Emperor Jahangir receiving his two sons, c1605-06
Succession intrigues:Emperor Jahangir receiving his two sons; an album painting in gouache on paper, c1605-06.
Read the related story here: Power, then as now, brings its own price. Neither life nor death was kind to this unfortunate son of Jehangir. AROON RAMAN recounts one of the most tragic yet inspiring stories to come out of Mughal India…
Abr mi barad-o man shovm-e az yar-e judaa (The cloud weeps…)
Amir Khusrau's lofty couplet
Abr mi barad-o man shovm-e az yar-e judaa
Choon kunam dil becheneen roz zedildar judaa.
Abr baraan wa man-o yar satadah ba-widaa
Man judaa girya kunaan, abr judaa, yaar judaa
The cloud weeps, and I become separated from my friend -
How can I separate my heart from my heart's friend on such a day.
The cloud weeping, and I and the friend standing, bidding farewell -
I weeping separately, the clouds separately, the friend separately..
(trans. A. Schimmel)
In memoriam – Asim Butt (1978-2010)
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again
(Hamlet, Shakespeare)
It is only when Asim has gone that one takes measure of the legacy he has left for his troubled and torn country. A decade long association was lost on the fateful day of January when we heard of his untimely exit from this world. For hours, I sat in my office, numb. Not that Asim’s suicide was a surprise, for he had warned us all many times of this inevitable dénouement to his dramatic life.
Five years ago, when I wrote a piece on the Pakistani poet Mustafa Zaidi and the romance with nurturing a death wish, Asim wrote to me and said that I had no clue what this was all about. His words were: “loved and was deeply moved by your piece on Zaidi... saw so much of myself in his life story, hoping I don’t die unsung and on the fringes, and wondering why you of all people would have a death wish.” Asim had suffered and struggled with his inner demons with an intensity that most of us will never appreciate. This was the first time that I knew about the seriousness of his other side: a dialectical dark side to his otherwise cheerful, loving and warm persona. Asim cannot be mourned; he can only be celebrated. He would have hated the melodramatic statements that I am inclined to write in this remembrance.
Two of my dearest friends were close to Asim in a way that is difficult to understand. Nearly a decade ago I met Asim at Ali Dayan Hasan’s home in Karachi. I was passing through on one of my occupational breaks from my assignment in Kosovo. Ali had returned from England and joined the monthly Herald and was piecing his life together. I met this lean and quiet young man who had big, bright eyes and a unique smile. We did not talk much except for a small argument over something, perhaps about a book, but I could not help being thoroughly impressed with his viewpoint. Since then I have had a series of exchanges, verbal and electronic, in which Asim was always animated, off-beat and extremely gifted with words and ideas. No wonder his art work and many of his writings are a formidable legacy for us all.
Born into a regular upper middle class family, Asim Butt was always an exception. He was different, as he would tell me. Rejecting convention, tradition and the confines of societal expectations was therefore something that started way too early with Asim. To be fair, he did pursue a path chosen for him. He attended the Li Po Chun United World College where his gift for painting became polished, and at some level he had chartered his future course. There was some meandering: a degree in the first batch of B.Sc. in Social Sciences earned from the Lahore University of Management Sciences; and later an unfinished PhD in History from the University of California, Davis. He returned to Pakistan, wrote for the Herald and other publications, and finally enrolled himself at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture.Not surprisingly, Butt graduated with distinction in 2006.
Writing fiction
I loved Guardian's feature on Ten rules for writing fiction.
Elmore Leonard: Using adverbs is a mortal sin
1 Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead look ing for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
2 Avoid prologues: they can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in non-fiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want. There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday, but it's OK because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: "I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks."
3 Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But "said" is far less intrusive than "grumbled", "gasped", "cautioned", "lied". I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with "she asseverated" and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary.
Mystical Form of Islam Suits Sufis in Pakistan
A New York Times' piece where I was quoted.
