Divya

Divya by Yashpal, 1945

Translated by Anand

I was never taught in school that Sialkot was the seat of a great Greek kingdom of Madra, a century after Alexander roved through the area. Milinda, also known as Menander, a Greek prince, born in present day Bagram, Afghanistan (the notorious airbase and the jail camp) came and founded the Kingdom of Marda in present day Sialkot. He defeated the Brahmin Paurav caste system dynasty. It led to a long duration of peace and harmony where the ruling aristocracy consisted of Greeks, High caste, "double-born" Brahmin Hindus and Buddhist.

Later in life, Milinda entered Buddhism and it changed the politics of the area.

Their sociopolitical life was somewhat analogous to the un-partitioned India of recent centuries where indigenous Indians of different religions and sects interacted with invaders from the Northwest and the result was a mix of assimilation and separations. Greeks and Buddhists married within and with the ex-slaves. Hindus of high caste, tried to remain genetically pure while mixing socially in every other way. They all tolerated each other, but carried an undercurrent of sense of superiority for themselves and disdain for the other.

A result of Milinda accepting pacifism was the loss of military edge his rule had. It did not need military might as everybody was happy. But later it became tempting for neighboring states to eye Sagal. The king of Darva in the Northeast was planning to attach Sagal.

I always wondered that how Buddhism which was widely practiced in its place of birth, India, got wiped out. This book, set in that historical time, provides some hints of that.

It is in this background that Yashpal has based his historical fiction, Divya. It is blurred where the history ends and fiction kicks in. 

This is first century BC and Milinda is off the scene. He had abolished dynastic power, freed all the slaves of his state on conversion to Buddhism. After he leaves the scene without any successor, Sagal is ruled by a Council. Hundred years old commander in chief of Army, a Greek, is now the President of the state. There is a Chairman of the Republic Council is a Brahmin high caste Hindu. Some of lower castes and even ex slaves, based on their success in business, have made it to the aristocracy, although may not be able as yet to be on the council itself. The ex-slaves and commoners however could gain high position if they join military and eventually could become part of the ruling class. Not much different form the present times. Slowly the society has started to tilt again in the direction of High Castes and the Buddhist influence started to wane.

The Chief Justice is a centurion, a Brahmin, whose father was kept in the same position when Milinda conquered Sagal. Later he inherited his father’s position.

Divya is a young great granddaughter of the Chief Justice, who learnt to be a dancer at the acclaimed school of the Court Dancer and Laureate of Art, Devi Mallika. At the Festival of the Spring, she wins the dance competition to be declared the Daughter of Saraswati. At the same festival, Prithusen, a son of ex slave turned a business magnate and himself a young graduate of military academy wins the men’s competition of marksmanship, defeating sons of Greek, Brahmin and Kashtriyans aristocracy.  Still he is denied the privilege to give his shoulder to the palanquin of Diyva, the winner of the dance competition. Rudhradhir, son of the Chairman of the Council and a high caste Hindu stops him from doing that. At the same scene is an atheist and convicted sculpturist Marish who speaks openly against the religion and the establishment. Banished at times, he is still tolerated.

These three men keep on reappearing in the tumultuous life of Divya.

What follows is a high drama which moves at a comfortable pace, but takes unexpected turns; something typical of Yashpal. It is laces with masterpieces of innate wisdom and profound inner sight by ordinary characters.  All the characters have their ups and downs.

Divya self-surrenders to the love of her life and then she realizes gradually that she has to pay a price for that. She has to run away. Dejected time and again, she tries to kill herself. She survives and moves on to see further vicissitudes of life.

The three male characters cross their path with her at one time or another and the suspense remains.

The essence of the story is a lesson Divya learns when in desperation she tries to enter a Buddhist safe house but denied entry by the priest as she does not have the permission of any males of her family: father, husband, brother or son. She argues that Buddha himself had given shelter to a prostitute. In reply the priest tells her that a prostitute is a free woman. A prostitute is more independent than a high caste woman. This profound realization that a woman was a slave of man, no matter what caste she belonged to, was too much for contemporaries of Yashpal, and he paid a price for that.

In choosing her path, Divya becomes an independent woman. Whether she keeps her independence or gives in to another chance of reinduction as a high caste woman, is the story is all about.

Yashpal's female protagonists are strong women. Their resilience surprises you. 

A comrade of Baghat Singh and Chandrashekar Azad, Yashpal had gone to jail for his views and actions. Coming out of prison, he lived a life of a successful writer, and never looked back. 

I got introduced to Yashpal through his seminal work, Jhoota Sach, which is all about Lahore and Partition. It was introduced by his son Anand, who had translated it in English in the Urdu Conference at NYU New York early in 2019. (You can read my earlierb about that). I read that in Urdu and then in English. The present book is also translated by Anand.

