditions in the country present extremely difficult hurdles in making a social film at home. Leaving aside different groups, nations, and purpose, the government itself is not innocent of this sin. For example, the official government policy is ahinsa (non-injury and non-violence). But what should be done about the fact that we have accepted the numerous who used hinsa (injury and harm) as our leaders, bowed our heads before them and sung wedding songs praising it. I present you with the example of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who was the first and last revolutionary. He was a socialist at heart and his ideology was that it was impossible to overthrow British imperialism without the use of force. Now if you make a film about him, then on one hand, you will have to indicate hidden sexual relations by having his comrade Bhagwati Charan Vohra’s wife being repeatedly called bhabhi, and on the other hand, either leave out the incident of them throwing a bomb in the assembly or narrate it in such a way that they merely wanted to startle the imperialists. At that moment, an internal contradiction will be born. Did they also kill superintendent of police Saunders in Lahore in order to startle the British? If you show these events as they actually happened, you will be the target of all sorts of attacks, because there are various groups in the country which believe in the gun and the bullet and the government’s policy is that it cannot tolerate even an explosion, otherwise what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of young men who create an uproar in the university campus day and night? It will be like teasing history if we say that India got independence due to ahinsa. The sailors of the Royal Navy also had a hand in it, they fought the battle for Indian independence under the pretext of provision of substandard food and maltreatment, opposed the British and were martyred by the latter’s bullets in the streets of Bombay. After the 20^th year of the Jallianwala Bagh incident, Udham Singh reached London and shot Michael O’Dwyer and avenged our national humiliation. But you cannot show this social and historical truth without facing any trouble. This is because we have Commonwealth relations with Britain, which we cannot spoil, keeping in mind the present international conditions. We cannot stare truth in the eye. We are faced with a myriad of problems at every step while making a social film. If you are making a film on national unity, you will not have the courage to present the events at Ranchi, Bhiwandi and Maligaon in their true form, because they involved savage cruelty perpetrated by people of one faith or nation. When you show Hindu-Muslim riots, it is important for you to show the killing of two Muslims where two Hindus have been killed. But neither the Hindus nor the Muslims will be satisfied with this. Both will be unhappy with you and as a result, you will have trouble in obtaining a censor certificate. You also cannot tap the present agitation of the students. You cannot try to tap into their squabbles and opposition. Whatever that is happening on university campuses today, what exactly is it? Is it that the youth of today has lost its head, have they become sanyasis (Hindu religious mendicant) by renouncing their real purpose or are they the victims of the shenanigans of different political parties? What is the reason for this beating and bruising? They too acknowledge Gandhi ji. Then why do these people suddenly turn to fight so willingly? To go into the depth of these matters and make a film about them is not only difficult but impossible. If you do this, then the feet of thousands of people will land on your own feet and these are the people who have powerful connections. Therefore, you should only talk about the well-rounded daal (lentils). Include five or six songs, two to four dances, have the mother, father, sons and daughters separated from each other since childhood, so that the elder brother can become a police inspector when he grows up, present his younger brother as a criminal in court out of ignorance and later it becomes known that the judge was the father of these two brothers and the mother who was giving evidence against the son, was his wife. Then it will become difficult for the father and a headache for the mother. If you make a film about the youth, just focus on love between the elders as being real love and the love of the youth