Desicritics Author: Raza Rumi

Ibn-e Eusuf - A Modern Fable

Raza Rumi — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:22:11 EDT

The tale of Ibn-e Eusuf is an old story but like good stories it never gets old.

So, here it is dressed up for modern times. Only the names are changed to protect the identities of the innocent stork and fox.

Once upon a time there was a yellow saw and a wry wind. They had seen better days but they were always in each other’s way and had been so busy quarreling that they were surprised by the lion that came upon them unawares.

It was not that the lion was very wise. In fact, it wasn’t a lion at all; it was a turkey with abrasive rough wings pretending to be a lion. It was just that the cackling heads of the jungle were so exhausted with the interminable wrangling of the yellow saw and the wry wind that they crowed in glee and went along with the pretence, which made the turkey feel enlightened and gave it a swollen head.

The lion-turkey acted first and thought later. It immediately consigned the yellow saw to the attic and confined the wry wind in a holy shroud. Word spread that the yellow saw was rusted and that the wry wind had turned benign. But these were only appearances.

Given the size of its brain, the lion-turkey with the abrasive rough wings wouldn’t have survived long. But a magic bush in a faraway land was giving it protection. The magic bush sent it a special feed of reinforced rice and sugar; and whenever it was threatened, the bush dispatched a pointed black barb to unnerve the antagonists. When needed, the bush could also tickle into action an exact offspring that had been transplanted into the city of submission that was the abode of the lion-turkey.

Time passed and the lion-turkey lost a few teeth and a few feathers and the bush too began to wither. In all such fables it is at a time like this that a fatal mistake is made and so what had to happen, happened.

Nobody can say how it happened. Some say the bush simply forgot to warn the lion-turkey because it did forget a lot. Some say the rice and sugar were laced with rum that emboldened the lion-turkey. Some blame the guards it had chosen for itself. One was a deer prone to shortcuts; the others were mostly retarded fowls but some were more retarded than others. The eagle (it was a fowl too but for some reason the chief of the cackling heads, half lion-half cow, called it an eagle) could not tell the difference between treated and untreated effluent and gorged itself on the latter till it became quite beside itself.

It so happened that there were four rugs that were sacred and in safekeeping in the hall of justice. The lion-turkey was protected as long as it kept away from the four rugs. But shortcut deer and raw-effluent eagle egged it on and the lion-turkey was not used to thinking before it acted. It had the four rugs brought to its palace to be aired in public and beaten so that the ancient dust could be removed before it put its foot on them.

No sooner were the four rugs beaten the magic began to wane. The rusty yellow saw came flashing out of the attic and the benign wry wind escaped its holy shroud and began to swirl and scream.

Now all they had to do was to make up and corner the lion-turkey with the abrasive rough wings in its lair. The bush too was distracted and could hear the bugle in the barracks that was the sign of its imminent withering.

But like the scorpion and the tortoise in another fable, the yellow saw and the wry wind were also creatures of habit. It was not in them to change their ways.

The yellow saw invited the wry wind for consultations and proceeded to cut the support on which the latter was resting. The wry wind, in turn, invited the yellow saw to its abode and proceeded to whip sand onto its blades.

They did this and they did that but they could not shake off their old habits. They signed an accord in the brown forest and buried it. They kind of agreed to encircle the lion-turkey’s lair led by their chief warrior, the rising sun, mounted on the four rugs that had now been reclaimed by the rightful owners.

But as the rising sun rose into the sky, the yellow saw could not help undercutting everything that was in the way. And the wry wind huffed first one way and then the other. All this confused the rising sun to such an extent that he quite forgot what he was supposed to do when he finally arrived in the city of submission. The sacred four rugs lay forlorn, lacerated by the yellow saw and seared by the wry wind.

And so the yellow saw and the wry wind got their just deserts. The toothless lion-turkey with the abrasive rough wings had got the better of them.

Meanwhile, the jungle fell dark and the denizens began to starve. The cackling heads continued to cackle quoting Cicero in the gathering gloom.

This is a puzzle that needs to be decoded. The clues are embedded in the text and become progressively more difficult. The reader who decodes the most clues will win a prize of US$100 equivalent. The contest will close on July 30, 2008 and the winner will be announced the next day. Readers can submit solutions here

Movie Review: Jodhaa Akbar - Disappointing

Raza Rumi — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:23:09 EDT

The challenge of translating a historical era into a cinematic endeavour is daunting, especially when it concerns historically contested subjects such as the fabled love between 16th century Mughal Emperor Akbar and Jodha Bai, the legendary princess from Rajputana who later ruled India as Empress and symbolised the Hindu-Muslim accord of the times. However, it is not historical accuracy, or lack thereof, which defines the rather exasperating cinematic narrative of an otherwise glorious period of the subcontinent's history. It is the facile treatment of history, its interpretative variants and its actors that makes the Bollywood film Jodhaa-Akbar a disappointment.
Akbar's reign symbolised the zenith of the Mughal Empire and also some of its unique attributes. Whether it was the secular, tolerant governance based on the Sulah-i-Kul (peace with all) policy, opening up the frontiers of theological discussion, effective administrative systems or promotion of Indo-Mughal art forms, Akbar was a pioneer in most respects.