It was given to me as a present by my son. Thank you, Danial.

Tareekh-e-Punjab by Rai Bahadur Kanhaiya Lal, XEN Lahore

Rai Bahadur Kanhaiya Lal was Executive Engineer (XEn) of Lahore in British India. Construction of Mayo Hospital is considered one of his achievements. 


A bona fide Lahori, he was a loyal supporter of the British Raj. He has written several books including Tareekh e Punjab and Tareekh e Lahore.  He was a poet in Persian and Urdu and used ‘Hindi” as his takhalus. Working full time, he tended to his artistic endeavors and writings prolifically in the afterhours. 


He had written a book in Persian poetry, ‘Zafar Nama-e-Ranjit Singh’, life story of Ranjit Singh. In the preface of Tareekh e Punjab, written in 1875, he mentions that by that time, seven hundred copies were already printed. It was this work, which he decided to present in Urdu prose and finalized in the form of Tareekh e Punjab.

I picked up this book a few years back on a book store but did not have the opportunity to read it until now. It is interesting in many ways. First is my personal bias, and I have no embarrassment in acknowledging it, I am fascinated by Urdu written by non-Muslims. On top of it, it is the Urdu of late 19^th century. It is very florid in style and grammatically a bit different than the way we construct a sentence these days. It adds to the beauty of it. It is a lot more Persianized than today’s Urdu and one may have to open the dictionary for a few words.  Like Mughak, Surghubash, qataial tariqa, matawan,. This experience of reading Urdu in its finest form is enough of a reason to enjoy the reading. But there is much more than that.


SET UP OF THE BOOK:

It starts with a Hamd, a poem in praise of God.

It is named Tareekh e Punjab, ie the History of Punjab, but essentially it is the history of Sikhism. It starts with the life story of Guru Nanak, and then details the account of all the Gurus of Sikh faith. Next is the history of turmoil after the death of the last guru and the constant infights for Lahore between the Mughals and Afghans, leading to the rise of the Sikh misls. There is a chapter on the twelve misls and then the bulk of the book is about the life of Ranjit Singh. Next chapter details the history of Sikh rule and its gradual downfall after Ranjit Singh’s death and ends with the fall of Lahore to the British Raj. One chapter is the district wise account of the 1857 mutiny and how it played out in Punjab. Last chapter is about the history of Jammu and Kashmir as it is quite entwined with the history of Punjab, esp. the role of the Dogra family.

Kanhaiya Lal is an anglophile and is full of praise of the British and all the Lord Bahadurs and Nawab Bahadurs of the Company. He generally shows deference to Sikhs and Ranjit Singh but whenever there is a comparative note, he clearly shows his bias towards the ‘greatness’ and ‘magnanimity’ of the British and the ‘savagery’ of the Sikhs.

After finishing the book, I picked up another book which I had read longtime before and which covered more or less the same time frame, ‘Ranjit Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab” by Kushwant Singh. That is the first, of not the only book written by a Sikh about Ranjit Singh. It is interesting to note that how a Sikh and a loyal servant of British Raj would look at the same time frame and events in the history differently. To me it seemed that, even if both had reasons to have their biases, Kanhaiya Lal took more liberty with history than Khushwant Singh.

A few of the things which were either not known to me before or were made clearer after reading the book were as follows. 


Guru Nanak and the Gurus:

Sikhism gave Punjabi language the status of a religious language. Until then, it was either Sanskrit for Hindus and Arabic for Muslims. It allowed followers of this religion to practice the rituals and communicate with the deities in their own language. (some of it is written by Muslims)

Most of the Gurus including Gurn Nanak were kashtaris. Nanak did not pass on the baton to his sons but make a non-relative his successor. The later gurus were not related either till the Third Guru Amar Das decided to give the leadership to his daughter Bhani, He was impressed by her dedication to him as she did not let her father know while helping him take the ritual bath that she had injured herself and was bleeding profusely from one hand. Once offered the succession, Bhani being a smart lady requested his husband be made the Guru and asked that all the later Gurus should be from their offspings. 

Fourth Guru RamDas discovered Armistar lake and dedicated it as a religious place. He was given a large land grant by Mughal emperor Akbar. 

Fifth (his son) Guru Arjun complied the Granth Sahib, the book. His was the first time when Mughal kings started taking notice of Sikhs and he was arrested for a while in Lahore during Jahangir’s time. He escaped and his body was never found. 

Sixth Guru Hargoband had good relations with the Governor of Lahore Dara Shikoh and he saved him against the Emperor Shah Jahan and had him hide in Kartarpur, ( yes the one recently opened corridor). 