being equally shameful and an evil deed. Don’t write it as the proper various pursuits between Shri Madhba Gawat, his wife, and other males. It is enough that they already faced some difficulties. The elders have no time. They don’t consider them political or accept them as leaders, and if they do, they try to change it around with their own opposite meanings. Now come to that notorious word ‘sex’. Our society can bear that a boy and girl, while dancing around a tree or in a car, commit cheap and immoral acts, but cannot tolerate it in the garden, which is the first gift given by a lover to his beloved. We take three to four reels in our films just to prove that Raju loved Radha, but the psychological point which could be proved in a few seconds, it seems the whole society is against it, our society does not give permission for it. The inheritors of Khajuraho and Konark say this repeatedly. The real purpose was to present this act in a discrete manner and film, which is also art to a certain extent, should let go of commercial and professionals hands. But what generally happens is that big film-makers do not have equal permission to film a few scenes. This way, the censor board has given some space for every film and the events happening in it to be seen through the eyes of the filmmaker and the true nature of the event. But this doesn’t happen in reality. If we accept for a moment that the custodians of censorship are people with hearts, what is to be done about those who first see the film themselves in order to pass the film at the public level, and whose literary taste requires reflection and who repeatedly claim ‘I neither write films, nor watch them’. For example, I make a film whose central idea is that a child should be given sex education as soon as he becomes an adult and he should be apprised of all those dangers which can take place later on in life. If my point is clear and I do not blunder in presenting the case of a boy and girl, of course there will be no drama, but if I somehow commit a blunder, then I will have to present a solution which is popular and not one which is psychological. Recently, I was making a film which was psychological. What happens is that a woman’s husband runs away, abandoning his house because of another girl. After his departure, a girl is born to that woman. She marries upon growing up, but the mother attaches herself to her daughter in such a way as to make breathing for the son-in-law difficult. A day comes when she sees her daughter and son-in-law in each other’s arms and for a moment, projects herself in place of her daughter. Man often thinks about things which are unacceptable from a social and moral ideology, but the truth is that he does understand, no matter how much he may consider himself to be a sinner afterwards. That is why it happens like this. The mother-in-law does stop for a moment, but moves back, startled and overflowing with feelings of guilt, goes to the temple and begins chanting the bhajan (prayer), “Mine is only Girdhar Gopal (Lord Krishna/God) and no one else.” I had just filmed this scene and my heroine objected to it, “How can this happen?” I said, “It happens Madame.” And then, when I proved my point, she leaves the set, embarrassed by the passion of being a sinner. She did end up doing that scene, but kept thinking she will be flogged by the public over it. I told her to send over the shoes flung at her to me since my own shoes are rather worn out. The maker of social films is like a woman who attended a party in a gharara and upon her return, it begins to rain heavily and consequently water is accumulated right in front of her house. Her man puts bricks and slabs on the way just like Sir Walter Raleigh, and she walks carefully while handling her gharara. But how could she know that one particular brick had been placed in a bent position. She falls down into the water, while handling the gharara. Caution sank her. Oh no. There are great obstacles in making a social film. You are naked from all four corners. That’s not all, to top it off, there is no skin on your body and you have to pass through a salt mine. One can’t imagine under what circumstances social films are made. We are fully free in name only, but the stages one encounters afterwards, the situation reminds me of a couplet by Majaz, “Such are the boundaries the guardians of the harem have drawn That I cannot send my message without being a prisoner born.”