Jodhaa-Akbar attempts to capture the essence of that particular moment: the Indianisaton of the Mughal court and most importantly, the royal household. Whether it is to do with the grafting of a temple within the Agra fort or the introduction of vegetarian meals, these were significant markers for centuries to come, enabling a tiny Muslim minority to rule the non-Muslim majority. But the film fails to handle this momentous phase of history appropriately and instead churns out a masala mix that, despite the massive budget, results in mediocre film-making.
This is not to say that the film is without merit. It is visually stunning in places and A R Rehman's music is outstanding. The two stars – Ashwariya Rai and Hrithik Roshan – provide glamour and unreal beauty. The settings are competently improvised and yes, the feel of the whole cinematic experience does convey the clichéd Mughal aura of splendour, excess and a hybrid aesthetic. Rai and Roshan exude that enigmatic chemistry which makes them an attractive pair on screen.

It is the treatment of the subject, characters and nuances that disappoints, especially when one remembers director/producer Ashutosh Gowariker's earthy and under-your-skin rendition in Swades . In the pursuit of commercial success, Ashutosh relies on soft plagiarism. The battle scenes remind one of the Hollywood blockbuster Troy; the inanimate army contingents resemble those in Gladiator; and the sword fighting sequences re-enact the visual tricks of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon . But these are all still pardonable.
The most unforgivable moment in the film is the near destruction of an otherwise lilting melody, Khawaja Meray Khawaja , meant to be an incantation for the great Hazrat Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti buried in Ajmer. The filming of this song is almost farcical. The Qawwals aiming at Sema end up mimicking the whirling dervishes of Konya. To add insult to injury, they also wear Rumi caps and sport fake beards. At the end, our secular Emperor joins in the whirling of the dervishes. Understandably, this was a purely commercial gimmick. However, the mystic haal (trance) of the South Asian variety is distinctive for its myriad forms and general lack of structure. Even if this sequence had to be used, there could have been better ways of employing the global 'hit' whirling stunt.
Another minor anecdote overlooked by Gowariker and his co-writer Haidar Ali is that Akbar sought blessings from Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti by walking barefoot to his shrine rather than tying his nuptial knot at the shrine (image above shows Akbar at the shrine). Talking of facts, it is also unclear who Jodha Bai was. Yes there are Jodha's quarters in each of the Mughal palaces, but the Rajput princess whom Akbar married, according to some versions, was Harka Bai, daughter of the ruler of Amber, Raja Bharmal. To be fair, there are several disclaimers in the titles so one can overlook this license with history taken by the director.

What is sad is that the script props cardboard characters and insists that they are larger than life. Not much is known of the relationship between Akbar's powerful foster mother Dai Anga and Jodha Bai. But the characterisation in the film turns into a mocking recreation of Kyunki Saas bhi Kabhi Bahu thi ethos with domestic struggles taking place on who controls the kitchen and what food is to be cooked for the Emperor. The handling of this conflict in the film reeks of those infamous STAR Plus serials hugely popular in India. If at all, this conflict was about power as the Rajput Empress (like the later Queen Nur Jehan) inducted her kith and kin in senior positions within the Empire. That Dai Anga was a female power centre at the Mughal court is glossed over. And, what can one say about the poor Nau Ratans -- the famous nine advisers of Akbar – they appear such caricatures and lifeless beings on screen. Admittedly, the film was not about Akbar's court; however, this does not mean that the larger setting of this love story should have been treated with such an amateur brush.

One fails to understand why the honour-obsessed Rajputs in India are protesting. If anyone needs to protest it should be the Muslims of the subcontinent. Except for Akbar and his Persian mother, Hameeda Banu Begum, the film unwittingly promotes the Muslim stereotyping agenda. From Bairam Khan to Akbar's brother-in-law, almost every Muslim is barbaric, intolerant and, more often than not, scheming. The Mughal characters were complex people, neither barbaric Mongols nor Kabir chanting Bhakats. Ancient and medieval Indian history is replete with tales of violent Hindu rulers, so what differentiates them from the Mughals? From a subaltern point of view the local populace underwent a discontinued experience of exploitation. Akbar's humanism and tolerance was unprecedented in that age. The film harps on these themes for a particular message but ends up validating all that the Hindutva brigade loves to say, and is never afraid to say, about Muslims and Muslim rulers in particular.