Sources of nourishment
Rickshaw and truck poetry from Pakistan
My old friend Raza Bokhari sent me these golden lines used by our rickshaw & truck drivers to express their angst, emotion and sense of humour in a hostile environment. Before I post them, a little on the image on the right (borrowed from paklinks.com).Tau kiya yeh tay haye… (Gulbahar Bano singing)
A piece of Urdu poetry that has remained with me through seasons, years and all the vicissitudes...
This is an extraordinary ghazal (rhymed poem in Urdu composed in classical style). The poet is perhaps Saleem Kausar whose expression is subtle yet brutal. There is a sense of finality in the lyrics - a denouement that is being challenged and hence a dynamic is created that allows the tragedy of two people parting their ways to turn into a moment of absolute beauty. The sadness of the verse is augmented by Gulbahar Bano's unique voice that brings out the depth of meaning in the lines.
I can only translate the first couplet:
Tau kiya ye tay haye ke ab umr bhar nahee milna
Tau phir ye umr bhi kiyon, tum se gar nahee milna
Is it now agreed that we shall not meet for life
But what good would be living if I will not be with you
As I rendered this literal translation, I wanted to curse myself for being so inadequate with words.. Those who can understand Urdu or Hindi would know what exactly I am complaining about. I dedicate this to someone special who remains as close as time itself. In fact, I am grateful to this muse who sent it the other day bringing back the smell of summer heat, the shades of white and all the flowers that bloomed and were tucked into thick books.
Here is the ghazal
another version found on youtube:
‘My life-achievement’ – karnama e hayat
What great lines
Mera karnama-e-zindagi
Meri hasraton kay siwa nahi
Yeh kiya nahi, woh hua nahi
Yeh mila nahi, woh raha nahi
The achievement of my life is nothing
But things that could not be done
I could not do it, [or] 'that did not happen'
Did not get that and what I got, did not stay with me
Muslimness – shifting boundaries
Muslimness is an elusive state of being. There are watertight strictures of the theological identity defined by men, interpreted as the Sharia, on the one hand; and the broad political and cultural sense of the self, on the other. Identity, in any case, is a messy affair: shifty, shifting and eventually, imagined. While 9/11 placed Muslims at the centre stage of global politics, the broth had already been simmering in the cauldrons of biased academe and pop reality mirrored through the blood-thirsty lens of corporate media.
So what is it to be a Muslim? An inflexible bag of rituals? Or a cultural sense of belonging or a deeper dogma ingrained in young minds? I have never considered myself anything but a believer, a ‘practicing Muslim’. This has never been at variance with my secular and inclusive pretensions, despite the fact that the clergy in my country considers secularism akin to atheism, a sort of mirror image of the Pakistani political foundation. The clerics translate secular as la-deen , at best irreligious, and at worst, godless.
Ironical that this business of religious identity is articulated in a land that was the crucible of the secular Indus Valley civilization, non-militant Buddhism and a peculiar version of South Asian Islam that spread via the Sufi khanqahs and was a sort of amalgam of the Central Asian with the ancient South Asian. Even more ironical is the reality, neglected and veiled, that lived Islam is located around dargahs , tribal codes and customs which are irreligious in their own way. But who cares? Referred to as the world’s most dangerous country, Pakistan, according to the pundits of global opinion, is a haven for Islamic terrorists. Collateral damage, therefore, is kosher and a necessity to undo the unstated part of the ‘axis of evil’.
Labels and more labels. On the global shelves such products sell well and work in favour of a war machine hungry for energy resources, territory and blood.
Eighteen years later…
It took eighteen years to locate a friend. Much like a star, the moon, a constellation and an ancient river my friend R has been mercurial, moody and elusive. Hiding one day and emerging the other week, and missing for years.
It is for the technology that enabled me to get reconnected. There is so much to ask and years to tell. A long night of oblivion that was - blissful ignorance but somewhere an image lingered, a memory refused to fade and a star never slept. Our meeting this year will be an unpaid debt to ourselves. We parted in such a hurry and matter-of-fact-ness. Little did I know that it would take eighteen years.