To say Allama Muhammad Iqbal was an extremely complex individual is an understatement. The poet, philosopher and political thinker that Allama Iqbal was, he constantly evolved, or some might argue, regressed in his approach to the idea of a Muslim political identity and how it translated politically. Iqbal was, at various times, a Muslim modernist (he endorsed the founding of secular Turkish republic as a seminal event in Islamic history), a Muslim reformer (his lectures compiled as the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam show the breadth of his reformist vision) and an uncompromising Islamist believing in theological unity and purity of the Muslim community (his views towards the Ahmadis towards the end of his life are an indication of this). The undercurrent of Islamic identity was always evident in Iqbal’s poetic endeavours. It is important to place him, for after all a person is a product of his social and material conditions. Mirza Ghalib was the poet of Muslim political decline and embodied the despondence of the Delhi’s Ashrafia at the loss of political power. Iqbal was the poet of Muslim resurgence and revival embodying the growing aspirations of a nascent Muslim middle class. His poetic classics Shikwa, the lament, and Jawab-e-Shikwa, the response to the lament, encapsulate his thinking from very early on. The idea of the loss of Muslim political power had been the preoccupation of many modernists amongst Muslims, most notably Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. A recurring theme in this line of thinking was the idea of ‘theft’ - worldly progress and glory was the inheritance of the Muslims stolen from them by the West. In the lament and its response, Iqbal strongly emphasises this theme. His solution was a subtle departure from Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Whereas Sir Syed Ahmad Khan only exhorted the Muslims to edify themselves with western education, Iqbal pointedly refers to the failure of Muslims to live by Quran, which he argues the West has already done. He also denounces mindless aping of the west by pointing out that Muslims dress and act like the Christians and Jews, while Christians and Jews have internalised the lessons of the Quran. This idea took a life of its own. Iqbal’s earlier outlook on Muslim identity was decidedly inclusive rather than exclusive. This explains his close ties to the Ahmadi community and his effusive praise for Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of that sect (such was his closeness that there is speculation that Iqbal had converted to Ahmadi beliefs at one point in his life). By the 1930s, however, Iqbal’s views seem to have undergone a sea change. Iqbal argued for a separate status for Ahmadis as a religious community. In his essay, Islam and Ahmadism, a rejoinder to Nehru’s articles on the subject, Iqbal exposes his basic anxiety; solidarity of Islam and the danger impacting it by the ideas propounded by Ahmadism. Arguing that the founder of Ahmadism, who he had praised earlier, may have heard a voice, he puts it down to spiritual impoverishment of the Muslim people. He proceeds to vilify Ahmadis as pre-Islamic Magianism which takes on – or steals – the important externals of Islam. The idea of theft comes into play. Iqbal argues that the finality of prophethood is the key to establishing Muslim solidarity and that Ahmadis, by denying this tenet, would cause the pre-Islamic Magian condition where societies would be broken down and recast in a new light. As a corollary of this argument Allama Iqbal goes on to argue against religious tolerance or the state’s indifference towards being “harmful” to religious communities. In other words, Iqbal was opposed to absolute religious freedom. Therefore modern historians of thought in Pakistan must grapple with the fundamental discord between Iqbal’s ideas and Jinnah’s vision both of Muslim solidarity and religious freedom. Jinnah as the leader of the All India Muslim League repeatedly ruled out the idea that Ahmadis could not join it.  Contrary to Iqbal’s view of Muslim solidarity emanating out of theological consensus, Jinnah’s test was simple: if a person professed to be a Muslim, he was welcome in the Muslim League. This became a major point of contention in Punjab, where elements in the Punjab Muslim League wanted to exclude Ahmadis from the Muslim League on the ground that Ahmadis were non-Muslims.  Simultaneously Jinnah was attacked by pro-Congress Islamic parties like Majlis-e-Ahrar and Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind for his tolerance of Ahmadis in the Muslim League. However Jinnah did not budge from his principled position on the issue, going so far as to call such theological and sectarian issues as a danger to Muslim unity. Similarly, Jinnah was a lifelong advocate of the state’s neutrality in matters of religion – an idea which Iqbal considered as problematic. Throughout the Pakistan movement Jinnah promised freedom of religion as a cornerstone of the future state of Pakistan and on August 11, 1947, as the founder of the country, he made his policy plain once again in that memorable address. Jinnah was also wary of theological issues creeping into political discourse. He understood that the question of who is a Muslim would open up a Pandora’s Box where everyone would be fair game, including his own Shia community. He therefore tiptoed carefully around Iqbal’s ideas which he disagreed with, never endorsing them. The All India Muslim League itself had utilised Allama Iqbal selectively. They had pointed to his address in Allahabad in 1930 as having laid the foundations of Pakistan. On his part, Iqbal had realised the importance of winning over Jinnah and had written a series of letters in 1936 and 1937 asking Jinnah to take up the cause of Muslims in North-West India and to ignore Muslim minorities in the rest of India. How influential were these letters in Jinnah’s eventual transformation from ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity to an apostle of Muslim separatism, is a matter for a historian to determine. What we do know, however, is that these letters were long forgotten until Muhammad Sharif Toosi chanced upon them in Jinnah’s personal library. When these were published in the 1940s, Jinnah wrote in the preface that he had not saved his replies to these letters and therefore the famed Iqbal-Jinnah correspondence would remain incomplete. As an amateur biographer of Jinnah, I find it very strange because Jinnah usually saved his replies. Jinnah in any event was not Iqbal’s first choice to lead the Muslims. They had not seen eye-to-eye during the Round Table Conferences in England. Apparently their relationship was not free of rancour even in the end. Iqbal told Nehru in his last days,