The performances are perfunctory except for the leading protagonists. Both Roshan and Rai come across as fairly fluid actors and for once do not massacre common Urdu words. The cinematography is first rate and the costumes (including the jewelry) are aesthetically noteworthy. Alas the script and its structure, is what undermines the entire effort. Bollywood may have surpassed world cinema in technique and viewership but it lacks that elusive attribute known as "quality-screenplay" not to mention its total disregard for time in true South Asian fashion. For instance, Jodhaa-Akbar at times appears to be a real time drama. The total length of the film is three and a half hours. Was there an editor on the team?

Having said that, it is a fairly watchable film as it tries to re-invoke the medieval process of Hindu-Muslim co-existence; and brings a lost era back to life. Jodhaa-Akbar also, rather boldly, depicts the unusual cinematic tale of a Hindu woman falling for a Muslim man, albeit grounded in political opportunism. Rajput "honour protests" against the film in India need to be understood in this light. For once Bollywood has undone the cliché of Muslim woman and Hindu man.
Those interested in the Mughals should see this film preferably on a big screen. Jodhaa-Akbar could have been a great film. Its main theme held that intrinsic potential but it was splintered by an overdose of pop history, a flaky script and the relentless commercialism that defines our age.

Taslima Nasrin, The Outcast

Raza Rumi — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:52:16 EST

Taslima Nasrin is now a "sensation" of another kind in India. She has attracted the attention of those segments of the Indian media that love selling anything that brings Islam and Muslims related controversies into the public domain. The BJP is also espousing her cause. Probably she is a rebel (some would say heretic) Muslim. Anyway, her uninformed rant on Islam should not be taken seriously while her right to express herself remains inalienable and non-negotiable.

I had seen her controversial book Lajja or Shame and found it to be a mediocre book, full of invective, half-baked stuff and prosaic writing. Even my friends who read it in Bangla were not impressed by its literary value.

She had to leave Bangladesh and moved to Europe and then we found out that she had landed in India, later in Calcutta to be close to her Bengali roots. But of course, this was not to be.

I am not sure what will happen to her. However, she has become an overnight star - once again. A woman expelled from the Muslim bounds of culture and religious acceptance.

Perhaps she is wronged. Perhaps not. But one thing is clear that BJP support will do her no good. This will undermine her cause for freedom of expression that is essentially a secular issue and aligning her persona and writings to the Islam bashing brigades will compound her cause - a humainst issue at the end of the day - beyond and above the religious divides.

The reason why I was thinking about her was to do with the poem and article sent me by a blog-friend SA. The poem is not bad at all. It is a little self-conscious and over the top in parts but has a few soulful lines and a striking central concept:

EVE, OH EVE

Why wouldn’t Eve have eaten of the fruit?
Didn’t she have a hand to reach out with,
Fingers with which to make a fist?
Didn’t Eve have a stomach for feeling hunger,
A tongue for feeling thirst,
A heart with which to love?Well, then, why wouldn’t Eve have eaten of the fruit?
Why would she merely have suppressed her wishes,
Regulated her steps,
Subdued her thirst?
Why would she have been so compelled
To keep Adam moving around in the Garden of Eden all their lives?Because Eve did eat of the fruit,
There is sky and earth.
Because she has eaten,There are moon, sun, rivers, seas,
Because she has eaten, trees, plans and vines.

Indeed, my muse has made me even more reflective with these lines when he rather [melo]dramatically stresses how the sky is falling at Nasrin's treatment:

"...the sky is falling because no thinking mind from the Muslim world has come out in support of Nasrin. .. Sky is falling because tradition of thinking has died in Muslim world which produced people like Averroes, Ibne Sina, .. the sky is falling because the books of muslim theology are filled with great debates between Imams and atheist philosophers. These atheist philosophers of course lived and flourished in Muslim world and were called in courts to debate with muslim Imams....

... in the 9th century Ibn al Rawandi could live in Islamic caliphate ... publish and defend his works and live freely. .., but in 2007 Taslima Nasrin can't do so, not in Bangladesh, not in secular India. This is post philosophy, post enlightenment world...

The sky is falling because the Communist Party of India who call themselves “Marxist”, who owe their name and being to a “infidel” atheist philosopher Karl Marx failed to protect Taslima Nasrin and forced her out of Calcutta , the sky is falling because Biman Bose supported censorship!! The sky is falling that Communist Party bowed to fascists , sky is falling because it showed that Communist Party government is no different that Nirandra Modi’s government."

Quite fortunately, the secular Muslims in India have also condemned the outright idiocy of the Muslim extremists. A thoughtful Indian blogger (who happens to be a dyed in wool secular Muslim) Indscribe writes:

"I don't know how many protestors have read her works. They are not readable anyhow. And even if she has written something that doesn't go well with us, we have the option not to read it or ignore it. With every such protest Taslima's stature as a writer will go up even if she doesn't deserve that.

Violent street protests don't serve anybody. ...As I saw the stone pelting on streets and the iamges of burning car and mob clashing with police, imposition of curfew, I could imagine what must be going through the minds of many non-Muslims, 'These Muslims, the troublemakers...they are at it again'..."