Seventh Guru was not the son but the grandson of the sixth. (the son had declined to be a religious leader). During his time Dara Shikoh was gone at the hands of his brother the new King Aurangzeb. He asked Guru’s son Ram Ray to be send to court as an assurance against any trouble. 

During that time the Guru died and his younger son Herkishan, not Ramray , became the Eight Guru. RamRay was son of a kaneez and was not considered pure enough. Herkishan was a kid and died at age of 8 after being the Guru for two years. 

Then there was a period of turmoil and many claimed to be the Guru including Ram Ray but ultimately a distant uncle of his Taigh Bahadur became the Ninth Guru. He was the one eventually executed by Aurangzeb.


Guru Gobing Singh and Khalisa:

Taigh Bahadur’s son, Gubind Singh is the most famous one, the Tenth Guru. He is the one who in fact made Sikhism the religion it is. Not only that Sikhism stopped to exist a middle of road religion between Islam and Hinduism, it became clearly anti Muslim. At the same time, it declared its separation from Hinduism. Now for someone to be a Sikh one has to take some steps which would take one away form the old religion. For example, one would not believe in any castes, one would leave the old rituals and deities behind, one would break the locket Zannar, would keep a weapon, kirpan, and would add the name of Singh, mean the tiger.

Guru Gobind Singh died fighting losing battles all his life. And that was the end of Gurus. Later on, of his disciples. Banda Beragi took the leadership in his hand to avenge the deaths.

Then after a long time of unrest in Punjab esp after the repeated attacks of Ahmad Shah Abdali (seven of them) the Sikh Misls gradually rose to fill the vacuum and that eventually led to rise of Ranjit Singh , the leader of the 12^th Misl.



Maharaji Rangit Singh.

A few things to mention, which I did not know clearly before:

Punjab was always a land of war and fights. Almost any town you know of in Punjab had a local ruler who had a small army and a fort. They pledged their allegiance to someone at one time or another. It was Rangit Singh who conquered them one by one, either bringing them directly under his rule, or established an arrangement of patronage and protection. In lieu of that the local ruler will give annual tax and provide army in case of war against the invader or invasion.

At the time of his coming to power, Punjab was surrounded by strong powers. Afghans on the West, Rajputs on the North, Gorkhas on the North East, English on the South East and Marhatas on the South. Sindh on the South West was the only quite front.

Inside all this, after getting Lahore and Amritsar (the seat of Sikh Religion and its Temple) the prize states were Kasur, Multan, Kashmir and Peshawar.  The areas of Derajats (DGKhan and DI Khan or close to them) and Mankera. (never heard of this before) Most of these states were under some protection of Kabul and used to pay protection money to them. 


Role of Muslims within his government:

Many important positions were retained by Muslims including his closest advisor Faqir Azizuddin. It is strange that the Muslim Lahoris were the one to invite him to get rid of the three Sikh Misls ruling Lahore including bhangis (Gujjar Singh). And later after the death of Ranjit, when the children were unable to keep the rule and peace, there were the same Muslims of Lahore who paved the way for the British to take direct control of Lahore from Khalisas. 


Relationship with the British:

Ranjit Singh was smart enough to know that he should not fight with the British. He always extended a hand of friendship to them. East India Company, however always deceived him and gradually encircled Punjab before eventually taking over.

He could not extend his rule beyond Sutlej. That was set as the boundary between him and EIC. He was not happy about that but could not do anything against that. That did allow him to expand into West and North and took Kashmir and Multan and the DeraJat. He wanted to take Sindh and tried to find a way of not annoying the British but they over smarted him and sneakily established Sindh as their area of influence despite quite clear indications by Ranjit Singh of his intention to do so himself.

Nawabs of Bahalwalpur, fed up with his repeated and increased demand to pay more, entered into a secret deal with the British and moved to their protection. They were across Sutlej and so British had a point that it was outside of Ranjit’s area of influence anyway.


He had several invasions on Multan and eventually conquered it away from Nawab Muzzaffar Ali Khan Durrani in 1818. There is a great story of valor of Nawab’s fight till death. Multan was a prized province to conquer as Ranjit thought it will lead his way down south to Sindh, which was stalled by the British though diplomatic conceit.


Ranjit Singh was ruthless and cunning. He, and his father Mahan Singh before him, many times deceived the friends and extorted money from them. Many, including his own mother in law, once deceived into coming to meet him, were held hostage and not released until he got his ransom money or acceptance of his authority over their states. The only exception was Fateh Sher Ahluwalia, as he was the only one who became his turban-exchanged brother. They remained loyal to each other and the relationship was mutually beneficial


Even if friendly nawabs and rajas died, the successor had to give succession nazrana in order to be accepted as a ruler. So whenever a raja died, the Maharaja had extra income. 


Many times, he had to go on military tours to collect the taxes from nawabs and rajas of outer lands. Military complex was a part of the economy. 