“What is common between Jinnah and you? He is a politician and you are a patriot.” (Nehru mentions this in his book Discovery of India).

My twins are almost three-years-old and they can’t speak Urdu, my ‘mother tongue’. They hear it being spoken around the house, and occasionally I may try to converse with them in Urdu but truth be told, it doesn’t come naturally. As first-time parents, we did get the infamous lecture that we should only speak to our children in Urdu or else they will never be able to speak the language. People would say,

“Don’t worry, they will learn English at school but you must speak to them in Urdu.”

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

 “Only change is permanent.”

It’s that time of the year again when we find ourselves replacing wholesome meals with the indulgent sweetness of mangoes. A delicious variety of Langra, Sindhri, Anwar Ratol, Chaunsa, Desheri, Himsager and Sammar Bahist, to name a few of the desi aams (mangoes) are readily available in Pakistan. These mangoes become a delicious addition at breakfast, lunch and dinner. In his book ‘The Last Mughal’, William Dalrymple quoted the following, defining our love affair with mangoes aptly.

“For Mirza Ghalib, the late evening was the time for indulging in mango related pleasures, especially the exquisitely small, sweet chaunsa mango, a taste he shared with many other discerning Delhiwallahs, past and present. At one gathering, a group of Dehliwallahs were discussing what qualities a good mango should have. “In my view,” said Ghalib, “there are only two essential points about mangoes – they should be sweet, and they should be plentiful.”

Tracing the literary and cultural arc of a city such as Delhi is an arduous task. The amount of revolutions and genocides it has endured are not easy to pen down. Keeping this in mind, Saif Mahmood does a remarkable job in his recent book, Beloved Delhi. Published in late 2018, this book is an exhilarating revivification of the city of poets. According to Mahmood, his stimulus for authoring this book came from the dining room conversations which used to be held at his home about Urdu poetry.  Unfortunately, these dining room conversations have now become a non-existent practice as the tradition of family congregating and engaging in discourse is diminishing rapidly. Beloved Delhi primarily sheds light on the life and poetry of eight famous poets of Delhi, including Mirza Mohammad Rafi Sauda, Mirza Ghalib, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Shaikh Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq and Daagh Dehlvi. However, it is not merely a biography of the eight poets but a comprehensive historical account of the city once known as ‘Dilli’. The book starts in 1713, the year Sauda was born, and ends at 1905, when Dehlvi’s demise gave Urdu language the status of an orphan for the next few decades. Contrary to popular belief, food isn’t the only attraction Delhi has to offer, and this masterpiece by Mahmood can confirm that. The fame and admiration the kabab and faluda vendors around Jamia Masjid have received may lead you to believe that food is Delhi’s sole charm, but the rich literary culture Delhi possesses is the true reflection of this city. In today’s world, where the conventional education system has significantly taken over, the habit of reading about art and culture exclusively for the sake of it and not as a means to an end has declined vastly. Nowadays, most people study to improve their socio-economic status and upgrade their living standards, unlike in the 19^th century where the masses understood and studied literature as a means in itself. The author has taken great pains to make the poetry reproduced in this book accessible for everyone. Initially, Mahmood wrote all the poetry in Urdu and then, to facilitate readers who do not understand Urdu, translated the work in English. In some places, he has also elaborated upon a particular verse of a couplet by either commenting on its background or explaining the mental or emotional state of the poet while writing that verse. Personally, I had been struggling to find an explanation for Ghalib’s following verses,

Hota hai nihan gard mein sehra meray hote (Next to me, the wilderness is shamed into hiding in dust) Ghista hai jabeen khaak pe dariya meray aage (The servile river grovels in the dust before me)

Rekhta kay tum hee ustaad nahien ho Ghalib (You are not the only master of Urdu, Ghalib) Kehtey hein kay aglay zamanay mein koyi Mir bhee thaa (They say there used to be a Mir in the past)

In Urdu literature, traditionally two concepts have remained dominant with regards to where creativity emanates from. The first is amad (spontaneity) and second is awrad (contrived). For a long time, the majority of Urdu writers, and the socio-cultural ethos in general, tilted more towards the amad theory, with Mirza Ghalib writing,

“Aate hain ghaib se ye mazaameen khayaal mein Ghalib  sareer-e-Khaama nawaa-e-sarosh hai…” (The subjects (for my poetry) come to me from divine hidden sources, The scratching sound my pen makes resonates like the sound of angels)

“Between thoughtful and vulgar poetry you will always find a wide spectrum of ideas in the former, and narrowness and paucity of ideas in the latter. The one which addresses wider ideas will repeat the same thought hundreds of times but always express them in a novel way with new meaning. On the other hand, the one which adheres to a narrow spectrum of ideas will fail to do so.”

