When Nobles became non-entities, Princes became paupers and Begums were reduced to beggars…
Title: Tears of the Begums: Stories of Survivors of the Uprising of 1857 (Originally in Urdu as ‘Begumat Ke Aansoo’)
Author: Khwaja Hasan Nizami
Publisher: Hachette India
Year of Publication : 1922
Translator : Ms. Rana Safvi (2022)
Pages: 212+xii
Price: Rs. 499
The Sepoy Mutiny (or the First War of Independence as we call it) started in 1857, over the issue of the greasing of the cartridges used in the guns of Indian soldiers of the East India Company army. It was known by the Urdu word “Ghadar” meaning rebellion or revolt.
The rebellion spread rapidly in North India particularly around Lucknow and Delhi. The rebellious soldiers killed a large number of British officers, women and children. They adopted as their leader the surviving Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar without his consent. He was only a namesake Emperor who was on a generous pension given by the East India Company, and did not have any power beyond the precincts of the Red Fort, nor had the money to help the soldiers. He was reluctant to take on the British army but was helpless and had to go with the demands of rebellious soldiers.
Though initially the British had a setback, they quickly regrouped and took over Delhi. The Red Fort had about 3,000 royal families all of whom were descendants of the present and past emperors. The emperor’s court life was filled with pomp and grandeur, though he had no real authority.
Bahadur Shah himself was a refined and gentle soul and a poet. Delhi was ruled by the English Resident. The lives of the royals living in the “Lal Qila” was lavish with big mansions, large number of servants and slaves. Ghadar was a watershed moment in Indian history and the grand and elegant Mughal culture ended suddenly and dramatically.
Kulsum Zamani Begum was the beloved daughter of the last emperor Bahadur Shah. On the night he left the fort, he sent her and her family away entrusting them to the care of Khuda (God). Within a few days of leaving the Red Fort they were looted of all their money, jewels and even their expensive clothes. Finally on the way some villagers give them shelter in a thatched hut. The company soldiers were looking for the emperor’s descendants to arrest and punish. They escaped to Hyderabad, where they were given shelter by Nawab Lashkar Jung, who had given shelter to many Mughal royals who had escaped from Delhi.
In a few years the British had their way and the Princess was advised to leave Hyderabad. Some of the well-wishers of the Mughals arranged for her to travel to Mecca. One of the slaves she had freed while she was the Princess in Delhi had migrated to Mecca and had become an extremely wealthy merchant there. He looked after her very well and made her family stay comfortable.
The Ambassador of Turkey learnt that the Emperor’s daughter had taken refuge in Mecca and arranged a pension for her from the Sultan of Turkey. She lived comfortably in Mecca for a number of years. Ultimately she longed to return to her beloved Delhi. When she went back to Delhi, the English Governor out of compassion, arranged a pension for her family. The British who had taken away her dad’s empire, gave her in return a grand compensation of ten rupees a month.
Sakina Khanum was the daughter-in-law of Nawab Faulad Khan. Nawab died while fighting the company soldiers during the Ghadar. When his body was brought home by the soldiers, Sakina was writhing in severe labour pains. The Nawabs’ son had died four days earlier in the war, and his wife had passed away two years ago. Sakina delivered a boy with the help of the servants, while the corpse of the Nawab was lying in the front yard, without even a shroud. She had to run away from their mansion at midnight, taking a few jewels, some cash which was in the house and her new-born baby. The four maids who were in the house went with her.
After a few days, the maids stole all the money and jewels and deserted her. They even took away the new-born son of the Princess. She tried to eke out a living by working as a maid in households. Unfortunately for her, she had no skills needed for domestic help. After all she was the daughter-in-law of a Nawab and had lived in luxury with many servants and slaves at her command. She was frequently thrown out of many homes where she worked, as she could not work hard enough.
Finally, the Princess became a beggar for her living. After a few years, one afternoon she was begging in front of a wedding house. She was exhausted due to the hot summer sun. She had not eaten for many days and was extremely hungry. As she was begging, one young handsome boy came out of the wedding hall. Hearing her wails, he sat in front of her and gave her the food he was carrying for himself. The boy spoke to the beggar and consoled her and told that his mother was a maid in the wedding house.