I have been made to think, and, I treasure such rare moments in the eternal rut of mediocrity that life can be most of the times!

Qurratulain Hyder - End of an Era

Raza Rumi — Thu, 8 Nov 2007 00:09:45 EST

End of an era: Ainee Apa 1927 - 2007

Why do we all find ourselves present in this particular context, in this particular place? How have these pictures assembled here in this jigsaw puzzle? Soon, something will happen, pieces will scatter and become part of a newer pattern? This time will pass? (From My Temples, Too)

The death of Qurratulain Hyder marks the end of an era of the finest writing in Urdu. Hyder, also known as Ainee Apa, dominated the world of Urdu literature for over six decades. She started writing as a child and published her first novel, Meray Bhi Sanam Khanay (later trans-created as My Temples, Too), when she was 22 years old. The novel set a new trend in Urdu literature: a voice of modernity, yet one rooted in the traditions of the Indo-Muslim ethos as it struggled to narrate the tragic tale of the birth of two new nations. Even her worst critics, the doyens of the Progressive Writer’s Movement, acknowledged her innate gift for writing. Within three years, her second novel was published and she had unwittingly kick-started the revival of the Urdu novel from the point where Munshi Prem Chand had left it in the early twentieth century.

Her genius found a panoramic range of expression in Aag Ka Darya, which for its canvas, historical consciousness and characterisation, surpasses most novels written in any language. This novel deals with the plight of the human condition in the Indo-Pakistani setting from the fourth century BC to the 1950s. Starting with a translation of a TS Eliot poem, it traces multiple eras, with characters disappearing and reappearing in different guises, pitted against the broad strokes of history and time.

It was an epoch-making event in Urdu literature, but ran into trouble in Pakistan, as the novel highlighted the thousand year old composite Indo-Muslim culture of pre-Partition India, something which was not in line with the official version of history being constructed in Pakistan. Ideologically-driven right-wing critics considered it a threat to their nationalism.

The main characters of the novel, Champa and Gautam, meet and separate through the ages. Passing the river of fire that spans centuries, they immortalise the human quest for meaning and happiness. In the process, readers get insightful glimpses at the history, culture and sociology of India from the fourth century BC to the 20th century AD.

A disheartened Ainee returned to India around 1960 and continued her literary career, despite the fact that Urdu was a fast declining language in the country, and its main readership was in Pakistan. But what forces could daunt Ainee? Her stature and recognition by luminaries such Nehru and Azad, her fiercely independent personality and sheer creativity made her adjust well to the new post colonial India. This was despite the fact that her stories did not always flatter the Indian establishment.

Her other major novel, Aakhire Shab Ke Hamsafar, which won several literary awards in India, concerned a group of highly charged idealists who struggled during the pre-Independence era, victims of the vagaries of time. The characters become disillusioned with life and eventually compromise their principles in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh respectively. But the narrative is not about this political dimension. It is about time, its ruthlessness and the frailties of the human character – making it a universal novel in its tragedy and sweep. The later characters in this novel are strong and clear headed, reflecting Ainee’s innate optimism about the younger generations and her faith in the progress of South Asia.

Gardishe Rangi Chaman (Gardishe) and Chandnee Begum ostensibly concern the decline of Muslims and Muslim civilisation in contemporary India and its interface with modernity and globalisation. However, beneath these themes, alive in the sub-text, are universal themes of man’s relationship with time and space. In Gardishe, she also explores an impressive range of subcultures, dying and flourishing, such as that of Anglo-Indians, Sufi khanqahs, street performers, prostitutes and the nouveau riche classes of the post 1947 subcontinent. In these decades, she also managed to write countless short stories and novelettes, all of which are diverse in their subject matter and tone.

Her novella Aglay Janam Mohay Bitya na Kijyo is a fine specimen of class and gender exploitation and has become an iconic literary marker within the Urdu language. Ainee’s most experimental and expansive work was an autobiographical novel, Kare Jahan Daraz Hai, which traces her genealogy from Central Asia and recounts her family and personal stories in a complex mosaic of style, technique and ever-changing ambience. As is the case of her novels, Ainee’s autobiographical novel remains the best in its genre. As CM Naim, the Chicago based professor, noted, it expands the “potential of experiencing life.”

Sita Haran, published in 1960, is an elegy to the sense of betrayal at a personal and political level, an experience not uncommon to humans. In it, a modern Indian woman, separated from her husband and living with her lover, struggles for the custody of her only child in a frantic attempt to remain in touch with her past. Meanwhile, Housing Society explores the lives and tribulations of three migrant families and how their world is turned upside down in post-Partition Karachi. In this novel, two affluent families of yore become homeless, while the poor country cousin, through an alliance with the new political and economic classes, becomes a powerful business magnate. The legendary character Hasan Nasir, a Communist party activist who was tortured to death in 1962, is said to be the inspiration for one of the key characters. Another gem, Pat Jhar Ki Awaaz (The Sound of Falling Leaves) has a protagonist who meets an old acquaintance in a Lahore bazaar, bringing back memories of her teenage years in Delhi – memories of sexual awakening and her interface with the middle class morality which restrained her self expression.