Bad times have befallen Delhi again. The capital of India has been in the news lately because of the widespread protests by citizens and students across the communal, linguistic, cultural and religious divides which have come to the forefront ever since the promulgation of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed by the Narendra Modi government. Delhi has been the site of protests, most of them congregating in and around the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the Jamia Millia Islamia and Shaheen Bagh. Interestingly, the protest poems of Pakistani resistance poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Habib Jalib have become very popular during these protests.

“You ask about the whereabouts O residents of the East

Knowing us to be poor, calling us out in jest

Once Delhi was a city, select in the world

Where a selected few remained for purposes of livelihood

Which, looted by Heaven was laid desolate

We are the very residents of this territory of waste”

On another occasion, Mir had cautioned:

“Mir do not go to the doors of the Delhi rich

Thanks to their wealth I have become a poor wretch”

Bahadur Shah Zafar (1775-1862), the last Mughal king, and a competent poet in his own right, was one of the three great Urdu poets who witnessed the consequences of the defeat at the hands of the British during the War of Independence of 1857. He was stripped of his emperorhood, watched his family members get executed by the victorious British forces and eventually died in exile in Rangoon. His death ended the Mughal empire, and marked the descent of Delhi into colonial servitude. In his words:

“Without home or hearth we wander and we suffer

The sad tale of Delhi narrated by Zafar”

“An ocean of blood churns around me

Alas! Were this all!

The future will show

What more remains for me to see”

“Dagh move from Delhi, let us tour the Deccan

The pearl was valued after it left the ocean”

Today is Saadat Hasan Manto’s 108^th birthday. In the last years of his life, he achieved notoriety –  and also immortality – due to his biting satires and his series of Letters to Uncle Sam. More than a decade after his untimely demise, his friend and contemporary Mohammad Khalid Akhtar paid the ultimate tribute to his deceased friend by writing a ‘Last Letter to Uncle Sam’, a fictional letter written on Manto’s pattern, which is a very successful imitation of Manto’s style and was sent to the addressee from Heaven a few days after Manto’s passing away. In it, Akhtar talks about the political character of the superpower, the United States (US), and its influence, imposition and interference in Pakistan. Actually, this is a satire about the behaviour of the Pakistani nation and its rulers. It was published in Akhtar’s Adamjee Prize-winning collection “Khoya Hua Ufaq” (The Lost Horizon), published in 1968. Since 2020 is Akhtar’s own birth centenary year, this prescient letter, in my original English translation, can also be read as evidence of Akhtar’s own matchless prowess as a satirist and humourist. For others, it may offer a healthy antidote to the relentless and duplicitous dual diet(s) of Diriliş: Ertuğrul and piety induced by Maulana Tariq Jameel (discerning readers may note that the resemblance to another irksome Maulana in the letter itself, which is of course entirely fictional) favoured and advocated by our own Prime Minister of Naya Pakistan during the current Ramazan season. So read on!