As he was speaking with her, his mother came out and Sakina immediately recognised her as her maid who had deserted her and realised that the boy who fed her was her own son. After many years Sakina the beggar Princess had been reunited with her long lost son.
Qismat Baig worked as a chef at the palatial Taj Mahal hotel in Bombay. He was a recluse and an irascible and difficult man. None knew his antecedents. Whenever asked about himself he would answer that he was a Badshah and walk away. The Maharaja of Bhavnagar would frequently stay at the Taj Mahal Hotel whenever he was in Bombay, and he immensely enjoyed the food cooked by Qismat Baig.
One day the Maharaja expressed his desire to meet the chef. Qismat Baig, who never liked to meet anyone, was persuaded to visit him. When the king asked Qismat Baig as to who he was, Baig gave a long philosophical discourse. Surprised at the erudition of the chef, the king persuaded him to tell his story. Baig started recounting his long sad story. He was the son of the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah born to a slave girl. He was named Timur Shah after the great ancestor of the Mughals. The emperor had provided well for him and his mother and they lived comfortably in luxury with servants and maids. As a young boy he was well educated and would often visit a Dargah near his home in the evenings and had imbibed Sufi mysticism and Dervish practices.
When Ghadar started, his mother lost everything. He worked as an assistant to a cook and learnt the culinary art. Misfortune always haunted him. He lost his mother, wife and children to illnesses and became alone in the world. Living in Delhi made him very sad and migrated to Bombay where Timur Shah changed his name to Qismat Baig, a man of destiny. The son of the Mughal Emperor had become a Bawarchi (chef) in a hotel.
These are some of the poignant real-life stories in the book “Tears of the Begums”. Khwaja Hasan Nizami was a young man at the time of Mutiny. In later years he became a writer. He personally interviewed many survivors of nobility and recorded their tragic stories. It was published as a book “Begumat Ke Aansoo” in 1922. Ghadar was a cataclysmic event in the narrative of India. It ended the centuries of pomp of the Mughal Court and the wealthy refined and elegant lives of the aristocracy. Nobles became non-entities, Princes became paupers and Begums were reduced to beggars. The sad stories in the book bring “Aansoo” to the eyes of the readers.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / by Dr. C.D. Sreenivasa Murthy / October 11th, 2022
Muhammadi Begum was a student of Osmania University, Hyderabad, where she topped the Bachelor’s examination in 1932.
Highlights
Having received a scholarship from the Nizam for higher education, Muhammedi Begum, a young woman from Hyderabad, travelled to Oxford University in 1934.
What makes her story even more remarkable is that she maintained an extensive record of her four years abroad.
Her diary has been translated from Urdu into English, and published, by her daughters
In 1934, a young woman from Hyderabad travelled to Oxford University in England to study, accompanied by her husband. She had received a scholarship from the Nizam of Hyderabad to pursue her higher education (for which she studied French, Arabic and English). During the nearly four years she spent in the UK, she had two children, travelled around Europe and established a pattern of living that would hold her in good stead her entire life.
The young woman was Muhammadi Begum, student of Osmania University, Hyderabad, where she topped the Bachelor’s examination in 1932. She was married to Delhi-born, Syed Jamil Husian, an alumnus of the Aligarh Muslim University.
Those days, women travelling abroad to pursue education was a rarity; although what made Muhammadi Begum’s story remarkable is a diary that she maintained at Oxford which recounted everything from her day-to-day concerns to reflections on the state of society.
Muhammadi Begum’s diary remained under a shroud till the year of her passing, in 1990. The little note-book, where she detailed her daily life as she lived across continents, was eventually a precious find. It went to her cousin first and meandered in the family, till it caught the attention of her eldest daughter towards the end of the decade.