He was fond of wine, brandy, horses, and guns. He surrounded himself with men and women of marked beauty. 


He never killed anyone in cold blood. There was never a death sentence issued during his reign. (not mentioned by Kanhaiya but by Khushwant Singh)



During his time, Ranjit Singh was the most glamorous and strongest Indian leader and ruler in India, not the Mughal King who was still the Emperor of Hindustan but was essentially the mayor of Delhi. Nowhere in the book the Mughal Emperor is mentioned in the story of Ranjit Singh and after wards.




After Ranjit Singh:

It was a sad and quick downfall of the Punjab State. He died in 1839 and Sikh rule ended in 1849. These years were turbulent and the rulers were all his sons and one grandson. It was mostly infighting and, in the end, conspiracy, deceit and excessive zeal of the rulers and their confidants ended up breaking the treaty of accepting Sutlej as the border between English and Khalisa. It provided British to invade Punjab in 1846. They demanded 1.5 crore rupees (15 million).  It was reduced to 10 Million which was to be paid by selling Kashmir. It was paid by Dilip Singh, the Dogra ( from Jammu)  who got Kashmir and was declared its Raja. The British established residency in Anarkali after the truce. Eventually they extended their stay beyond one year on the insistence of the elite of Lahore. In 1849 they found it convenient to declared the direct rule of British on Punjab by deposing the raja under the pretext of instability of the state and worsening infighting.




The Dogra Family and Ranjit Singh:

It is a separate topic and hopefully I write on it someday. The three brothers Ghulab Singh, Dhian Singh and Suchet Singh were recruited as a part of Dogra Army by Ranjit Singh. He had led several unsuccessful missions to Kashmir and now realized that he should have a Kashmiri force of his own. These brothers were in a way slave soldiers of Ranjit Army. Dhian Singh became very close to Ranjit and was eventually his Diwan. Ghulab Singh remained a loyal soldier and provided army and support to Maharaja. He got Kashmir in reward. After the death of Ranjit Singh the Dogra family became involved in the internecine infighting of the progeny of Ranjit Singh and eventually all died including Dhian Singh, his son Hira Singh and Suchet Singh.

One wonders if Kashmir was not taken away from Punjab in 1846 and remained a part of it, how the partition of 1947 had played. It could very well have become part of Pakistan as being a Muslim majority area of Punjab.




This all made me realize another thing. If looking at British Raj in Punjab, or at the areas comprising Pakistan now, it is not the usual 200 years of occupation we were told in school days. It was 1849 when Punjab came under the Company’s rule and in 1947 the British left. So it was a bit less than 100 years and NOT 200 years of British Raj in present day Pakistan. Moreover, the rule of Mughal Empire over Punjab was not there for most of the 19^th century. It was a battlefield between Afghans and Mughals and slow rise of Sikh Confederacy in the shape of twelve misls. 


It was Ranjit Singh who consolidated Punjab as a nation, and made it stand up against the assault from the North. There was never an attack on Punjab and rest of India from the North West. Battel of Jamrud is a testament to that.



The last page of the book is the most eloquent writing of Urdu, although a bit betraying the anglophile servile state of mind of the author. Here it is for the pleasure of those who like flowery Urdu.

Jhoota Sach (This Is Not That Dawn): By Yashpal. A Story of Partition and Lahore

JHOOTA SACH

BY

YASHPAL

For the duration of reading the book and for some time after that I was transported to 1940’s in Lahore. The streets of old city with all the cross-roof talks, chatter of the vendors, the scent of flower laden walkways of Lawrence Garden, the hustle bustle of Shahalami and the suburban air of Model Town, all came alive.

You don’t need a map to know where Shahlmi, Pari Mahal, Papar Mandi, Machchi Hatta, Kanjar Phalla, Qilla Guggar Singh and Krishan Nagar are situated.

I could hear the chanting of wailing women in a Siyapa ritual, the waking up calls of drums and Naats  in early Ramzan Sehri parties, call to arms of Muslims against Hindus and vice versa, and the sirens of fire brigades and police vans. I am not from Lahore but felt like a Lahori. I thank Yashpal for that.

A scene: a few days after the Shahalami fire.

Puri had to give up the idea of going to Mori Gate. The thought of taking bodyguards to meet a person like Ghaus Mohamad was not agreeable. Next day around nine in the morning, he went alone, with the manuscript tucked under his arm. He did not go by the way of Machchi Hatta and Shahalami, but rather through Vachchovali, Shesha Moti and Sootar Madi toward Lohari Gate.  Mostly Hindus live in this area, By and large the shops were open but the bazaars were not crowded. . In the intersection near Sootar Mandi, he saw Masood, carrying a similar but slightly smaller package like his own.

