A Thousand Yearnings Read online

  This engagement was not just intellectual. During his thirty years as head of Urdu studies in SOAS, he spent one in every seven years in India and Pakistan, where he lived with Urdu-speaking friends and personally came to know many of the great Urdu writers of the time. He stayed in the homes of Krishan Chander, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, and knew many others prominent in the Progressive Writers’ Association. He regularly spent time with staff of Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia, and lectured in Delhi University. Back in the UK, he dressed for comfort in his own home in kurta and paijama, and enjoyed Indian food more than any other. He was an atheist all his life (as were many of his friends among the Urdu writers), yet he developed a respectful understanding of how his Muslim friends viewed things. He had South Asian standards of hospitality, and adapted it to his own personal lack of concern for status. When people came to stay over he insisted—even in his eighties—on them having the only bed in his small flat while he slept on rolled-out bedding on the floor. He believed deeply in the equal value of all people, and the literature that he most easily identified with shared these beliefs. Unlike many academics, he prioritized teaching, and gave immense care to producing language teaching materials that helped his students become fluent. His enthusiasm inspired his students, many of whom remained lifelong friends and went on to assist him in teaching Urdu to English speaking adults in multi-ethnic communities in the UK.

  His training in other languages undoubtedly contributed to his skill as a translator, though ultimately the feel for words is something that cannot be learnt. Working alongside him for twenty-six years I was often struck by the fact that where I might remember the substance of a conversation, he would remember the actual words used. He had an instinctive feel for the rhythm of both prose and poetry. He also had an enormous store of songs learnt from childhood on, and would often spontaneously start singing something someone had just said, because the speech rhythm reminded him of a tune he knew. The translation part of his brain seemed to work effortlessly, and was something akin to the skill of interpreters in international conferences. When asked to translate prose of a not particularly literary kind—a straight narrative, or a letter—he could record a natural English translation onto cassette, without reading it through first, or pausing to think. Afterwards he would play it back and check, but he seldom needed to change anything. Literary prose was a different matter and poetry even more so. He took great care to be sure he had understood and captured the nuances; and with poetry, that he could render the poet’s complex thought in natural English, within the framework of poetic metre.

  Such breadth of understanding has informed his selection of this introductory taste of Urdu literature.

  ~

  I had a small part in the origins of this book. I met Ralph in 1982, shortly after he had retired from SOAS. I was getting to know Urdu speakers through my work organizing English classes, and I asked if he would teach me Urdu. All I aimed for was to be able to have simple conversations—I had no thought that I would ever learn to read the Urdu script or explore its literature. But in our lessons Ralph would often quote a couplet of poetry, or refer to something an Urdu writer had said. I was intrigued, and asked if he could suggest something for me to read. He laughed and said, ‘Well, you could read my books.’ I had no idea that he had written any. He gave me two books that he and Khurshidul Islam had produced on classical poets. I loved them, and wanted more. Did he have anything I could read about the other writers he referred to? Premchand? Ismat Chugtai? Hali? Each time he would go to his filing cabinet and pull out an old copy of an article or a translation, written decades earlier and published in some obscure journal. There seemed to be something in that treasure trove on every writer I asked about, and each opened a new door. I knew there would be lots of other people who would find them as interesting as I did,but would never have my luck in finding them.‘You should get them published as a book,’ I said. And that’s how it started.

  We planned and edited together, discussing how to arrange the pieces to make a coherent whole. I was the test reader, suggesting changes or additions to make the historical context intelligible to readers who knew nothing about the society reflected in the literature. As a result Ralph generously dedicated the first edition of this book to me, describing me as ‘the ideal audience’. All he meant was that I was the kind of person he had in mind when translating Urdu literature—someone who would be interested to read it, but who could do so only through translations.

  In the end two publishers were interested in taking on the project, and because of their differing interests, it became two books. Ralph regarded them as companion volumes. The Pursuit of Urdu Literature:A Select History, was published in 1993. The first edition of this book followed in 1995.

  Before Ralph’s death he asked me to be his Literary Executor, and it is my privilege to be responsible for keeping his work in print. We had worked so closely together that he was happy for me to make any decisions needed in editing them. The minor changes I have made in order, layout or text, are intended only to make clearer what Ralph has presented. I am delighted to have been able to include transcriptions of the Urdu originals of ghazal verses—something Ralph had always wanted to do, but the original publishers had not been able to accommodate. For those new to Urdu, I have added a note on pronunciation using this transcription, and for those who would like to read more, there is an appendix on Ralph’s other writings on Urdu literature.

  The original title of this book was Hidden in the Lute: An Anthology of Two Centuries of Urdu Literature. The phrase ‘hidden in the lute’ comes from a translation of a couplet by Ghalib, and Ralph’s Introduction explains what the phrase suggested. By the second edition, the publisher had dropped the phrase and called the book simply An Anthology of Urdu Literature. That does not seem an adequate title for such a personal selection, so for this new edition we have chosen a phrase from another ghazal couplet, this time by Mir:

  My love, I cannot tell the tale of all the things I want from you.

  A hundred longings fill my soul, a thousand yearnings throng my heart.