“I was pleasantly surprised and was taken aback by it,” said Zehra Ahmad, Muhammadi Begum’s eldest daughter. “I came across the diary after she passed away. I would’ve asked her many questions if I knew about its existence.”
What followed over the years was translation (as Muhammadi wrote in Urdu), editing, followed by COVID-induced delays in publishing, before A Long Way from Hyderabad saw the light of the day in 2022. Zehra translated the book along with her sister Zainab Masud.
Translating the diary was no mean feat, as Muhammadi Begum made detailed records, even writing in the margins. The sisters read it multiple times, transcribed it, and then translated it – all of it laborious and time consuming.
Kulsoom Husein, her youngest, who came out of retirement to edit and rework her mother’s diary said, “The tone of the diary is true to her experience. It was a new experience for her to travel to England as few women did so in those days.”
Charting new paths
Muhammadi Begum belonged to a well-known family of writers. Her mother, Qaiseri Begum, was the granddaughter of famous writer Moulvi Nazeer Ahmed, who’s work Mirat-ul-aroos is often dubbed as Urdu’s first novel. Qaiseri Begum, herself was a prolific writer whose memoirs Kitab-i-Zindagi details changes in Indian social history from the 1880s to the 1960s.
The diary successfully encapsulates the journey of a young couple making their way in the London of 1930s. Her observations are detailed, precise and provide an invaluable peek into the world at the time – be it shopping at Harrod’s, visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum, eating ice-cream at a restaurant in Elliston & Cavell or taking walks in University Parks in Oxford, it paints vivid vignettes of pre-World war- II London.
The diary, according to Ahmad, who also spoke for her other sister and co-translator Zainab, brought her mother alive. “Everything she wrote was an accurate account of herself; her worries for her baby or exams, her management of the household and juggling her studies with a baby. She was on the move all the time and led a full and active life,” said she.
The writing is assured and confident. It stays true to what it is intended to be — a record of its keeper’s time in a foreign land. It comments on the English way of life (an interesting nugget is the usage of blackcurrant jam to treat colds), the trials of learning French and the easy camaraderie between students from India. Her letters to her mother Qaisari Begum were even published in a Hyderabad Urdu daily, Ismat.
It also showcases Muhammadi Begum as an independent woman with agency. Travelling in Europe along with a toddler can be a daunting task at any time, but she managed it with a remarkable spirit. It is in fact this spirit that would hold her in good stead later in life, when at 42 she lost her husband and had to look after many children.
A Long Way from Hyderabad can be nostalgic. It’s all about an era gone by, of Urdu publications in Hyderabad which have long ceased to exist (Rahbar and Tehzeeb) or local traditions like Kalzana, a medicine made from chalk and calcium, and given to pregnant women.
What she wrote holds relevance even today, as her struggles (with food, culture and money) are similar to ones faced by many students studying abroad. The diary also strikes a balance between everyday details of life, reflections of the time and personal observations.
A record of the time
Records of women travellers are rare. The few accounts which exist are those of Sikandar Begum, the ruler of Bhopal who wrote of her pilgrimage to Mecca in 1869, Maimuna Sultan who wrote an account of London in 1911 and Atiya Fyzee who published her travel writings in Zamana-I Tehsil in 1921. Typically, the women who published at the time were queens, politicians or activists; Muhammadi Begum was none of them and hence her account stands out because of its simplicity and honest rendition of her life.
Her writing is as much a record of her own life as it is of the times she lived in. The Independence movement was on in full throttle and she along with her husband eagerly took part in discussions with friends. She actively participated in cultural exchanges even though she was reluctant to lend her sarees to curious British women.
“My mother was very stirred by the experiences she had. Technology, in the form of planes and ship liners, was just coming up and when she visited the science museum she was struck by the difference in Indian and British kids. While rote learning was accepted in India, the children there were curious to explore scientific apparatus and experiments. She makes a mention of all these in her daily jottings,” observed Husein.
Indeed, the travel account shows that concerns have not changed much between 1935 and 2022. The author lamented the state of Indian museums on a visit to the V and A Museum and was entranced by a Buddha statue. She worried about land prices shooting up in Hyderabad and wondered if the family could afford to buy a house — valid concerns even after a century.
