Adab Ki Alif, Be, Te

My maternal grandmother had, of course, seen Mughal coins, but in my childhood, I only saw two coins: the Queen's one-anna coin, which had become quite worn out, and George V's bright pice with its raised portrait. Now, both of these coins are out of circulation. However, the term Great Man is still in use. Terms, metaphors, and concepts are like coins. They circulate well in their own time. When the currency of time changes, their value drops too. Yet, traditional writers do not test their words, metaphors, phrases, and concepts on a touchstone; assuming them to still be valid currency, they continue to use them until their dying breath.

Three worn-out coins from the Queen's era:

(1) Josh Malihabadi's rational poetry.

(2) The atheism of Niaz Fatehpuri and the new generation.

(3) Humanism.

A few metaphors that have gathered mold: dawn, darkness, the highwayman, the guide. Metaphors of classical poetry that lost their meaning at the hands of the new Progressive poets: the gallows and the noose, the prison, the cage, Mansoor. Pre-Mutiny words, tones, and phrases whose edges have worn smooth: God forbid, heaven forbid, lamps of blood, the flag, deep silence, the void, sobs, the sky, society, the dusk, silken garments, the sorrow of love, the sorrow of the world, great literature, universality, eternal values, individuality, creative depth, and pathos.

The rusted proverbs of Urdu criticism:

(1) Literature is the criticism of life.

(2) Literature and life are inextricably linked.

(3) Literature is the expression of personality.

(4) Literature is propaganda.

(5) All literature is a representative of its environment.

(6) Literature is born from a consciousness of tradition.

Worn-out two-anna and four-anna coins: Rimbaud, Baudelaire, T.S. Eliot, Ghalib, Gorky, Maupassant.

*

Every era brings its own recipes for producing literature. The recipe for producing new poetry is to take any of the following as a title and compose a poem: a clerk, a radio announcer, a nurse, a courtesan, some ancient royal building, a dancer, world peace, or hunger.

A newer recipe for creating new poetry: choose a character from Greek mythology. Bind them in highly Persianized Urdu. Sprinkle a little Jung on top, and try your hand at the following subject: the threat of nuclear war.

The trick to forging a new *ghazal* is to use the names of modern objects in your couplets. For example: chair, bicycle, telephone, train, signal.

*

Two things have proven to be the most fatal for Urdu literature: humanism and the homespun *khaddar kurta*. A person's entire being is realized through love, not through mere friendship or philanthropy; and those whose hatred is not profound cannot have a profound love either. As for the matter of the *khaddar kurta*, whether it is ascetic saffron or blue, its ultimate destination in Pakistan is, in any case, the motorcar. That feudal era has passed when Saadat Hasan Manto would wear a white muslin *kurta* and head out onto The Mall in a tonga. Now, tongas are banned on Lahore's Mall Road, and new values have taken the shape of the motorcar.

Literature and the motorcar are two entirely different values. Literature is not simply the act of scribbling down a poem or a short story. Literature is a mental attitude, a way of living; the motorcar is a completely different lifestyle. Literature and the motorcar cannot be brought together. The reason is that a motorcar moves fast, and it is a universal rule that when the ride speeds up, the vehicle of literature grinds to a halt. For instance, ever since Pakistani writers began traveling in airplanes through the Writers' Guild, they have stopped writing. And in the time it took Ibn-e-Insha to tour all of Europe, I was only able to write a single short story.

When Maulana Muhammad Husain Azad would travel from Lahore's Akbari Gate toward Government College, his horse would move very slowly, but his prose gallops at full speed. Faiz Ahmad Faiz's car moves very fast. His poetic line, however, merely ambles along.

*

The company of four types of people disrupts a writer's creative work: a quarrelsome wife, a talkative intellectual, a competent teacher, and a bureaucrat who patronizes literature.

*

It is an established fact that Abdul Aziz Khalid has indeed written his poems in Urdu. There is a technical flaw found in Jafar Tahir's cantos: if you start reading them, they do eventually come to an end.