I am amazed at how strongly I have felt in the recent days - it has to do with nostalgia and the slowly diminishing youth..Adulthood has phases that can only be described through experience.
I will be there soon. In the city of neems, pipals and crazy auto-rickshaws.
R, please do not go away..
Zolf bar baad – Mohsen Namjoo
Farewell, Asim
Dear Asim: you left us in such a hurry - you will be missed, always..RIP
Asim Butt: A rebel from his conventional background, Butt continues to defy the conformist meanings of family, career, security, sexuality and that elusive bourgeois pursuit of happiness. Inspired by the Stuckism movement of art, Asim holds painting as a powerful medium of communication. This standpoint brings our young Pakistani Stuckist at odds with the skin-deep novelty and claimed nihilism of “conceptual” art and postmodernism. The pursuit of art in this worldview thus merges into an impulse for a renewal of spiritual values in art and society, or what is known as “re-modernism.” More here
The tender tea house
I was quite pleased to read this piece. Aside from fact that it talks about me, the constant rememberance of Pak Tea House is a welcome sign. The memory is not fading, not yet..
From Partition onward, Nasir Khan writes, a dusty cafe was the centre of Lahore’s literary life.
Pak Tea House sits on Mall Road in Old Anarkali, nestled between tyre suppliers and motorcycle workshops. Before Partition it was the India Tea House, but 1947 and a quick paint job changed that. No one knows why it became – along with several similar shops on the same street – a favourite haunt of so many intellectuals. Maybe it was the cheap but good milky tea, or the extra-sweet biscuits. Perhaps it was the literary sensibility of the first post-Partition owners, two brothers from India. It might have been the radio on the counter that was constantly tuned to Lahore’s call-in request programme. And, for scores of struggling writers and poets, the availability of food on credit certainly had something to do with it.
The Message of The Quran : By Leopold Weiss [Muhammad Asad]
Love God for something other than Him
Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school.
Mark Slouka, Harper’s, September, 2009
Many years ago, my fiancée attempted to lend me a bit of respectability by introducing me to my would-be mother-in-law as a future Ph.D. in literature. From Columbia, I added, polishing the apple of my prospects. She wasn’t buying it. “A doctor of philosophy,” she said. “What’re you going to do, open a philosophy store?”
A spear is a spear—it doesn’t have to be original. Unable to come up with a quick response and unwilling to petition for a change of venue, I ducked into low-grade irony. More like a stand, I said. I was thinking of stocking Kafka quotes for the holidays, lines from Yeats for a buck-fifty.
And that was that. I married the girl anyway. It’s only now, recalling our exchange, that I can appreciate the significance—the poetry, really—of our little pas de deux. What we unconsciously acted out, in compressed, almost haiku-like form (A philosophy store? / I will have a stand / sell pieces of Auden at two bits a beat), was the essential drama of American education today.
Was Hussaiyn bin Mansour Al Hallaj inspired by India?
Discovering Five Dials
Accessibility of Five Dials: As for new technology, Five Dials is a very lean and flexible entity. We do not need to worry about paper stock and production cost. Unlike Granta, we’re able to turn around issues
Parveen Shakir – ‘coins of my truthfulness’
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Parveen Shakir with her mentor Qasimi whom she called Ammu |
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Young Shakir at a mushaira |
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Fifteen years later Shakir remains intensely popular. Her poetry has been reinterpreted and critics who dismissed her as a poetic lightweight have realized that there was much more to Parveen's poetic vision than just henna-dyed hands |
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Parveen Shakir (1952-1994) has defined the sensibilities of several generations and beyond. At the relatively young age of 42 years, Parveen Shakir died on an empty Islamabad boulevard, as if this was an essential part of her romantic persona. But she had lived a full life where poetry and tragedy intersected each other and became inseparable from her being.