She throws light on the comfortable relationship between her and her husband. Muhammadi Begum’s husband, Jamil, took leave of absence from his work as a civil servant in Hyderabad to travel with his wife. According to Ahmad, her father was a hands-on parent. “He looked after the baby with her, which was unusual for the time. Also, they shared an equitable relationship,” she said. “He was an admirer of Gandhi and she looked up to Iqbal, which led to many discussions around each. They both liked exploring places and had a wide circle of friends.”
The years in Oxford had a lasting impact on her, as throughout her life she remained fond of open air, long strolls and staying independent. In fact, later in life, she took in paying guests in Lahore when she retired from her job and needed to supplement her income.
A nod to the past
In producing the book, Muhammadi Begum’s daughters became closer, as Husein noted, “We exchanged information about relatives mentioned and forgotten. My elder sisters have translated and I reworked the text — so it was a collaborative effort. My daughter, Amena, helped with research on key figures who were at Oxford at that time, such as educationist Sir Michael Sadler and GM Sufi, a retired University of Delhi registrar and historian, and Miss Bharti Sarabhai, who hailed from a prominent Indian civil rights activist family.”
With an account of food, state of women, culture, feelings and a life well lived, A Long Way from Hyderabad, is a perfect addition to the archives of writing from pre-Independent India. It provides a reliable record of the times gone by. It also shows the lasting impact of the written word and its ability to transcend time.
source: http://www.news9live.com / News Nine / Home> Arts & Culture / by Mallik Thatipalli / June 03rd, 2022
Dr Salman also featured in Stanford’s list in the years 2020, 2021 and continues to be in the prestigious top international scientists list’ of 2022.
Hyderabad:
Dr. Salman Ahmad Khan, Professor in chemistry and Dean, School of Science, Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) featured in the prestigious Stanford University’s list of top 2% International Scientists third year in a row.
The list is also known as ‘Updated Science wide Author database of Stanford Citation Indicators’.
The database was released by Stanford University, USA and published by Elsevier BV on 10 October 2022.
Dr Salman also featured in Stanford’s list in the years 2020, 2021 and continues to be in the prestigious “top international scientists list’ of 2022 in recognition of his exceptional research work.
The selection was among top 100,000 scientists by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above in their field from all over the world and was classified into 22 different fields and 176 subfields.
Prof. Syed Ainul Hasan, Vice-Chancellor, MANUU congratulated Prof. Salman. He said that Dr Salman’s achievement highlights our research competencies and university is on a path to find innovative solutions to complex problems of society through quality research work.
Prof. Salman A Khan has published 185 research Articles in reputed journals like Elsevier, Springer, Wiley and has also published 4 books and 2 book chapters.
He completed his PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia University New Delhi.
Back in 2020, Jamia Islamia’s Prof Imran Ali was selected as leading scientist in India in the field of Analytical Chemistry by the Standford University in the US.
In the same year, Professor Ahmed Kamal, Jamia Hamdard Pro-Vice Chancellor was also named among top 2 per cent cientists in the world by Stanford University.
source: http://www.ummid.com / Ummid.com / Home> Science & Technology / by ummid.com news network (headline edited) / October 20th, 2022
Written almost a hundred years ago in a far-off land, this diary of a young Muslim woman anticipates our present situation of religious intolerance.
Book:A Long Way From Hyderabad: Diary Of A Young Muslim Woman In 1930s Britain
Author: Muhammadi Begum
Publisher: Primus
Price: Rs. 1,150
Diaries are like portmanteaus that have a habit of gathering diverse and often disparate genres within the folds of personal jottings.
Muhammadi Begum’s diary is a veritable mixed bag as her daily observations of the social life of the English university town, Oxford, are imbued with her Hyderabadi ruminations — the practical, poetic and philosophical musings of a young Muslim woman of Hindustan.