~

“Chacha Jan – Assalamu Alaikum You will be very grieved hearing that I passed away recently. Chacha Jan, that threat about dying which I used to give to you in every letter of mine has come true after all. Whether you accept it or not, your inattention and carelessness too has quite a hand in my death. Despite my repeated requests and entreaties, neither you had John Haig whiskey sent (to me) from your side nor the million-dollar legs of some mischievous Hollywood hottie. I think in just my previous letter I had expressed the wish to view these legs in proximity. How loveless you turned out to be Chacha Jan, you just kept quiet by turning a deaf ear to my request. On the other hand witness the state of my obedience that I praised you incessantly. Now your dearest nephew has passed away and as I have just said, you are wholly to blame for this indeed. God knows whether you even comprehend the meaning of passing away or not; since by sheer good luck you remain immortal. You will never pass away. Chacha Jan! By God do not pass away even by mistake. Whatever I had heard about Heaven turned out to be lies upon coming here. Here neither there are the pleasures of the seven freedoms of your master nor there is Hollywood. There is no country even which you could grant military aid or you could blow to smithereens with your hydrogen bomb. Your John Haig cannot be had here even in the black market. In the evening the pure wine is indeed distributed among us the inhabitants of Heaven in flasks but the wretched (thing) neither exhilarates nor intoxicates. What to talk of your John Haig; it does not even have the specialty of Pakistani tharra. Your Coca Cola, which I had the chance to drink in Lahore once, is vastly better than this nectar. So yes Chacha Jan! I was narrating the incident of my sorrowful death before you. You must have read this news in the papers. What worth did a poor writer from the East have that your papers and magazines bothered to publish it. They do not get any relief from publishing the nude photos of girls with million-dollar legs; how and why would they have been attentive towards it! Though the papers in our country indeed published this news by drawing up black margins. That is their kindness otherwise what worth was this incapable nephew of yours that his death should have been noticed. If possible, please thank on my behalf the editors of these newspapers, who are a ray of sunshine. Pardon my rudeness, what is your Marilyn Monroe doing these days? Chacha Jan, please send her to Pakistan for just a week to encourage these editors. If possible, fill up the mouths of these editors with dollars. In any case, they should be rewarded for this generosity. Chacha Jan! You may perhaps not know this that this nephew of yours, who is incompetent and imprudent, also had a wife and three dear daughters. You will say it would have been better for them all to pass on with me. I too had intended for something similar that I will depart taking them along with me but Mr Angel of Death did not allow me time and instantly seized my life. Chacha Jan! You are renowned for being very kind-hearted and respecting. So I have the audacity to say that if possible do fix some stipend for my wife and children. One dollar of yours is worth 4.5 rupees of ours (I do not remember well), 50 dollars per month will be enough to keep them alive. Chacha Jan, by God I am not joking. Just 50 dollars; 50 dollars are a lot in our poor country and quite a large household can be brought up on this amount – but I know that you will in principle not do this because you are seriously irritated by beggars like me and then these days you are busy labouring to save the seven freedoms from the Russians and preparing the hydrogen bomb. Never mind whether a poor, dead artist’s girls live or die. There are greater issues before you! Okay so leave this matter. That province where this desolate soul resided; its Prime Minister is Feroze Khan Noon (at the time of my passing this gentleman indeed placed on this seat) Write him a recommendation letter; maybe even that will not have an effect; because Noon sahib would be involved in the difficulties of One-Unit in those days. Anyway what do you care? Do certainly write him a letter. In any case my only hope now is your dollar-like personality. Chacha Jan! This is indeed like spreading poetry, but I cannot help but say it. I kept requesting you to send me John Haig whiskey till my dying breath and you kept putting it off. God knows what you understood. I used to heap praises on you at every breath in every gathering. Whether you admit or not it was indeed the devotion of my pen that the people in my country became convinced of your knowledge and kindness and so many of your nephews were born. In my poor country, if truth be told, after God and His Prophet, the great belief with which your name is taken, there is no one else. The theologians and mullahs in our mosques, the editors of newspapers, and the leaders of the Muslim League often bring the name of God and His Prophet even now; if you peep in their hearts, dollars will be heard tinkling. This is all the result of the continuous attempts of this deceased nephew of yours. I indeed did all this to brighten your name and in lieu of this sincerity you could not even so much as send some second-hand Packard from there. If not the million-dollar legs, you