*

There are three methods for writing in the style of Mir. First, write your couplets in a short meter or the gracefully pacing meter of *fa'al fa'al*. Add the suffix Jee or Sahib to your pen name. Second, take the theme of any one of Mir's couplets, invert it, and add it to the tradition. For example, if in Mir's couplet a journey ends with a blistered foot, you should fearlessly follow Mir by declaring that the journey begins with a blister. As for the third method, you will have to ask Firaq Sahib.

*

To write *Rekhta* in the style of Ghalib, do the following:

(1) Use Persian constructs and genitive compounds recklessly.

(2) Adopt a habit of philosophizing.

(3) The third method Mirza Yagana took to the grave with him.

*

The methods for becoming an intellectual are many and vast in their details, but I will ignore them so that this essay does not become too long. Briefly, a few methods are listed below:

(1) Deviate from the norm: smoke a pipe among cigarette smokers, and in the company of pipe smokers, endure the misery of smoking cheap *Bagla* cigarettes. Furthermore, avoid milk and sugar in your tea, and drink your coffee black.

(2) Carry books of various disciplines under your arm so that your steps appear weighed down by knowledge.

(3) Keep a library card from a foreign library in your pocket.

(4) Establish a connection with new isms and remain engrossed in the search for myth.

(5) I will tell you the fifth method after asking Qurratulain Hyder.

Tried and tested recipes for becoming cultured:

(1) Cultivate a passion for abstract painting, classical music, Western symphonies, and architecture.

(2) Attend painting exhibitions, music conferences, and receptions held in honor of visiting American cultural troupes.

(3) Memorize Toynbee's quote about Islam.

(4) Initiate debates on Pakistani culture. It is not necessary to actually know anything about Gandhara art, Taxila, or Mohenjo-Daro, but never forget to reference them.

(5) Stay in touch with UNESCO and Ijaz Husain Batalvi.

My maternal grandmother had, of course, seen Mughal coins, but in my childhood, I only saw two coins: the Queen's one-anna coin, which had become quite worn out, and George V's bright pice with its raised portrait. Now, both of these coins are out of circulation. However, the term Great Man is still in use. Terms, metaphors, and concepts are like coins. They circulate well in their own time. When the currency of time changes, their value drops too. Yet, traditional writers do not test their words, metaphors, phrases, and concepts on a touchstone; assuming them to still be valid currency, they continue to use them until their dying breath.

Three worn-out coins from the Queen's era:

(1) Josh Malihabadi's rational poetry.

(2) The atheism of Niaz Fatehpuri and the new generation.

(3) Humanism.

A few metaphors that have gathered mold: dawn, darkness, the highwayman, the guide. Metaphors of classical poetry that lost their meaning at the hands of the new Progressive poets: the gallows and the noose, the prison, the cage, Mansoor. Pre-Mutiny words, tones, and phrases whose edges have worn smooth: God forbid, heaven forbid, lamps of blood, the flag, deep silence, the void, sobs, the sky, society, the dusk, silken garments, the sorrow of love, the sorrow of the world, great literature, universality, eternal values, individuality, creative depth, and pathos.

The rusted proverbs of Urdu criticism:

(1) Literature is the criticism of life.

(2) Literature and life are inextricably linked.

(3) Literature is the expression of personality.

(4) Literature is propaganda.

(5) All literature is a representative of its environment.

(6) Literature is born from a consciousness of tradition.

Worn-out two-anna and four-anna coins: Rimbaud, Baudelaire, T.S. Eliot, Ghalib, Gorky, Maupassant.

*

Every era brings its own recipes for producing literature. The recipe for producing new poetry is to take any of the following as a title and compose a poem: a clerk, a radio announcer, a nurse, a courtesan, some ancient royal building, a dancer, world peace, or hunger.