Located in Britain of the 1930s, the diary is both a historical journal with an ‘interwar’ and ‘pre-Independence’ air and a domestic memoir full of ‘homely’ quotidian details.
Daniel Majchrowicz’s helpful introduction delineating Muhammadi Begum’s contribution to the genre of female travel literature, and Kulsoom Husein’s familial account recalling the posthumous discovery and subsequent translation, provide rich intellectual and social contexts for understanding this thoughtfully edited and well-produced work.
But diaries are eccentric and whimsical texts, which refuse to tell well-ordered tales. While the reader impatiently waits for the classroom experiences of this outstanding student who had won a scholarship from the government of the Nizam of Hyderabad to study at Oxford from 1934 to 1937, the diary refuses to move beyond the author’s travails over her private tuitions which she took for qualifying the Responsions, the erstwhile Oxford entrance examination!
What could be the reasons for Muhammadi Begum not keeping a diary after she joined St. Hugh’s can only be guessed at as the reader has to be satisfied with the detailed entries for one year which begin with a visit to London and end with a trip from Europe. And although the ending shows that she was an independent and a self-sufficient mother, she repeatedly asserts that her self-confidence was firmly anchored in happy conjugality.
Since diaries often masquerade as unposted letters, Muhammadi Begum’s cross-cultural reflections serve an unstated epistolatory purpose within the testimonial turn of the form. Paralleling her actual letter-writing activity, an enterprise which she and her husband were forever engaged in, the enthusiastic entries regarding conversations, expeditions and explorations add novelty to an otherwise quotidian account of the uncertain and strapped situation of an overseas student’s life in England.
There are important takeaways from this unfinished work. As part of the burgeoning female form, there are noticeable introspective beginnings in the areas of freedom and tolerance. Critically speaking, beginnings don’t necessarily mark a break from the past but indicate an intention towards the meaning-making process.
Likewise, in this diary, beginnings are often ruptured by their collision and collusion with tradition and continuity. Yet, they produce meaningful differences.
For instance, the author’s analysis of English piety and Hindustani prejudice is startlingly relevant for our present times. Despite being a practicing Muslim and a devout believer, she notes the sincerity of English religiosity as against the practice of paying “lip service to ritual” observable in Hindustani compatriots. This difference prompts her to remark that people “at home” know “how to make an uproar and create a public scene over some minor issue”. She then rhetorically asks, “Don’t we realize that the need for sanctity near places of worship has to go with a willingness to educate the public?”
Written almost a hundred years ago in a far-off land, this diary of a young Muslim woman anticipates our present situation of religious intolerance. Or is it that our intolerance has been around for a much longer time?
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> Culture> Books / by Sharmila Purkayashtha / September 09th, 2022
The Allure of Aligarh: A Poetic Journey into the University City, authored by Huma Khalil, mesmerizes through the poetry it holds within its covers and the beautiful visuals it carries.
Coffee table book, The Allure of Aligarh: A Poetic Journey into the University City, is authored by Huma Khalil
Book – The Allure of Aligarh: A Poetic Journey into the University City
Author – Huma Khalil
Publishing House – Hay House Publishers India in collaboration with Rekhta Foundation
The title of the book allured me even before I could hold the book in my hands. Although I have never studied in Aligarh, my grandfather was a professor in the Department of English, in the 1940s and 50s and hence I have grown up hearing fascinating stories about this university town, and a fondness has grown over the years. The subtitle of the book, A Poetic Journey into the University City puts this gorgeous coffee table book in perspective.
aa.ii gulshan me.n na tere, bhuul kar fasl-e KHizaa.n
terii sarhad me.n rahaa, har ilm-o-daanish ka samaa.n
These are the opening lines of the Introduction, translated as:
(The crop of autumnal decline never reached your vale
All intellect and wisdom did in your realm prevail)
The author, Huma Khalil, who has earlier translated the seminal work of her father, the well-known poet, Khalil Ur Rahman Azmi, Urdu Mein Taraqqui Pasand Adabi Tehreek as Many Summers Apart: Gems from Contemporary Urdu Literature, has put this endeavor together where a city is explored through the prism of Urdu poetry. At the very outset, she points:
Aligarh’s fiza (ambience) has always been infused with sher-o-shayari, and its landscape is conducive to literary creativity. Each poet depicted campus life during his or her stay there, and these observations spanned the city’s various facets.