could have granted at least their prints. Vaah Chacha jan, vaah. Well leave these things. These are the matters of that unfortunate country which I have left. The place where I am now, here Man is not pestered by desire for anything. Neither John Haig’s whiskey and a Packard, nor the prints of Marilyn Monroe’s lips. It is completely deserted here. Chacha Jan, you will be amazed and happy hearing that here I have kept a beard like yours. Every morning I have my mustaches clipped and remain abluted all eight hours. No evil thought enters my mind. Though I was famous as a pornographer in my own country. There I always used to be irked by the thought of artistic creation, since coming here I have not written a single short story. Actually Chacha Jan (though to say something to a shrewd man like you is like teaching wisdom to Luqman) This art fart is all nonsense, a face full of light and a heart full of delight is the real thing and along with that if there are dollars in the pocket too, then by God, how very fine? Would that rather than ruining my life and health writing away short stories there I was in the sugar business, or of any other commodity and would be elected to the Constituent Assembly on the basis of money earned from gambling, and performed the Hajj three or four times, so my world and the Hereafter would be reformed.   Chacha Jan! You will consider me to be very happy and cheerful in this new world. On no account. Whether you need to blow up the world with a hydrogen world or not, you know better. Yes, had I arrived after learning the prescription of the hydrogen bomb, I would certainly have blown up this world. The hardship and bitterness in the world that was my lot was much better than the pleasure and comfort and light which is available to me here. Chacha Jan! Can’t you send some bomber jet of yours here, or wait now, let the cobalt bomb be invented. How come you have so delayed making this bomb – how is Mr John Foster Dulles. Next to you, he is the most dear to me. Chacha Jan. Just yesterday while strolling near the Raised Fountain, I ran into Mirza. This is not that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani who had declared prophethood at one time (and whose sign I could not find here even after much search) This is another Mirza. Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib. Why would you have heard his name. His father’s name is off my mind right now. What we know is that for a hundred generations the ancestral occupation was soldiery. This gentleman has been a very great poet of our unfortunate Urdu language. The man turned out to be fun; he immediately became informal, said, “Amaan Saadat! What is this Paradise. We used to hear a lot many praises of it in the world; neither can one make out any human at a distance nor anyone possesses a taste for reciting and hearing poetry. Well, yes do ask someone to arrange for a bottle of Scotch – either Old Tom or something else. I will write a voucher to Mithradas Mahajan. The mind has been dulled drinking away the pure draught and well, yes, have you seen my full-moon-faced damsel anywhere?” Chacha jan! I hold the satisfaction of that Mirza Ghalib very dear, so please if not for me, but for him indeed send a case of fine whiskey; if its champagne, that too will not make a difference. Both of us have damaged livers; do pay attention. Where else would one find a sympathizer  and friend like you in this age? Yes Chacha Jan! A few days before my death you mere making some SEATO, MEDO, etc. I have a strong hope that you will have been successful in this objective. Even in old age your spirit is young; it is impossible that you have a hand in anything and it is not accomplished. Give a request on my behalf to Mr Dulles that this part of paradise should also be included in your SEATO or MEDO. Leave it to me how to appease the agents here. The thing is that we indeed have here an abundance of houris, but they don’t possess that which your Hollywood actresses do. These houris are very much pure-quality and luminous. Then in this paradise, may God be good to you, there is neither newspaper, not magazine or radio; others apart, even a pen and inkpot are non-existent. This pen and inkpot, with which I am writing you this letter, I have asked my recording angels for it with a hundred excuses. They are unemployed these days and waiting for the Day of Judgement with the manuscript of my worldly actions in hand; your nephew has been kept in paradise for an interim period. The dominant guess is that he will be transferred from here and sent somewhere else. Listen to the situation of my death. Do you know that when I passed away, my wife was so worried for an honourable manner of shrouding and burial for me, there was not even a bit of money worth the lowest value in the house. It was a few publisher gentlemen, may God be good to them, who had published the books of this distressed one, who with absolute generosity gave the expenses of the washer and the grave out of their own pocket. Still, the state of helplessness and despair in which the funeral of such a great short story writer was taken out was not at all worth seeing or hearing. Chacha Jan! Would that I was at least the Willie Moretti of your country. Chacha Jan! Are you not bored. Actually I greatly enjoy talking to you. This is my last letter addressed to you. It is a strange