I have no qualm in accepting the truth that had I not walked in the Udru Conference in NYC NYU arranged by Tahira Naqvi I had not known to date about the masterpiece I ended up reading. My son who learned Urdu on his own in the Urdu semester he took with Tahira Naqvi wanted to attend the conference and I accompanied him.

This year the theme was Lahore topophilia. And one of the talks was about the book by his son Anand who is the translator of the book into English. He aptly chose the name of the English translation as, This Is Not That Dawn, after the verse by Faiz. Both the original Hindi and English titles point to the dreams left unrealized after the Independence. It was more of a Partition than Independence.

Yashpal is a prolific writer. One of those few political activists, who could be termed terrorist in today’s jargon. He denotated a bomb in an attempt to kill the Viceroy Lord Irwin. He was a colleague of Bhagat Singh and served jail time. He was later released in an amnesty program. Then he became a writer.

I don’t know the exact length of the original Hindi scrip, but the translation in Urdu is  1117 pages long and 1119 pages in English. It is a big novel.

First half, termed Watan and Desh, (Country and Nation)  is set in Lahore. It takes you to 1945. The story is gripping. It revolves around a small street, a galli, Bhola Pandhe in the walled city, not so far from  Shahalami. Its inhabitants are Hindus and Sikhs.  The main characters are young adults, college going boys and girls including a pair of siblings in that street Jaidev Puri and his sister Tara, children of a school teacher Master Ramlubhaya.

The narrative is strong enough that you don’t need a map to imagine the old city. Lahori friends will be delighted to see the old city come to life. With characters walking or riding a bike, tonga , rickshaw or car to Shalhmi, Gawalmandi, Anarkali and to the suburban Model Town.

It is the closest narrative to people’s history of the events around partition in South Asia fiction. Told through the thoughts and dialogues of characters who are all Lahoris of various persuasions. In the Ghola Pandhe gali, none except one, a physician has travelled outside Punjab. They look at rest of India as an alien land. Although living in segregated lives, the lives of Hindus and Muslims mingle all the time.

Residents of this street do not thing at all in the beginning of the novel, around 1945 that they will ever have to leave Lahore. They feel closer to Muslim Lahoris than non-Punjabi Hindus of faraway India.

That was the time when there was an agitation against the Unionist Khizar’s government which eventually falls and Governor Rule is declared in Punjab.

As the weeks go by and the partition starts to become a reality, the tensions start to rise. Some of the young residents start becoming militant. It seems that the sectarian fights were instigated equally by Hindus in Lahore as much as by Muslims.

It was also thought as a conspiracy theory that the British bureaucrats in India including the Governor of Punjab were the Conservative Party supporters of Churchill and against the policies of Attlee and Mountbatten. There was also a rumor that the British may want to hold on to Punjab even if the rest of India is given independence.  (I never heard of this before)

The first scene of racial tension is very telling when two female activists of Hindu Defense Committee enter the street and ask a Muslim fruit vendor, an Arain to leave the street. Then they gather all the ladies of the galli and explain to them the massacre of Hindus in Calcutta by Muslims and encourage them to support Hindu street vendors and not Muslims.

One of the residents is a school teacher whose children are of college going age. His son, Jay Puri (who I think has several characteristics in common with the author Yashpal) had been in Multan Jail for being a part of anti war movement. His sister, Tara is a graduate student urged to do bachelors by her brother Jaidev. These young siblings have a circle of friends and colleagues, who are mostly left leaning including some who are communists. They include Hindu, Muslims and Sikhs. Some of their friends belong to more affluent families. Some have developed romantic inclinations with members of different faiths.

Life of young writers was tough in those days too.  Jaidev as a young writer has a really hard time to find a job. After much running around, he gets a chance to be in a newspaper, only to be fired when he speaks his mind in an editorial when one of an innocent Kashmiri Hindu boy of his galli is killed in a sectarian fight. Then it is downhill for him from there. One option after the other starts to fall off. It is very painfully described the way he gets increasingly depressed and ultimately had to leave Lahore all the way to Nanitaal to chase an opportunity, unsuccessfully.

Hindus and Sikhs from western Punjab had already started to find refuge in eastern Punjab in early 1946. Many of them stopped in Lahore where the Lahori Hindus helped them find the way forward. They themselves did not think or realize that they will have to do that themselves soon.

Close to the time of partition, almost daily events are mentioned, as they happened in the political sphere while the personal lives of the characters in the novel were gradually upended. Tara is married off against her wish, and her brother fails her. She almost runs away with a Muslim communist friend, who does not have the heart to stand up to the occasion. Her life takes the most dramatic turn on the eve of her marriage as Banni Hata, the galli of her marriage is attached by Muslims . She is left for dead, but she survives, only to face one humiliating fate after the other, going from one unsafe haven to another.  In the meantime, country has been divided and she is found by the combined search teams of Pakistan and India to secure the abducted women and is repatriated to India.