This pictorial book covers different sections, exploring them through a poetic landscape. It begins with discovering the history of this Shahr-e-Tarab (The City of Joy) as it mentions how the eminent poet, Majaz had given it this title in 1935, mentioning the important monuments. The next section is on the conception of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College to finally the realization of Aligarh Muslim University tracing the coming up of the different buildings on the campus, with elaborate mentions of people like Henry George Impey Siddons, Theodore Beck, Sir Walter Raleigh, Harold Cox and their contribution in shaping AMU in its initial days. Khalil quotes Akbar Allahabadi what he wrote on the demise of Beck:
afsos hai ki mar ga.e beck, ab nahii.n ko.ii
is darja jis me.n ilm ho, is darja hilm ho
(Alas that Beck has died, now there is no one left
Who has so much knowledge and so much gentleness)
The following section covers the contribution of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the visionary who in fact immortalized the city, going into the details of his efforts and how the university was actually established. It also gives a peek into the establishment of the Women’s College, the efforts of Sheikh Abdullah, fondly known as Papa Mian, and his wife, Waheed Jahan Begum.
The section on George Peuch ‘Shor’, the first known Urdu poet of the city opens the relation that Aligarh had with Europe. The book also covers in detail the satirical verses of Akbar Allahabadi, mocking Sir Syed’s efforts to raise funds for the university. He pens:
ab kahaa.n tak but-khade me.n sarf-e-imaa.n kiijiye
(How far in house of idols, my faith must I defray?
How far in love of idols, obeisance should I pay?
It is better to go to Aligarh and to Syed say,
Take these alms from me and make a Muslim of me, pray
Each one is entangled in school and alms today)
The book continues to dip into the oeuvre of other poets like Altaf Hussain Hali and Majaz, poets who have had interesting associations with the city, and hence have written at length about it.
The next part of the book delves into cultural aspects which are forever etched in the minds of an Aligarian – the numaish, the tehzeeb and the riwayat.
Khalil begins this section quoting Farhat Ehsaas,
us se milne ki koi surat nikalti na thi
aur tabhi dil ke Aligarh ki numaish aa gayi
(There was no way to meet her that one could contrive
And just then hearts’s Aligarh’s numaish did arrive)
The last chapter of the book is a postscript by the celebrated filmmaker, Muzzafar Ali, who traces his journey and influences at AMU.
One comes across various other books on cities, like City Adrift: A Short Biography of Bombay by Naresh Fernandes, Esther David’s Ahmedabad: City with a Past or the very recent, A for Prayagraj: A Short Biography of Allahabad by Udbhav Agarwal among others. Then there are some interesting coffee table books too, like Raghu Rai’s books on Delhi and Amritsar and Calcutta Then, Kolkata Now by Sunanda K Dutta and Indrajit Hazra. But the point where The Allure of Aligarh stands apart is through the poetry it holds within its covers, along with it being a visual treat; the archival photographs in sepia, fills one with the desire to revisit Aligarh. As Majaz is quoted in the book,
Aa aa ke hazaaron baar yahan hud aag bhi hum ne lagai hai
Phir saare jahan ne dekha hai ye aag humeen ne bujhai hai
(Coming here a thousand times, these fires we roused,
And then the world entire saw, these we ourselves then doused.)
(Saba Mahmood Bashir is an author, poet and translator and an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia; views expressed in this article are author’s own)
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Lifestyle> Art Culture / by Saba Mahmood Bashir / posted by Parmita Uniyal / September 04th, 2021
Urdu writers and literary critics at the university have contributed in their own meaningful ways to keep the Persio-Urdu literary culture alive.
Some of the Urdu books written by the professors of the Department of English, Aligarh Muslim University.
