In my otherwise uneventful life, something significant has
happened. It may seem unimportant to some people but it’s a big deal for
me: I finally met Qurratulain Hyder, twice, in Delhi. The journey to get
to Ainee Apa (the affectionate title bestowed on Hyder by her admirers in
the Urdu-speaking world) took fifteen long years, for despite my
familiarity with Pakistani literary circles I never met her in Pakistan.
On my recent visit to Delhi, however, fate smiled upon me.
Dr Enver Sajjad (Pakistani writer and actor) introduced me
to her writings when I was in high school and since then I have read
almost every word published by her. Once, I composed a long letter to her
that I never sent, thinking that it was a bit melodramatic to do so. Over
the years I internalised its contents and a part of me has been
perennially nurtured by the magic of her writings. I still remember the
glorious London summer when I finished Aakhir-e-Shab Ke Humsafar (Travellers
Unto the Night) during my college days; I looked around and discovered
that the world was a different place. Henceforth, I lived the better part
of my life in her books.
Ainee is arguably the greatest living Urdu writer (this
piece was written in 2005). The Times Literary Supplement once
commented that she could be counted alongside her contemporaries, Milan
Kundera and Gabriel García Márquez, as one of the world’s major living
writers. Her novels and short stories have dealt with the inextricability
of Hindu and Muslim subcultures in terms of literature, poetry and music,
and the historical forces of colonisation, independence and partition and
their impact on the current of individual lives. Her first novel was
published in 1947 and her magnum opus, Aag Ka Darya (translated by
her as River of Fire), undertook a ground-breaking examination of
issues of identity in the context of South Asian civilisation; Darya
is to Urdu fiction what One Hundred Years of Solitude is to Latin
American literature.
Born in the United Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) in 1927,
Hyder comes from an accomplished upper crust family of writers. Educated
in Lucknow, she spent a stint in London as a young reporter on Fleet
Street before emigrating to Pakistan after partition and returning to
India around 1962. Ainee was awarded the Jnanpith – India’s highest
literary award – and before that, the Sahitya Akademi, Padma Shree and
Ghalib awards.
On my first visit to Delhi, I was invited to lunch at
Ainee Apa’s house. She lives in Noida, close to Delhi. Quite symbolically,
the real-mythical Jamna River separates the two localities. In Noida, I
buy rajnigandha flowers (much loftier than the prosaic ‘tuberoses’)
and, standing under a jaman tree, wonder why life is treating me so
well. I was, after all, buying flowers for Ainee Apa.
She is entertaining a guest who had brought some books for
her to read. There is no electricity and she repeatedly apologises for the
humid afternoon and her utter helplessness in getting the supply restored.
Evidently frail, there is nevertheless something electric in her manners
and conversation. It takes me a while to register the reality of that
afternoon. Her house is full of books; I later find that each room has
bookshelves and yet more bookshelves. The walls are adorned with a
decade’s worth of her paintings, some of which I recognise as they feature
in her books.
Mindful of her legendary irritation regarding literary
small talk, which she has always considered ‘boring’, I launch into a
‘natural’ dialogue of sorts. She hurls at me several questions on the
state of Indo-Pak relations, the visa policy and my projections on the
peace process. I am a bit taken aback, my cynical self not ready to offer
coherent replies. Nevertheless, I conjure up answers that are cautiously
optimistic or, shall we say, "moderately enlightened".
She appears amused by my assertions and insists that her
generation suffered due to conflict; my contemporaries and I have to rise
to the occasion. I can appreciate her point given that the world that she
has lived in is no more; the composite Indo-Muslim culture is fast
diminishing and the RSSs and Lashkars – illegitimate children of the
historical upheavals – are better known than Mir and Kabir.
She also inquires into the state of the Pakistani
intelligentsia and I am again a little nonplussed. I lament about the
middle class and how it is not playing its historical role (except for
crass consumerism) nowadays. Then I mention Kamal, a character from
Darya, who is disillusioned by the aesthetics and politics of the
1950s but sees no option but to integrate into the changing Pakistan. She
smiles and avoids a direct answer by saying that was an old tale.