A newer recipe for creating new poetry: choose a character from Greek mythology. Bind them in highly Persianized Urdu. Sprinkle a little Jung on top, and try your hand at the following subject: the threat of nuclear war.

The trick to forging a new *ghazal* is to use the names of modern objects in your couplets. For example: chair, bicycle, telephone, train, signal.

*

Two things have proven to be the most fatal for Urdu literature: humanism and the homespun *khaddar kurta*. A person's entire being is realized through love, not through mere friendship or philanthropy; and those whose hatred is not profound cannot have a profound love either. As for the matter of the *khaddar kurta*, whether it is ascetic saffron or blue, its ultimate destination in Pakistan is, in any case, the motorcar. That feudal era has passed when Saadat Hasan Manto would wear a white muslin *kurta* and head out onto The Mall in a tonga. Now, tongas are banned on Lahore's Mall Road, and new values have taken the shape of the motorcar.

Literature and the motorcar are two entirely different values. Literature is not simply the act of scribbling down a poem or a short story. Literature is a mental attitude, a way of living; the motorcar is a completely different lifestyle. Literature and the motorcar cannot be brought together. The reason is that a motorcar moves fast, and it is a universal rule that when the ride speeds up, the vehicle of literature grinds to a halt. For instance, ever since Pakistani writers began traveling in airplanes through the Writers' Guild, they have stopped writing. And in the time it took Ibn-e-Insha to tour all of Europe, I was only able to write a single short story.

When Maulana Muhammad Husain Azad would travel from Lahore's Akbari Gate toward Government College, his horse would move very slowly, but his prose gallops at full speed. Faiz Ahmad Faiz's car moves very fast. His poetic line, however, merely ambles along.

*

The company of four types of people disrupts a writer's creative work: a quarrelsome wife, a talkative intellectual, a competent teacher, and a bureaucrat who patronizes literature.

*

It is an established fact that Abdul Aziz Khalid has indeed written his poems in Urdu. There is a technical flaw found in Jafar Tahir's cantos: if you start reading them, they do eventually come to an end.

*

There are three methods for writing in the style of Mir. First, write your couplets in a short meter or the gracefully pacing meter of *fa'al fa'al*. Add the suffix Jee or Sahib to your pen name. Second, take the theme of any one of Mir's couplets, invert it, and add it to the tradition. For example, if in Mir's couplet a journey ends with a blistered foot, you should fearlessly follow Mir by declaring that the journey begins with a blister. As for the third method, you will have to ask Firaq Sahib.

*

To write *Rekhta* in the style of Ghalib, do the following:

(1) Use Persian constructs and genitive compounds recklessly.

(2) Adopt a habit of philosophizing.

(3) The third method Mirza Yagana took to the grave with him.

*

The methods for becoming an intellectual are many and vast in their details, but I will ignore them so that this essay does not become too long. Briefly, a few methods are listed below:

(1) Deviate from the norm: smoke a pipe among cigarette smokers, and in the company of pipe smokers, endure the misery of smoking cheap *Bagla* cigarettes. Furthermore, avoid milk and sugar in your tea, and drink your coffee black.

(2) Carry books of various disciplines under your arm so that your steps appear weighed down by knowledge.

(3) Keep a library card from a foreign library in your pocket.

(4) Establish a connection with new isms and remain engrossed in the search for myth.

(5) I will tell you the fifth method after asking Qurratulain Hyder.

Tried and tested recipes for becoming cultured:

(1) Cultivate a passion for abstract painting, classical music, Western symphonies, and architecture.

(2) Attend painting exhibitions, music conferences, and receptions held in honor of visiting American cultural troupes.

(3) Memorize Toynbee's quote about Islam.

(4) Initiate debates on Pakistani culture. It is not necessary to actually know anything about Gandhara art, Taxila, or Mohenjo-Daro, but never forget to reference them.

(5) Stay in touch with UNESCO and Ijaz Husain Batalvi.