In the meantime, her brother Jaidev Puri is in Nanitaal, where his beloved Kanak has moved some time back to safe area away from Lahore. She has stood up against all odds to help him, against the wishes of her wealthy family including her father, a publisher in Gawalmandi. Now Puri is concerned about the fate of his family and tries to go back to Lahore to rescue them. Along the way he sees the plight of Muslims running away from rioting Hindus and Sikhs. He sees it all, the rape, the pillage the abductions.

Yashpal cuts no corners in telling the story of partition. The atrocities, by all, is detailed without prejudice or glossing over. The deceit and the animal nature of humans in all its nakedness is laid bare. The narrative is compelling that one cannot skip through it even if one wants to do that.

In the second part, Watan ka mustaqbil ( Future of Homeland) the characters, the former inhabitants of Ghola Pandhe, Gawalmandi and Model Town pick up their lives in India. What was turned upside down in a matter of few months, takes years to come to some shape. This part is stretched over almost ten years from 1947 to 1957 and shows how the resilient Punjabi spirit survives despite the discrimination and uphill battle the refugees face in their adopted land. Some are more successful than others but all suffer to some extent: the exploitation they face in the camps, streets and at the hands of interlopers.

The female characters are the stronger ones in the novel. Kanak, seems to be the strongest during the first half or more. Daughter of a wealthy and liberated publisher of Gawalmandi, she falls in love with a young activist and fights all , including her father and brother in law, to stand by her man. When eventually a time comes to confront her man, she does not shy away from that either. As the story builds up, Tara comes across as the most resilient and strong person against all the possible odds one could face. Then there are female characters who keep their love flames alive despite being married elsewhere and those who would rather die than be ostracized.

It is the master artistry of the writer that characters are on a moving scale of being liked or disliked. Some of the very positive characters in the beginning of the book end up being partly villain or fall off from the most favored list. Others who seemed to be week, seem to rise up to the occasion.

Muslim characters are of peripheral nature. Whether it is Asad,  the love interest of Tara, Zubaida who moves to India to be with her Hindu lover, or Nabhu the rapist, or Hafiz Inayat the spy turned holyman who saves women but also wants to save their hereafter, or Syed Abdul Samad of Durrani Gali, Delhi Gate Delhi, all are somewhat week characters and rather dispensable to the narrative of the story.

Events of daily live are portrayed in detail and one finds oneself being a part of a scene of a Hindu Lahori death ritual of Siyapa, a birth of a young Sikh boy and the ritual of naming him, and the marriage of a Hindu family in the streets of Lahore while the city has started to burn.

Most of these young educated Lahoris were hoping against hope to have India united, and even if there is a partition, to remain in Lahore, even as a minority amongst Muslims in Pakistan and saw the dream slipping away from their hands.

And as of the residents of the guli, they  were already upset when two of the rather wealthy neighbors Ghasita Lal and Panna Laal had locked up their houses and left under the guise of going for a religious pilgrimage to Vrindavan and Mathura; but when, in the middle of July 1947, the official notification came for the governmental officials to get themselves transferred to India or Pakistan based on their religion, people started to panic. If the government could not assure the safety of government officials of different faith in a country how they would safeguard the security of common man. 

The following passage gives a good picture of how a Hindu Lahori thought of life without Lahore.

In Bhola Pandhe’s Gali, the only government employees were Babu Govindram,, Dotor Prabhu Dayal, postel clerk Birumal, and Shaduram who worked at the secretariat. These men would sit at the chabutra of Babu Govindaram and discuss the situation late into the evening, Khushal Sing, and Masterji joined them. Babu Govinran wanted all of them to say in Lahore. Doctor Prabu Dayal was in two minds. He was the only person in the gali who had visited other parts in India, He would say, rather sadly, ‘One can live and survive, if necessary, anywhere in the world, but the truth, is there is no city like Lahore, ( Lahore Lahore hay!).

The mere thought of being posted to a different place frightened Birumal. After he joined, he had worked for a few years in the Railway Mail Service, for several months at the beginning of 1940, his posting was to Cuttack, quite a distance to the south-east. He would say, “Bhai, that country is totally different. They are also Hindus, but of a different sort. Their talk sounds like a pebble being shaken in a brass pot. The only clothes their women wear is around their waist. Bhai, their food is different, and so are their customs. They let boiled rice go stale before eating it . --------So what if Muslims of Lahore have turned into our enemies? At least they’re like us, same language, same dress, their food too is almost the same. They only difference is that between a temple and a mosque.’ He said, uttering a curse, “It’s been ten years since I went to any temple. How long can we remain enemies?’