Ainee’s personal relationships were never smooth. She never married and perhaps never had a companion in the romantic sense. There were suitors and admirers of all kinds, but there was a tragic lack of connection, perhaps intellectual and cultural more than anything else. Like Champa, her legendary character, she remained alone to the end, and the reasons for her choice are not known to any. However, this solitude enabled her to protect her individuality, creativity and sense of the self, which it can be argued, resulted in great literature.

Not content with fiction, Ainee’s creativity in later years found an outlet in rediscovering the essentials of Indo-Muslim civilisation. She dug out the first subcontinental novel, entitled Nashtar, authored by a late 18th century East India Company official, Hasan Shah. This invaluable script and its 1890 translation were lying neglected in the Patna library archives. Ainee translated and published it under the title The Nautch Girl, with overwhelming excitement that the modern novel was not the preserve of the English speaking world. This discovery is lesser-known and (like many others) underrated. There were critics and sceptics, but Ainee held her ground and had no patience for the self-flagellation which a post-colonial South Asian mind often indulges in.

This is an outstanding contribution to the corpus of South Asian and world literature. Posterity will treat it as a major landmark in the evolution of subcontinental literature. In my meeting with her, she elucidated how modern this novel is in terms of its characterisation, mood and technique. There were traces in it of what was to be known at least a century later as the stream of consciousness technique.

Another major book, which she co-authored with Malti Gilani, explores the musical legend Ustaad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, the master of Indian classical music. This is an authoritative biography which remembers not just a life, but also the intricacies of a legacy left by a musical genius. Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and Ainee were two luminaries whom Nehru urged to return and enrich the post-colonial Indian cultural landscape.

Ainee is perhaps the only Urdu writer to have translated her own works in English. Her trans-creations are competent but, for obvious reasons, they are not at par with the original versions. The Times literary supplement commented on the publication of River of Fire (Aag Ka Darya): “Now Anglophone readers can see whether the fierce beauty of her imagination transcends the limits of language and nation.”

Fireflies in the Mist was published earlier, and she also translated Aglay Janam as The Street Singers of Lucknow and Other Stories.

Through six decades of masterful writing, she did not let the author-writer syndrome possess her. She was, to put it mildly, allergic to being treated and addressed as a “writer.” Ainee Apa found such a demeanour “cheap” and writer pretensions phony. Apparently, she could write even when in the company of friends, and the late Dr Aftab Ahmed narrated a scene from a little gathering in the 1950s, where Ainee was seen reclining on the floor and writing her novel while friends were conversing and joking! When she was not writing, Ainee played the piano, painted or worked as a journalist (she edited the Indian magazine Imprint and remained on the editorial board of the Illustrated Weekly of India for nearly a decade).

Unfortunately, Ainee was misunderstood at various stages of her life. As a 20-something writer she was scoffed at by the hardliner progressives for being too bourgeoisie. The critics and contemporary writers in Pakistan had their share of misgivings, and the establishment considered her writings to be too much in conflict with the two nation theory. Her eccentricities were construed as feudal arrogance.

Abdullah Hussain plagiarised sections from Aag Ka Darya in his novel, Udas Naslain, considered to be another major Urdu novel, and later termed it as a tribute to the great writer! Qudratullah Shahab, the bureaucrat writer turned self-declared sage in his later years, misrepresented her in his magnum opus Shahabnama. Worst of all, she lost all the royalties from her best-selling books. She had, at an international literary event, claimed a Guinness world record for not being paid anything for the thousands of books which were pirated in Pakistan. This is why she was wary of Pakistan, though it remained her second home until her last breath.

I am fortunate to have met Ainee Apa twice. Even though I met her in the twilight of her fascinating life, she had not lost her brilliance as a conversationalist. Her wit and ability to hold forth on any subject under the sun were remarkable. We listened to music that I had collected, talked of books, Lucknow, Lahore as well as her spiritual moorings. I wish I could meet her again. Her death was not a run of the mill death of an old writer, but the death of a grand vision of a civilisation, and at an individual level, a part of one's self as a reader. She had the ability to take the reader into the labyrinths of cultural consciousness and will surely continue to inspire generations of readers and writers.

Javed Akhtar, the Indian lyricist, said after her death that he felt sorry for, “those people who read fiction but have not read Hyder,” and that a time will come when her works “will reach everywhere.” Her stature in world literature will find its place. Although she has been compared to Marquez and Kundera, her range and depth in portraying societies, cultures and individuals remains unmatched.