Bilingualism, in many cases even multilingualism, being a special quality of most Indians, it comes as no surprise that many scholars working in various English Departments of Indian universities and colleges have produced work of considerable merit in several Indian languages. Often this work, both creative and critical, has not been sufficiently acknowledged because the English Departments in India were mostly concerned with the canonical study of English literature. The work done on the English canon and on Indian languages belonged to two different domains, with a separate group of readers.
With a drastic change in the nature of English studies in India in the last two decades or so, the broadening of the English canon following a decolonising process, the introduction of literatures in Indian languages through English translations and their inclusion in university curricula, and a renewed confidence with which to view local and indigenous traditions of literature and criticism, these two domains are beginning to converge.
Urdu literature in an English department
While taking stock of the work produced in English Department at Aligarh Muslim University on the occasion of the Azaadi ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations, it was heartening to note that many scholars, otherwise well-known as hard-working teachers of English and sound scholars of English literature, contributed in a big way to Urdu literature and criticism. Their grounding in the Persio-Urdu literary culture and knowledge of English literary and critical traditions gave them a distinct identity, which also offered a position of advantage in many ways for approaching English literary texts.
These academics were often straddling two worlds without getting sufficient acknowledgement from either. For the western critics and academics they pretended to know what they were not fully entitled to and were hence treated with a degree of condescension, and for their counterparts in Indian languages English professors were trespassers into a territory to which they had forfeited the rights when they opted for a foreign language and literature.
Three important categories of the AMU English Department’s contribution to Urdu can be identified. First, those who joined the Department as faculty members, spending a great deal of their time in Aligarh writing in both Urdu and English. Second, members of the English Department who read in Urdu but wrote in English, either translating from Urdu to English or writing academic articles and books using Urdu sources. Third, those who studied in the Department of English but moved out to different places, doing substantial work belonging to either of the two categories: creative work, literary criticism, and translation into Urdu from English.
The association of the first two categories of people with Urdu also tells the story of the gradually changing status of the language in India. Most of the people, or rather all, belonging to the first category were born in undivided India, when Urdu had a vibrant presence in the country. The generation born before Independence also had the advantage of being familiar with Persian, which made their Urdu impeccable. The second category, born after Independence, was generally more proficient in reading Urdu than in writing in the script, and have mostly written in English.
Mapping out the work of the faculty members of English Department since independence, it emerges that a good number of them, beginning with Professor Khwaja Manzoor Hussain (1904-1986), had a substantial output of Urdu literature and literary criticism. Well-versed in English, Urdu and Persian, Khwaja Manzoor Hussain, chairman of the Department from 1946 to 1948, was a man of immense learning, much sought after for his insights into literature.
Asloob Ahmad Ansari, an eminent Urdu critic mentions in his profile of Hussain in his book Aina Khane Mein that leading Urdu writers and poets like Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Pitras Bukhari, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Wiqar Azeem, Intizar Husain, and Shan ul Haq Haqqi have acknowledged Manzoor Hussain’s range of scholarship and critical insights into literature.
Ansari also writes that Faiz sent his famous nazm “Ye daagh daagh ujala ye shab guzida sahar” to Khwaja Manzoor Husain before its publication, and he read it in many gatherings in Aligarh. Another incident relates to English novelist EM Forster – he was a close friend of Sir Ross Masood, Sir Syed’s grandson and AMU’s vice chancellor from 1929 to 1934, and an inspiration for the character of Dr Aziz in Forster’s modern classic A Passage to India – when he was in Aligarh’s historic Union Hall Building to deliver a lecture on Charles Dickens, organised by the Raleigh Literary Society of the Department of English. Introducing the speaker, Khwaja mentioned some of the forgotten writings of Forster, which even the novelist probably did not remember. Forster remarked in wonderment, “You are slandering me”.