It is a treat to read this novel. The Urdu translation has its limitations. It is by Munira Surati, an Indian and perhaps she is much exposed to many Hindi words that she may not have thought of them being a bit foreign to Pakistani audience. For examples the words like andolan, charcha, sundaas and grahak are mentioned many times. One has to guess the exact meaning of a word in a particular context.

The English translation is by the author’s son, Anand. I have skipped through it and seems very attractive to read. I may end up reading the whole thing, another 1119 pages.

 

Happy Hundredth! Abbaji

My father, Chaudhry Mohammad Aslam, would have been hundred years old today. Born on the day after Armistice, he grew up in British India, got married on the first anniversary of Pakistan’s independence, lived almost all his life in Punjab and died in New York two days after his 74’s birthday.

Much of his life amazes me; he is my example of simple and contended living.

He lived an ordinary life. He was youngest of three boys. His father was the first to leave the village, matriculate and get employed in Army Medical Corps.  Hailing from Dhok Mohka (short of Mohkumdin), a hamlet south of Rohtas Fort in District Jhelum, he spent most of his professional life in Rawalpindi and Murree. My father’s childhood was spent in those cities. He grew up in Committee Chowk on the Murree Road.

His elder brothers went on to get Masters in their respective fields and retired at the peak of their professions. In this upwardly mobile family, my father was not an ambitious man at all. He studied in Denny’s School and Gordon College, and then is Islamia College Lahore for a short time, he got a job in Military Accounts after he graduated.

He felt happy doing routine office work, and not compelled enough to move up the ladder. He preferred to live in small towns and felt uncomfortable when he was posted for some time in the metropolis city of Karachi. He appealed to be moved back to small town.

He had simple pleasures. He liked to read and visit places. He had been to every shrine I could think of: from Bari Imam to Zinda Pir ( Ghamkol Sharif) to  Bahishti Darwaza in Pakpattan. He had been to Qadyaan a few times. He enjoyed the melas (Fairs) and political gatherings. He had been in Lahore on the day of Lahore Resolution.

He was a modern man, in many ways. His wife, my mother, was the first one in his family not to cover her head. He took his daughters to watch movies in the cinema houses. Every summer night, he took all the family out for a walk after dinner. He sent his daughters to boarding house at age 15 to Frontier College Peshawar, one after the other, as there was no college in Kohat at that time.

And yes, all this was not in a big city. It is about Kohat in the then North West Frontier Province, in sixties.

In other ways he was very traditional. He kept his fatherly distance almost all his life. It was only in the last few years of his life, here in the USA, that I could talk to him freely on many things; still many, not most. Even at age 70, he would show deference to his elder brother, who was a heavy smoker, and extinguish the lighted cigarette before facing him.  

He always had company, they were mostly entertained at our home. But later in life, when he was living a retired life, he was okay to be alone and spend time reading and watching TV. He enjoyed company but was also happy being alone.

Nothing seemed to bother him. He handled many tough situations without others around him being aware of them. He handled indiscretions on my part with grace.  On some, he did not let me know what he had to suffer due to my doings.  I came to know much later of them.

A product of his time, he was not expressive in his emotions. It showed in his actions. When my mother Maqbool Fatima got sick, and she got increasingly debilitated for the last ten years of her life, my father took care of her as her first and foremost attendant. He made her breakfast, served her tea at her prayer station, gave her medications and when she had extended hospital stays, he stayed with her day and night.

He lived on for five years after my mother passed away.

With my mother, he raised five children, with modest means, and we could not have wished for a better childhood.

Through three daughters and two sons, Fozia, Farida, Bushra, Mubashir and I, my parents have 12 grandkids and four greatgrands.

My sisters are the luckier ones to know the parents more.  My eldest sister Fozia, has been like a third parent to all of us and helped my parents raise the rest of us. My middle sister, Farida, had the privilege to take care of them after they moved to the USA; and the youngest, Bushra, took care of them when they were in Pakistan.

My brother Mubashir and I did not have chance to do our share in taking care of them. They both were in a hurry to leave.

Five years back, at this time, a few lines poured out of my keyboard. I end with them.

https://ghareebkhana.blogspot.com/2015/11/i-miss-you-abbaji.html

May his soul rest in eternal peace.

The more I grow older the more I realize what a guy he was.

Carefree, funny, witty, caring, sensitive and honest.

He was unable to achieve many worldly goals.

In fact he settled for a lot less than what was expected of him by his family.

He was content with what he had. 

What he did not have did not seem to bother him.

Always managed to bring some fruit on daily basis on his way home. 

We always had sweets at home.

Perhaps that is why mother always thought he had more than he actually had.

When mother got sick, he took care of her for a long time, assisting her in all activities of daily life.