As a young student in high school, I was introduced to Shakir’s romantic poetry, which was best represented by her first collection of poetry ‘Khushbu’. I had won an essay writing competition in Urdu and a delightful award came in the form of this tender volume of poetry. Since then I have always returned to bits and pieces of Khushbu. It may not be according to the cannons of literary theory, but it is spontaneous, fresh and almost dreamlike. Shakir was bearly 24 years old when Khushbu was published and since its first edition, this book has been a best seller wherever Urdu poetry is read or appreciated.
Khushbu turned Shakir into a celebrity. Aside from mushairas, newspapers and public fora, she was ever-present on the Pakistan television, perhaps as its only saving grace during the rigid years of Zia-ul-Haq’s Martial Law. Shakir had a natural talent for public speaking, reciting poetry and just being herself. I remember one monsoon evening in Murree when we were hooked to her presentation on Pakistan’s Independence Day. There was a distinct tenderness in her voice that was in sharp contrast to the platitudes being churned out. Above all she was beautiful. I remember she would read verses from her own work and from the great masters of Urdu poetry with complete ease and immense refinement. In the short period of time that she lived as a poet, Parveen did rather well and was quite prolific. Her later collections comprised Sad Barg (marsh merrygold), Khud Kalami (conversing with one’self), Inkaar (refusal), Maah-e-Tamaam (full moon) and Kaf-e-Aaina (edge of the mirror).
Her raw romanticism runs through her poetry. For instance, yay haseen shaam apni is a love poem of rare beauty; and has always been a favourite of mine. It is composite, taut and melodic; and here is my translation.
This melting evening of ours
Where everything dissolves
The scent of your clothes
The blossoming sprouts of my dreams
A deferred vision, this is
In a little while,
A star will emerge on the horizon
To gaze at you meaningfully…!
Your heart shall then reminisce
The echo of a memory
The tale of a separation,
Of an unfinished moment
Of un-blossomed dreams, things unsaid
We ought to have met
In times, considerate
In pursuit of attainable dreams
On a different sky
On a different earth
We ought to have met
The vanity of being quoted
A friend sent me these links and I am shamelessly posting them here:
My views on the IMF programme for Pakistan - Also here
On visiting Bangladesh as a Pakistani
My art review of Asim Butt's work
On Qurratulain Hyder, the Urdu writer
Inhospitable reception given to white women
Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan
A press release from Asia Society states the following:
Hanging Fire is the first U.S. museum exhibition to focus on contemporary art from Pakistan. Representing the current energy, vitality, and range of expression in Pakistan’s little-known yet thriving arts scene, the exhibition comprises nearly 50 works by 15 artists, and includes installation art, video, photography, painting, and sculpture. Curated by Salima Hashmi—one of the most influential and well-respected writers and curators in Pakistan—the exhibition presents a comprehensive look at recent and current trends in Pakistani art.
The exhibition begins with one of the last major works by the late artist Zahoor ul Akhlaq, considered the founder of modernism in Pakistan, who was tragically murdered in 1999 and whose work continues to influence younger artists. The recently established and distinctly Pakistani genre of contemporary miniature painting is examined through works by artists such as Mahreen Zuberi and Imran Qureshi, who skillfully manipulate the technical discipline and meaning of the hallowed illuminated Mughal manuscript tradition. Qureshi will also create a site-specific painting at Asia Society for the exhibition.
Walks around the World
I have loved these pieces by several authors who have written about their favourite walks as a collaboration between Orion and the online magazine for international literature, Words without Borders. The writers are Tomas Espedal, Manik Datar, Homero Aridjis, Sa?t Fa?k Abasiyanik, and Yuri Rytkheu (Published in the September/October 2009 issue of Orion magazine)
EVERY WALK—whether urban or rural, real or imagined—features the movement of one or more persons on foot through a particular place and some manner of dialogue that unfolds either between characters or in the narrator’s own head. Beyond that, anything can happen. From an editorial perspective, the walk is a universal narrative device for exploring a diverse sampling of cultures and places, ideas and environments. Which is why Orion teamed up with Words without Borders to jointly commission and collaterally publish a collection of short pieces, each written in a language other than English and translated, about a walk taken, remembered, or invented. Five of these pieces appear here, in the pages of Orion. To read the balance of the selections, readers are directed to the September issue of Words without Borders, which can be found at wordswithoutborders.org/internationalwalks.