Ainee Apa shall live on in her stories.

Ainee Apa’s Works Cited - click here

Awards and Honours - click here

An earlier version of this piece was published by the Friday Times, Pakistan

Ajmer Blasts - The Lamp Continues to Illuminate

Raza Rumi — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:22:34 EDT

Agar Gaiti Sarasar Bad Girad,
Chiragh-e-Chishtiyan Hargiz Namirad

If the entire universe is devastated by the storm
the lamp of Chishtiyan shall not cease to illuminate

Just as Eid announcements were made where I live, the sad news of bomb blasts in India were splashed all over TV channels. In particular, the blast in Ajmer Shareef - opposite the dargah - was shocking. Despicable and pusillanimous!

How could the enemies of peace target a shrine that is above the Muslim/Hindu and other formal identities. Ajmer is the fulcrum of a Sufi practice and represents the broad spiritual syncretism and consensus in South Asia!

The reaction of authorities was quite predictable as if an automated, pre-recorded message was ready with the not so imaginative officials:

"Union Home Ministry sources in Delhi said it was a terror strike in which militants had used a low-intensity improvised explosive device.

They said the terror outfits, including Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, were against Sufi Islam and they could be prime suspects behind the blast which came barely 10 days ahead of the meeting of Indo-Pakistan anti-terror mechanism here on October 22... "

However, the latter has some validity as we have a track record where the extremist elements always resist any progress towards the much-needed peace. Let us not be daunted by this cowardice.

But this is so so sad. Though in the words of the devotees:

Ilahi ta-abd-astana-i-yar-rahe
Yeh-asra-hai-gharibon-ka-barqarar rahe

Oh God, may this Shrine of the beloved exist till the last day
may this refuge of the poor remain forever!

My fellow blogger Ifaqeer reacted with these eloquent words:

"this reminds us is that there are greater, more transcendent things in this world than nations, states, and even faith communities--and, especially within South Asia, if we don't start standing up for principle, for what is right, across boundaries, communities, and groups, we all lose.

This is not just being something that is mindless violence. This is not a case where one can say "Who would want to hit a place that that stands for peace, the unity of humanity, and syncretism?" and shake one's head. We should all consciously recognize that there are those in this world--and they are in the ascendant right now in a lot of our communities and countries--whose whole philosophy, worldview, outlook, call-it-what-you-will--and , even more importantly, their political fortunes--are tied to inflexible intolerance of "the other"."

Pakistanis such as Ifaqeer are insisting that on this Eid, we're not all completely happy; that an attack on Khwaja Gharib Nawaz's home is an attack on all of us - all Muslims, and all South Asians.

The news now of bomb blasts in Ludhiana in a movie theatre are equally despicable and deliver much grief to the victims' families and all members of South Asian society. The resilient nature of our society will make it impossible, however, to cause any lasting perturbations and the light will continue to illuminate, both in Ajmer, and in peoples' hearts

Tate Modern Art Exhibition on Amrita Sher-Gil

Raza Rumi — Sat, 7 Apr 2007 11:35:17 EDT

I only wish that I could visit the Tate Modern in London to experience the sheer beauty of Amrita Sher-Gil's work. She lived a full life and like many gifted people died at the age 28. Such a dazzling life and so short!

Amrita was born in Budapest in 1913 to a Hungarian mother and a Sikh father. She was educated in Paris and her confrontation with realism defined her style. One of her novice paintings earned a prestigious salon award. After marrying her Hungarian cousin, she settled with her husband in India and joined her family. This was the beginning of a fascinating period in South Asian art as Amrita fused her European art instruction with the Indian locale thereby creating a wholly original and unparalleled stlye. The moods of India, its people started breathing into her works. This unique aesthetic was a turning point in the hisotry of modern art in South Asia. While in India, Amrita absorbed the ancient and immortal lines of wall paintings in Ajanta and Alora and such other cultural motifs.

Amrita Sher-Gil was not just another regular painter. She also lived a near bohemian life marked by an independent world-view. She also lived in Lahore and this is where she died as well. Her soulful and often sad paintings depicted the tragedy that was to come. In her intense, yet short life she accomplished a lot and left a treasure of art works. (image above right is from here). The painting below entitled Bride's toilet completed in 1937 is one her best known works. The melancholy here grips the viewer and leaves an unforgettable impression.

Pictures of Amrita and her self portraits (such as the one below right) also show how reflective she was. Her passion for art and life was remarkable. In India and particularly in Lahore she was an associate of famous people and most of the intelligentsia of pre-partition India had something to say about her once she was no more. Amrita lives in each stroke of South Asian modern painting and continues to inspire the art scene rather profoundly.