She perhaps did not know that he was not that well either.

He never let me know what problems and humiliation he had to go for me for my issues with the authorities.

He made sure all of us siblings knew if either of us were unaware of the expectation of the others.

Worked behind the scenes to keep us together.

He was a good man. 

Wish I had known him more when he was around.

I miss you Abbaji.

Be Well.

We Come in Peace: MET rooftop display by Huma Bhabha

Source. Press release:  https://www.metmuseum.org/press/exhibitions/2018/huma-bhabha

On July 13^th, 2018,  I went to see “We Come in Peace”, the roof top display of a Pakistani American artist Huma Bhabha at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Huma is a Pakistani born artist from Karachi, who had studied in USA and settled in NY. Her interview on the display is at the end of this post.

There are two larger than life figures, like aliens occupying the roof of MET. On first glance, one seems god like, standing erect. The face looks like a sphinx and torso has large breasts. The other is prostate, like in sajda, almost in the direction of the standing figure. The face of the prostate figure is hidden in the ground, the whole body covered by what seems like a large black garbage bag. Only the clay-made hands on the ground in the front and a line of excreta in the back, looking like a tail, are evident otherwise.

What seems like one prostrating to the other, gradually look different. They both, it turns out, are expressions of death, suffering, exhausted by defiance, exploitation and being out of this world. They are somehow in this experience together, not one at the expense of the other. 

More on that, later---,

It was part of a tour one take with the artist. The series is called 'Artists on Artworks'. The artist takes you to various artifacts in the museum of her interest. Here Huma took us to four statutes, all influencing her own roof top display. She was accompanied by Shanay Jhaveri, the curator of the display at MET, who gave in depth details of the artifacts and their relationship to Huma's work.  He interviews her in the link at the bottom of this post.

The first one was a marble statue of 6^th century BC, It is a standing figure from Attica ,Greece. Influenced by Egyptian art, it is a young slender male figure with one step forward, as he is about to move. He is very symmetrical and face is poised. The statue marks the grave of a young Athenian aristocrat.

The second was a Togu Na female figure from Mali, carved out of wood. Here the bosom is exaggerated perhaps to emphasize the nurturing or the resolute power of a woman. These forked sculptured elements support a roof beam of Togu Na open-sided shelters where elder Dogan males sat and discussed important matters of the community.

The third is a crest Tsesah from Cameroon on Bamileke people. Made of wood, these were the larger than life face masks used at the time of coronation of a new king Fon, when the older one dies. One extraordinary feature of these collection of figures where the eyes are placed on the cheeks facing the heavens in the sky. It was perhaps used in the coronation rites.

The fourth was the bronze 'Head of a Woman', 1909 by Picasso. His signature cubism is displayed in the face. Walking around you realize that each angle gives you a different shape and meaning to the statute. It is claimed to be the likeness of his partner, Fernande Olivier.

And then we went to the roof top and see the work of the artist.

In her own words it is an expression of militarism and exploitation. Seeing these two figures, one erect and the other prostrating, in the backdrop of Central Park and the high-rises of the metropolis beyond that, gives it an out of this world experience; as if you are in a distant place, like a desert, looking at these images and the civilization is at the horizon, too far away.

Looking at these images again, the erect one, named 'We Come in Peace', perhaps taken from the first dialogue between aliens and humans, "We come to you in peace" in "The day the Earth stood still" by Robert Wise, is non-binary, a hermaphrodite, carrying physical manifestations of both genders. They have one step forward, as if in motion. The breasts are enlarged, making it as obvious as another part of the body. The face, in fact five faces, has the typical element of cubism and walking all around, you see the different Picasso influences. It also reminds of the all seeing Vishnu with multiple heads.

The prostate figure, Benaam, Urdu for nameless, perhaps depicts the nameless masses, who are in the process of dying, falling prostate, hands down and excreta is coming out the other end. One could not thing of a worse condition one can be in.

As a viewer one is entitled to derive one own interpretation of art. To me, it was the foreignness and out of place-ness of these two. They may have landed separately but are now here together. Benaam could be the nameless dying in the present day global wars, or could be the undocumented. They may be in a process of dying, but refuse to be invisible. The erect figure is mutilated, violated, but still stands tall and stands with five faces looking all around, as if bearing witness to what has happened and is happening. They brought their sufferings and stories to the house of power. There is a cry to be heard. The reference of the title implies as if these 'aliens' want to have a dialogue, but may still communicate in other ways. Their defiance and refusal to go away with the backdrop of Manhattan skyline, the ultimate symbol of the powerful is very striking. Could not think of a better contrast.

It was a trip worth taking on a Friday evening.

Artist's interview:

https://www.metmuseum.org/metmedia/video/collections/modern/huma-bhabha-roof-garden-interview