  The second line is an example of the intensity of expression for which Urdu poetry is widely known. It is a vehicle for the expression of universal emotions: desire, hopes, dreams, and tragedies. Through the breadth of Ralph’s own appreciation of this literature, and his extraordinarily sensitive translations, we are offered an insight into the thoughts and concerns of people across two centuries for whom Urdu was the natural medium. The result is often entertaining, sometimes moving, and always enlightening.

  Marion Molteno

  SHORT STORIES AND SKETCHES

  Short Stories and Sketches

  The short story is one of the most common genres in modern Urdu literature. Its popularity was established in the early decades of the twentieth century, especially the 1920s and 1930s—a period of tremendous social and political upheaval which also resulted in vigorous cultural growth. All the stories and sketches in this section are products of this period, as indeed are the other genres represented here. It was a period in which the Indian struggle for independence first drew in a great mass of people, and the feeling rapidly grew that ‘freedom’ must mean ‘freedom for all’—not just an end to British rule but an end also to the age-old exploitation of the poor, which had been a feature of Indian life long before the coming of the British.

  Writers who held this view came together in 1936 to form the Progressive Writers’ Association, and all the writers represented in this section except Shaukat Thanavi gave it their active support. The PWA, as it was known, included writers working in many Indian languages, but in no other language did it exert so great an influence as it did in Urdu. Its first conference was presided over by the forerunner of this approach to literature, Premchand (1880–1936), one of the greatest writers of twentieth-century India. A generation older than most of the PWA writers, he was a major figure in both Urdu and Hindi literature. He produced his own versions in bo
th languages of almost everything he wrote—altogether nearly 300 short stories and twelve novels—and in them one finds an unparalleled picture of the life of Indian people. His first stories were published before the First World War, but it is those from the 1920s and early 1930s that are the basis of his fame. His outlook moved from that of a rather naïve nationalist, through being influenced by Gandhi’s concern for the poor, to a many-sided realism about the social conflicts of his time. The story I have included here, A Wife’s Complaint (in Urdu, Shikva Shikayat), shows some of his characteristic qualities—keen observation and sympathetic interest in the lives of ordinary people, and a wry, affectionate humour.

  In Urdu a major challenge to traditional values in literature came in 1932 when a group of young writers published a collection of short stories entitled Angaarey (Burning Coals). It raised an uproar and was condemned by men who had never read it, because it was said to challenge traditional roles of women, write explicitly about intimate relationships, and satirize aspects of religion. It was banned by the British administration, and has only recently been republished. The only woman in the group was a remarkable young doctor, Rashid Jahan (1905–1952) whose intimate knowledge of the lives of Indian Muslim women is evident in her stories and one-act plays. Her short sketch included here, Behind the Veil (Parde ke Peeche), comes from Angaarey. For a modern reader it may be difficult to see why it was regarded as so shocking. For Urdu readers of the time, however, the dramatic impact derived from the fact that it was the kind of conversation among married women in purdah that they would commonly engage in in private, but would die rather than have it made public. Its authenticity is not in doubt. There had been women writers before her but none who portrayed so bluntly the callousness women suffer at the hands of their menfolk. Preoccupation with her medical practice and with the organization of the Progressive Writers’ Association took up much of her time, and this along with her early death from cancer meant that her literary output was necessarily small.

  Significantly, three of the stories here depict the lives of outcasts from respectable society, denied the same basic respect as any other human being. The first is by Ismat Chughtai (1915–1991), one of the most powerful of the PWA writers. She wrote short stories, sketches, essays, plays, novelettes and novels. Her work, like that of Rashid Jahan, whom she greatly admired, is at its most powerful when she portrays the life of women. Her frank handling of hitherto ‘forbidden’ themes stirred up much controversy when her work was first published in the 1930s. She went on writing all her life, and her place as a major figure in Urdu is assured. She depicts vividly, ruthlessly, and at the same time with the deepest sympathy the lives of women in Urdu-speaking society of the time, writing with an authenticity no male writer could have matched. These stories are told largely in the specific language of women, which since they lived in a world so largely separate from that of the men, has long had its own vocabulary and turns of phrase. The one included here is Tiny’s Granny (Nannhi ki Nani), about a poor destitute woman who lives by her wits.

  Saadat Hasan Manto (1912–1955) is, like Ismat Chughtai, distinguished by the skill with which he handles themes which had previously not been admitted to literature, though his range is wider. His stories have an appealing quality of a sort of informal, often ironic, yet sympathetic approach to his characters. He was provoked by what he saw as the dishonesty of many writers at the time in refusing to face reality. The story included here, The Black Shalwar (Kali Shalwar), about a prostitute, was shocking to his more conventional contemporaries because it did not sit in judgement on her or her lover. Some of his best stories treat bluntly, and with bitter irony, the terrible Hindu-Muslim riots which accompanied the coming of independence and the partitioning of the subcontinent in 1947. Afterwards, he became an alcoholic and virtually drank himself to death.