A holiday cottage is what I need
I need a holiday and as I searched on the internet that great vortex of illusions, hopes and fears - I came across this site that has some excellent deals. They issue newsletters that are a great way to be informed of the best deals on offer. I intend to sign up today and be updated on idyllic holiday cottages. I have heard of the famous cornwall cottages and perhaps this site might get me some leads. Perhaps the idea of self catering holidays can be explored as well.
Revisiting Faiz
Rakhshanda Jalil's review of Coming Back Home: Selected Articles, Editorials and Interviews of Faiz Ahmed Faiz,compiled by Sheema Majid
‘Politics and history are interwoven, but not commensurate,’ said Lord Acton (1834-1902) in his inaugural lecture as Regius Professor at Cambridge in 1895. So also politics and prose, and, in the worst of times, politics and poetry. There can be no better example of this axiom in the twentieth century than the writings of the revolutionary Urdu poet, Faiz Ahmed Faiz. While most readers in South Asia are familiar with his poetry, few would have read his writings in English. Faiz wrote, prolifically and compellingly, on the events that shaped the destiny of the sub-continent.
Salaam Pakhtunkhwa
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Haligoli, (2001), a miniature by Saira Wasim – collection of |
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Peshawar, a city destroyed |
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IDPs returning to their homes |
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Wherever I went to eat, there was a meat-fest in waiting. There comes a time in life when you want to give up meat forever and that moment arrived on a dark, load-shedded night in Peshawar |
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As if a non-vegetarian diet was not enough, the scare of being smoked out by the Al-Qaeda goons was even more disturbing, dare I say, indigestible. A happy-go-lucky and overly-healthy host, as he drove us into the by-lanes of the old Peshawar that must have been beautiful once, gregariously referred to all the sites where bombs had erupted were a little disturbing. Not that I am scared of dangerous places, for I have braved a post-war Kosovo with a fair measure of bravado. But the hysterical “outsiders” ranting about how insecure we were in Peshawar was a little dampening for a Lahori soul. We do live in interesting times, made even more interesting by naïve security experts and people fed on Western media reporting on Pakistan being a truly dangerous pit-hole of the world. Sometimes the propaganda war does conquer your senses, I must confess.
So we visited the camps where thousands had been packed like sardines and where women recounted stories of bereavement and heavy-duty terror-mongering by the good Taliban as we are told that there is a clear distinction between the good and the bad Taliban. Now if the good Taliban, referred to as “patriots” not long ago, are such barbarians, I shudder to think what the bad Taliban might be like. The children at these camps were suffering even more. The heat could be unbearable and drinking water was not always available. And
Pakistan’s Urdu Columnists Live in the La-La Land of Conspiracy Theories
I was most amused in a strange, tragic way as to what nonsense is churned out as ‘opinion’ and ‘analysis in Pakistan’s mainstream vernacular media. I had once written about it as well here. True to his incisive reputation, CM Naim’s piece is extraordinarily well written and revealing. Raza Rumi
By: C.M. Naim – For the past five or six months I’ve been reading fairly regularly the web pages of three Urdu newspapers from Pakistan: Jang, Nawa-i-Waqt and the Express. I glance at the headlines cursorily then immediately turn to the columnists. Most days, each of the three carries a minimum of six columnists. Some of them are big names; they frequently appear on TV shows, get regularly invited to the President’s residence, and travel with the Prime Minister on important trips. These gentlemen never let you forget all that. One or two even give details of the food served on such occasions—there is always plenty of food served, not just a cup of tea, when they visit with any dignitary.