Earlier in the conversation I was chided for citing my
favourite thesis of territorial readjustment (shifting boundaries) as a
recurring theme in South Asian history. Ainee, the iconoclast,
vociferously opines that medieval trends are over and communications and
technology have changed our futures. I am struck by her buoyant thought
process and led to question my own historical determinism. I notice that
she has a terrific sense of humour, her sharp wit unaffected by her age
and illness.
We lunch in the dining room amidst more of her paintings
and books. The setting is quite cheerful as we talk of the Raj, vanishing
Anglo-Indians and Lucknow while the domestics sway hand fans. She holds
that Zia-ul-Haq’s era damaged Pakistan irretrievably. Pakistan, she adds,
was progressing before Zia took over. She recalls Pakistan’s first female
pilot, Shukriya Ahmad, the day Bhutto was hanged and how Lucknow appears
desolate. I am nothing short of enchanted. She saw Bhutto on a steamer
ship in 1954 and remembers vividly how he was ‘wading’ outside the
ballroom. Her memory is fantastic.
Lucknow is a constant point of reference that lurks in the
shadows of her conversation. Ainee insists that I should visit Lucknow on
my next trip – and I will, god (and visa) willing. I am reminded that in
Lucknow religious identities were secondary to those of the secular
Lucknavi culture and even the street vendors used language such as:
huzoor dekhiye ye jalebi aap ki mohabbat mein ghulay ja rahi hai (sir,
look at these jalebis melting in your love). I inform her that the
‘Lucknow nostalgia industry’ is vibrant in some parts of Karachi. She
likes my blasphemous remark but wonders how I can be Punjabi given that I
speak Urdu! But I am now used to this identity crisis.
Getting rather familiar, I start discussing her books and,
of course, the narrator. Her answers are delightfully original and utterly
self-effacing. She recounts how her parents were born at least a hundred
years before their time. Her father’s liberal outlook and her mother’s
love for the arts were the inspiration for Ainee to devote her life to
writing. She never got married; it was quite evident that she could not
have met a man capable of complementing her. I suppose the rich inner
universe makes up for the ‘loneliness’ syndrome in exceptional
individuals.
When I mention a real character, the Calcutta
singer/courtesan Gohar Jaan (who died in 1930) from her novel
Gardish-e-Rang-e-Chaman, she is most excited. I tell her that a
musicologist friend has discovered some thumris in her original voice.
(These I deliver to her during my second visit, and when we listen to them
she is in a state of disbelief.) She asks me to search for the music of
Janki Bai, another luminary of the early 20th century. (When I later call
my musicologist friend to request that he dig out Janki’s music, he is
stunned when I tell him why.) Ainee is fluent in the language of music;
she co-authored a book on Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan and in her heyday
played the piano and the sitar with equal ease.
She corrects me when I use the term ahistorical (she calls
it anti-historical), noting the systematic destruction of heritage across
the subcontinent. We talk about her discovery of the first subcontinental
novel written by Hasan Shah in 1790 – The Nautch Girl – which she
translated in 1992. She is angry that no one bothered until she unearthed
the manuscript from the Patna Library. We drift back into lost eras and
she remarks that Dara Shikoh was a 21st century man. Small wonder that he
was beheaded in the 17th century, I respond.
On my second visit, our conversation ends when Ainee,
pre-empting my melodrama, warns me, "now don’t you do the conventional: it
was great that I finally met you as I have been dying to meet you for so
many years." She also mocks a shudh (pure) Hindi version at me. We
laugh endlessly and I tell her that all the clichés are true and need to
be expressed shamelessly.
As I leave, I promise that I will return very soon to
present her with Janki Bai’s music. My undelivered letter to Ainee is
getting longer… I shall need a lifetime to complete it. n