headache writing and sending a letter from paradise. I have already presented the state of the pen and inkpot, there is no satisfactory arrangement for mail too, in fact it is non-existent in the first place. No comfort of your land of the seven freedoms is available here. I have enticed and pacified a gentleman with many entreaties into readiness to deliver this letter to your blessed hand; his name is His Excellency Azrael. He is a very famous sage, it is entirely possible that you have heard his name. Hayen Chacha Jan what’s this. Why did you turn pale at the mention of Azrael. You are indeed immortal and now then you have to increase the seven freedoms to sixty freedoms; shape SEATO, METO, NATO, etc.; invent the cobalt bomb. God forbid how can you die now? Chacha Jan! Listen to another joke. There is a sage in India Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi. A few days ago I heard he came to meet our respected Governor General Ghulam Mohammad in some connection. He publishes the journal ‘Sidq’. Your Honour is a writer of great rank and an acknowledged scholar and the author of numerous scholarly and learned articles and books; these books can only be read by those gentlemen whose hearts have light and eyes have delight  (or the opposite) within them. And whose eyes have the swath of prejudice and religious madness over them. Maulana Daryabadi spontaneously became agitated over the sorrow and mourning which occurred over my passing and he expressed strong surprise at this in his journal ‘Sidq’ in that why is the death of an ordinary pornographer being mourned to such an extent. See Chacha Jan! How enlightened and writer-friendly gentlemen reside in our land. Are Ernest Hemingway, Caldwell, Thomas Wolfe and every such artist who exposes the lies with truth and dare and carries the world forward in your country called a pornographer in the same manner! Here even the Father Adam is singular in the first place. Believe me if the incompetent nephew had a hand’s length beard, clipped mustaches, a husband of three wives and a father of two dozen children; the author of some Behishti Zevar kind of a book instead of lewd and nude stories; and he had by the grace of Allah allotted himself five houses, two orchards and ten shops arriving in Pakistan, the same Maulana Abadi would be expressing unlimited pain at his death and deemed it a great catastrophe for the country and nation. Well Chacha Jan, now I do not feel sad what opinion people like Maulana Daryabadi have about me. This will indeed be decided by the coming generation and yes Chacha Jan, the thought has certainly been put into your mind by some enemy that this nephew of yours is communist. Had I been in the land of your seven freedoms, it was very likely that you would have deemed me truly communist or fellow-traveler at the indication of Mr McCarthy. Alas that I died dissolving away in poverty and illness. At your place, undoubtedly I would have died with great pleasure seated in the high, comfortable chair by electric shock in your incomparable slaughterhouse – though by the grace of God our Pakistan also has seven freedoms, but here a slaughterhouse like yours has not been constructed now – By God I am not a communist. You are a strange simpleton that you thought me to be a communist deceived by my enemies. Oh God, remove this suspicion from your heart. If you don’t believe me you can verify this from your consulate in Pakistan that I have never talked with such affection and love with your enemy Malenkov as I did with you. This is entirely a slander that I had made Malenkov my maternal uncle. Just a single patron and sympathizer like you is enough for me (And now I have also heard that Mr Malenkov admitting his own incompetence has resigned from the premiership of Russia) Chacha Jan, by the One God who Has no partner, I was only your nephew in the world; even now I am only your nephew indeed. Though because of your suspicion you kept putting off every demand and request of mine with a smile. But there wasn’t even a hair’s breadth of a difference in my obedience and sincerity. Though chacha jan! Why are you so perplexed by communists? Just enjoy yourself in your seven freedoms. Let the Communists drive their axes and sickles. Those wretches neither have your whiskey nor the million dollar legs – haven’t you been a student of history? Don’t you know that culture and civilization never remain the same? You may try a million times. Hydrogen bombs have never destroyed humans. This letter has become very lengthy. Still I wanted to talk further with you but here the ink has finished; there His Excellency Azrael is mounted on my head like a string-legged saint that hurry up I have other things to do. There is absolutely no need of delivering a written response to this letter to Mr Azrael. Willy-nilly, your time will be wasted. Yes do definitely hand over a case of John Haig to him and if this is not possible, at least grant a prescription for its distillation. Furthermore if you can send the prints of the thighs of some latest Hollywood queen, I will be grateful. Mr Azrael is eagerly desirous of meeting Mr Dulles, arrange for him to be transported to Mr Dulles’ house in your Buick or even in a rented taxi – yes I remembered. Send ten or fifteen freshly-minted dollars. Indeed now I have a strong desire to see those. Your deceased nephew, Saadat Hasan Manto”