Macca gaya gal mukdi naahi – Bulleh Shah
Macca gaya gal mukdi naahi, chaye soe soe jumay pad aai…..
Ganga gaya gal mukdi naahi, chaye soe soe gotay khai….
Bullay shah gal tahiyoe mukdi jadoe mainu dilo gawai…..
He has afflicted you…
He has afflicted you from every direction in order
to pull you back to the Directionless.
--Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi
Selected and Translated by Muriel Maufroy
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
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Raza Rumi @ flickr
- Asim Butt's mural for T2F, Karachi
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- Asim's friends will always miss him
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- In attendance -
- The tribute to Asim Butt
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- Another mural for The Second Floor-Asim Butt
Pak Tea House
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- Dhaka by Degrees – TFT
- Documents Archive
- “Iraq’s four-year looting frenzy, the allies have become the vandals”
- “step into the tavern of ruins..”
- A little more recogniton..
- A Little poem
- A recent Book on Faiz Ahmed Faiz
- Against Forgetting and No Poem is Mine
- Another accidental painting
- Fresh translations of Faiz
- Glimpses of nineteenth century Iran
- Go not without me
- Hope – A poem by Ayesha Salman
- How Art made the World
- How the British Raj took roots in India
- I finally moved here – “You lack a foot to travel?”
- Little Flute, Why So Proud?
- Master strokes
- Mother Goddess – Indus Valley
- Murree Ghosts – my recent painting
- Music Master
- My Journey (Mera Safar): Ali Sardar Jafri
- New paintings inspired by the golden Bengal
- New translations of Parveen Shakir
- No Tolerance for Richistans – Obscene Wealth is not victimless!
- Ominous shadows
- Pakistani media – an alternative view
- Qurratulain Hyder
- Sonargaon – A poem by HUR
- Story of a Painting – Mehrgarh, Indus and Ghalib
- Sufi Zikr – inspiration for a painting
- The rescued letter of Mahatama Gandhi
- Waves of anger and fear…
- Welcome Hatshepsut
- What is arrogance?
- Faiz translated by Vikram Seth
- Faiz translations (by Rehan)
- Femme Feryal
- Halaku, when you will come to Baghdad this time…
- I found Roses in Konya… 2/3
- I found Roses in Konya… 3/3
- I will meet you yet again – Amrita Pritam
- Ideology of intolerance
- Images from Data Saheb’s Shrine
- Images from Mahboob Ali
- Jal gaya tha ik roshniyon ka shaher
- Kafka Country – published in the Friday Times
- Kafka Country published in the Friday Times
- Links
- More of Bulleh Shah – keep swooning
- Mughal Princess Zebunnissa
- Muhammad’s Sword
- Muslim Bloggers from India
- On ‘The Great War for Civilisation’
- On Qurratulain Hyder –
- On Vidya Rao
- Open the Door
- Peace to Beirut with all my heart… 2/3
- Petal to Petal …..More of Parveen Shakir
- Qasmi – Urdu literature mourns a giant 2/4
- Qasmi, Literary Fueds and National Neglect
- Rare objects discovery points to ruins treasure
- Raza Rumi
- Revisiting Kabir – the Weaver, the Myth, the Master
- Sadequain 20 years later
- Shared visions: Khushwant Singh and Fahmida Riaz 2/2
- Standing Alone in Mecca (book review)
- Surveys show that Pakistanis (and Muslims) reject “terrorism”
- Teray Ishq Nachaya – Bulleh Shah – full text
- The Lost Jewel – Rediscovering Hazrat Ali’s Letter
- The roar of Rumi – 800 years on
- The Sultan of Hearts – Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya
- This world without Dr. Schimmel… 2/3
- Tum bilkul hum jaisey nikley
- Ustad Bismillah Khan is no more
- Web resources on Qurrutalain Hyder
- Why I love Pakistan? Top 5 reasons
- Darwin and the grand unity of life
- Khusrau: The shadow of power