This photograph of hers, taken by her father probably in the early 1930s is a favourite of mine. It captures her presence and expression. The image (from the Tate website) of her stunning work - Group of Three Girls - below epitomises her skill in creating a peculiar mood on the canvas. The characters tell a story here by being silent:

As I write these lines, the urge to view this major exhibition becomes even stronger. I must read the recently published biography by Yashodhara Dalmia.About this work it has been said:

"This moving tale of a young, impassioned and turbulent life, unfettered by conventions and proprieties, snuffed out at the promising age of 28 is meant for wider dispersal than just the academician, artist or the connoisseur."

More information and reviews of Amrita Shergil's work can be found here (including the images above).

Artistic Expression, Male Dominance and Women Poets: Pakistan

Raza Rumi — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:21:42 EDT

An email from a Pakistan based writer friend made me recall Parveen Shakir. The poem, Tomato Ketchup, written most probably in the memory of Sara Shagufta (the modernist Pakistani poet who committed suicide in the footsteps of Sylvia Plath).

I am not drawing conclusions or imagining comparisons. My writer-friend is neither suicidal nor at the end of her creativity. In fact she is brimming with optimism and energy. However, she faces the constraints and circumstances that are not uncommon. Like Sara and Parveen Shakir she has to mediate between multiple identities, struggles and conflicts. That she lives in a society that is becoming increasingly less tolerant and dominated by fundamentalism is no help either.

Back to Parveen Shakir: she was Pakistan's popular poet who died in a tragic car accident in 1994. After graduating she taught, then joined civil service. Shewas widely read and loved poet. However, she braved the difficult terrain of Pakistani womanhood and more importantly the male defined abd dominated literary world. Her success was attributed to her innate talent and use of language. The literary evaluations of her work have been mixed. The poem below explains this a little. I found here.

Tomato Ketchup
Perveen Shakir

In our country,
A woman who writes poetry,
Is eyed as an odd fish.
Every man presumes
That in her poems
He is the issue addressed!
And since it is not so,
He becomes her foe.
In this sense,
Sara didn�t make many enemies.
She didn�t believe in giving explanations.
Before she could become the wife of a poor writer,
She had already become
The sister-in-law of the whole town.
Even the lowliest of them
Claimed to have slept with her!
All day long,
Jobless intellectuals of the city
Buzzed around her.
Even those who had jobs,
Would leave their stinking files and worn out wives
To come to her,
Leaving behind the electricity bill,
And the children�s school fees and wife�s medicine.
For these are the concerns
Of lesser mortals.
Morning through late night,
Heated discussions would take place
On literature, philosophy and current affairs.
When hunger knocked in at their empty stomachs,
Bread and boiled pulse
Would be bought collectively.
Great thinkers,
Would then demand tea
Declaring her the Amrita Preetam of Pakistan.
Sara, the gullible,
Would be very pleased with herself.
Perhaps, there were some reasons for it.
Those who were responsible for supporting her,
Always fed her on Kafka coffee
And Neruda biscuits.
Because of saliva-soaked compliments,
At least, she could have one meal,
Everyday!
But for how long?
She had to free herself
From the clutches of wolves.
Sara preferred to leave the jungle itself.
As long as she lived,
The connoisseurs of Art
Kept nibbling her.
In their circle,
She is still considered delicious,
But with a difference:
They no longer can take a bite of her!
After her death,
She had been elevated
To the status of Tomato Ketchup!
Translated from the Urdu by Baidar Bakht and Leslie Lavigne

And now excerpts from the email message from my friend that reminded me of this poem:

"... I have been doing a lot of soul- searching! Lets face it there's not much else to do now!! I am so confused as usual, about my writing, which is constantly changing from language based prose-poetry writing to more story based fractured narrative. You see the problem is that I want it to be an honest reflection of life and both ways of looking at life are true. Now here I am lost again. On another note, the good thing in recent times, is that I have decided I am definitely not going to ....

So that chapter has definitely closed.

As for my writing, I got word from my poetry publisher ....who thinks my prose is "brave and lyrical". Quite flattering and inspiring. He wants more poetry from me. I just wish some ....publisher would take a chance on my prose and publish the damn thing. You see the issue is also that I am so taken up with survival and dealing with mediocrity that I can't give all of myself to writing and its killing me. I am longing to just sit in front of the computer and fly. I wish you knew how exhilarating it is for me Raza, I feel like I can see things move and yet I feel damned to be talented, if indeed I am at all. I wish I had none of it. It is such torture and yet I couldn't live without it. I hope I am not depressing you. Even those who are close to me think I am half mad and underrate my writing and its obsession as a figment of my own imagination or just an inflated ego to make up for what I haven't achieved in life."

I am not sure what to write back. One thing is certain - I want her to retain her 'bite'.