  Krishan Chander (1914–1977) was the most prolific of all the progressive writers. He worked tirelessly to realize the PWA’s aim of bringing the arts ‘into the closest touch with the people,’ and he gave readings to huge audiences made up of people who were mostly not literate. During the Hindu-Muslim riots around the time of Partition, he wrote story after story driving home the message that all decent people must abhor the communal killings and do their best to stop them. Some estimates put the number of his short stories at approximately 5000; he also wrote a few novels and plays. Not surprisingly, many of his stories were of indifferent quality, but the best are excellent and make a direct, simple appeal to his readers’ human sympathies. The story I have selected is Kalu Bhangi.

  The section ends with two extracts from personal memoirs, which give different insights into family values of the time.Love and Prudence, from the autobiography of Shaukat Thanavi (1904–1963) illustrates the major features of marriage and love in traditional South Asian societies, where marriages are seen as alliances between families, and not as a partnership based upon the mutual free choice of the boy and the girl. Falling in love, or imagining that one has fallen in love, has all the romantic attraction of the illicit, and many young people enjoy in fantasy an experience which they would hesitate to risk in real life. The penalties of pursuing the course which true love dictates—described more fully in the section on love poetry—are sufficiently severe to deter young people from embarking upon it, or at any rate from persevering in it.

  The last piece is Hellbound (Dozakhi), Ismat Chughtai’s vivid and affectionate description of her older brother.

  A significant feature of the writers in this section is that not all are Muslim. I have explained in the Introduction that for the most part, Urdu literature has been the literature of the Muslims of South Asia: not in the sense that it was hostile to non-Muslim communities—indeed classical Urdu poetry emphatically asserts the right of all humankind to love and respect—but in the sense that it was the product of Muslim writers portraying the life of their own community. But in the twenties of the twentieth century this situation changed. Of the seven writers presented in this section two were Hindus: Premchand and Krishan Chander; yet the Muslim-Hindu distinction is mostly irrelevant to their work. All of them are concerned with human beings, not as Muslims or Hindus, but simply as human beings, and the whole scope of Urdu literature is thereby broadened.

  A Wife’s Complaint

  PREMCHAND

  I’ve spent the greater part of my life in this house, but I’ve never had any peace. I expect that in the eyes of the world my husband is a very good man—good, courteous, generous, and alert. But it’s only when things happen to you that you know what they’re really like. The world likes to praise people who make their homes a hell, but are willing to ruin themselves for outsiders. A man may be ready to die for his family, but the world doesn’t praise him; instead it thinks him selfish, mean, narrow-minded, arrogant, and stupid. So why should a man’s family praise him if he is ready to die for outsiders? Look at him. He is a trial to me from morning till night. Send him to get something and he’ll get it from a shop where no one else would even dream of going. In shops like that there’s nothing in good condition; and they don’t give you full weight; and they don’t charge reasonable prices. If there weren’t all these things wrong with them, how could they have got a bad name? But with him it’s like a disease. It’s only in shops like these that he’ll do the shopping. I’ve told him time and again, ‘Go to a shop that’s doing well. They have a faster turnover, and so the stuff that you get is fresh.’ But no, he feels a sympathy for the little, struggling shopkeepers, and they take advantage of him. He’ll bring home the worst wheat in the market, with weevils in it, and rice so coarse that an ox wouldn’t look at it, and lentils full of grit, so hard that you can use any amount of firewood trying to cook them, but they won’t soften. Ghee that is half oil, priced at only a fraction less than pure ghee. Hair oil that is adulterated; put it on, and your hair all sticks together—and he’ll pay the same for it as you pay for the best quality jasmine oil. You’d think he was afraid to go t
o any shop that’s thriving. Perhaps he goes by the saying ‘Fine shop-front, tasteless food.’ My experience tells me,‘Grubby shop, rotten food.’

  If all this happened only occasionally you could put up with it. You can’t put up with it when it happens day after day. I ask him why he goes to these wretched shops. Has he signed a contract to look after them? He says, ‘When they see me they call out to me.’ Wonderful! All they have to do is call him across and flatter him a little, and he feels wonderful and no longer notices what rubbishy stuff they’re giving him. I ask him,‘Why do you go that way? Why don’t you go some other way? Why do you encourage these thieves?’ No answer. Silence fends off no end of troubles.

  Once I had to have a piece of my jewellery repaired. I knew his lordship, and didn’t see any need to ask him about it. I sent for a goldsmith I knew by sight. It so happened that he was there at the time. He said,‘You can’t trust this lot. They’ll swindle you. I know a goldsmith. He went to school with me and when we were little we used to play together all the time. He won’t try any tricks with me.’ I thought, ‘Well, if he’s his friend, and a childhood friend at that, he’s bound to have some regard for that friendship.’ So I handed over a gold ornament and 50 rupees—and God knows what rogue the good man gave it to. I had to pester him for years together, and when it came back the ‘gold’ was half copper and he’d made it into something so ugly that I couldn’t bear the sight of it. Something I’d wanted for years was ruined, and all I could do was cry over it and then make the best of it. Such are his faithful friends who aren’t ashamed to cut his throat for him. And he only makes friends with people who are half-starved, poor, penniless creatures whose trade it is to make friends with purblind people like him. Every day one or other of these gentlemen turns up to pester him; and they don’t let go until he gives them something.