Revisiting Kabir - the Weaver, the Myth, the Master

Raza Rumi — Sun, 10 Sep 2006 16:50:43 EDT

Do not go to the garden of flowers! O Friend! go not there; In your body is the garden of flowers. Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty. (translation by Tagore)

Fifteenth century India witnessed the coming of age of a process that started brewing with the arrival of Central Asian Sufis who accompanied or followed the invaders from Asia Minor. When Sufi thought, an off-shore spiritual undercurrent to the rise of Islam, met its local hosts, the results were terrific. There was no shortage of fundamentalists and communalists in that cultural landscape; and the gulf between alien rulers and the native subjects was a stark reality as well.

Nevertheless, a synthesis of sorts was navigated by hundreds of yogis, Sufis and poets of India. Very much a people's movement from the below, Bhakti movement articulated a powerful vision of tolerance, amity and co-existence that is still relevant. This is many centuries before the suave, western educated intelligentsia coined the 'people-to-people' contact campaigns. Yes, much has been lost in the tumultuous twentieth century and perhaps the histories and nation states rhetoric are also irreversible. But common ground remains.

Kabir - born 71 years before Nanak - is the supreme, sublime and perhaps the simplest of voices from the bhakti era. His poems have been sung across the subcontinent now for nearly five centuries. Researchers grappled with the challenge of sifting the original Kabir from all that is attributed to his name. Does it matter? At the popular level, not much. Was he a Muslim or a Hindu? We know that there are more than one tombs of Kabir where he is ostensibly buried. Same is the case with confusion over Kabir Samadhi. His name was evidently Muslim and the origins shrouded by labels of all kinds. However, Kabir's internalization of the Indian spiritual tenets and lore made him a complete hindustanee - beyond the barriers of religion, creed and identity politics that generates violence.

A weaver by profession and therefore at the lower end of socio-economic strata Kabir also represented the woes of rural folk who lived in 'thousands of villages' at the margins of central power and its intrigues.Kabir's songs were reformist in nature and influenced the ordinary villagers and low caste and provided them self-confidence to question Brahmins.

Rabindranath Tagore's translation of Kabir songs introduced Kabir to the world outside India. Tagore's translations are lyrical and retain the essential simplicity inherent to his otherwise complex thought. Here is a powerful thought - God is the breath of all breath - the fundamental pillar of Bhakti where worship and divine experience emanate from and are located in the self:

O servant, where dost thou seek Me?
Lo! I am beside thee.
I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash:
Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and
renunciation.
If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt
meet Me in a moment of time.
Kab�r says, "O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath."
Echoing Rumi and his successor Bulleh Shah, Kabir sings:
I do not know what manner of God is mine.

The Mullah cries aloud to Him: and why? Is your Lord deaf? The subtle anklets that ring on the feet of an insect when it moves are heard of Him.

Tell your beads, paint your forehead with the mark of your God, and wear matted locks long and showy: but a deadly weapon is in your heart, and how shall you have God?

The deadly weapon in the hearts of all is central to introspection and working inwards rather than the external symbols and structures of formal religion and religiosity.

Last year I came across Vinay Dharwadker's excellent translations titled Kabir: The Weaver's Songs. The translations are imaginative and open up newer vistas of meaning layered in Kabir's ostensibly simple songs. However, it was the erudite introduction that added a newer dimension to my previous understanding of Kabir. Dharwadker while exploring the underlying secularism of Kabir's verse detects the extra dimension that amazingly is far beyond the known boundaries of secularism. He writes of how the Kabir poets and followers between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries added to the discourse of spirituality and that primordial search for God:

" In this dissident conception of the secular, institutionalized religions - with their wealth, power, mediating structures and violent practices - determine what constitutes religion and what is legitimately 'religious' in the human world. But the human world belongs wholly to the domain of Maya , so these institutions and their definitions of dharma or religion cannot reach beyond the limits of Maya to be God without attributes. Nirguna God stands outside the immense scaffolding of organized human religions and what they define as religious doctrine and practice, and since the 'secular' is that which lies outside the scope of the 'religious', God as such is entirely secular."

Therefore, the process of attaining mukti (liberation) from the trappings of religions to achieve a union with a God without attributes is a secular process. "It is precisely such a secularism that makes both God and mukti completely accessible to anyone and everyone, regardless of caste, class, birth, gender, upbringing, status or rank, and that becomes indistinguishable from the deeply subversive egalitarianism and cosmopolitanism of the Kabir community."

Amazing!

The Kabir community comprises scores of followers and later poets who kept on adding verse to the Kabir anthology and all that is today ascribed to the great sage. Let's hope this community grows and flourishes. I will end with my favourite translation from Dharwadker:

Allah and Rama

If Khuda inhabits the mosque,
then whose play-field is the rest of the world.

If Rama lives in the idol at the pilgrim station,
then who controls the chaos outside?

The East is Hari's domicile, they say,
the West is Allah's dwelling place.

Look into your heart, your very heart:
That's where Karim-and-Rama reside.
All the men and the women ever born,
Are nothing but Your embodied forms:
Kabir's a child of Allah-and-Rama
They're his Guru-and-Pir

That says it all!