Aligarh Muslim University | Credit: PTI
How world literature inspired modern writings in Urdu
A cultured, soft-spoken and self-effacing person, Khwaja did not publish much while in Aligarh, though he was known to be translating some Russian short story writers into Urdu and working on different aspects of Urdu ghazals. It was only in the late 1970s that he published his book of Urdu translations of Russian stories with a preface written by Faiz Ahmad Faiz. Ansari is of the opinion that Hussain’s translation of the stories of writers like Chekhov influenced the course of the Urdu short story significantly.
In other words, Ansari suggests that Urdu writers of short stories were made familiar with Russian greats through Hussain’s translation. Treating some difficult and controversial literary and critical issues with frankness, his book titled Iqbal aur Baaz Dusre Shayar tries to assess Iqbal’s status vis-à-vis other important Urdu and Persian poets. His longstanding interest in the genre of the ghazal, especially its relationship to contemporary social and political movements, yielded two very important books in 1970s: Tahreek Jado Jihad Bataur Mauzu-o- Sukhan and Urdu Ghazal ka Khariji Roop Bahroop. Presenting a new proposition, and receiving bouquets and brickbats in equal measure, he argued that ghazal poetry has a political and social dimension which may not be directly visible on the surface, but is very much a part of this genre.
Salamatullah Khan, another important name in this context who joined the English Department in 1945 and retired as a reader (promotions were difficult at that time), was one of the pioneers of American literature in the northern part of India at a time when American literature hardly had any presence in universities and colleges. He can be spotted in a group photograph of the delegates who met in Mussoorie in 1962, a meeting which led to the establishment of the American Studies Research Center in Hyderabad (ASRC), at one time the best resource for books and journals on American studies.
Though Khan worked on Emily Dickinson for his doctoral thesis, a lesser-known aspect of his work is the publication of his three books in Urdu titled Majaz ka Almiya aur Doosre Mazameen (1969), Amriki Adab ka Mukhtasar Jayeza (1978), and Ernest Hemingway: Hayat-o-Fan ka Tanqidi Mutaala (1980). Majaz ka Almiya includes his essays on Mir Taqi Mir, Ghalib, Sauda, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, some rebel poets of Urdu, and the genres of ‘azad nazm’ and ‘inshaiya’. His history of American literature follows the method of literary history popular at that time, introducing first the pioneers like Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, and then discussing different trends and movement in American literature. His crisp and analytical style, not a very common feature of Urdu prose, makes his book on Hemingway, which covers all his important works, a good read even today.
How Aligarh Muslim University nurtured contemporary Urdu literature
The most prolific of all academics associated with the department was undoubtedly Asloob Ahmad Ansari (1925-2016), who wrote extensively in both English and Urdu. A bilingual critic, Ansari joined the department in 1947, headed it for almost two decades, and influenced a whole generation of his students and colleagues to read closely and write carefully.
An established Shakespeare and Blake scholar, he has a huge corpus of work in Urdu, mostly literary criticism, but also sketches and memoirs, and many edited volumes. Ghalib and Iqbal were his favourite poets, but he has written on almost all important Urdu poets. His books on Ghalib include Naqsh-e-Ghalib (1970), Naqsh Hai Rang Rang (1998) and on Iqbal Iqbal ki Terah Nazmein (1977), Iqbal ki Muntakhib Nazmein and Ghazlein (1994), Iqbal Harf-o-Mani (1998). Among the many books he edited, his two-volume GhazalTanqeed: Vali Deccani se Iqbal aur Maabad Iqbal Tak (2002) is especially remarkable for its comprehensiveness and variety.
Though he has written more on Urdu poetry, a dominant genre in Urdu literature, Ansari’s work does cover his analysis and evaluation of all canonic Urdu novels and other genres of prose. His books Urdu ke Pandrah Novel (2003) discusses, among others, important novels like Umraojan Ada, Maidan-e-Amal, Udas Naslein, and Aag ka Dariya. His book Aitraf-e-Rasheed Ahmed Siddiqui (1977) unravels the personality and art of Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui, a master humorist and satirist. His articles on different literary issues are included in Adab aur Tanqeed (1968) and Andazey (2008).
An excellent prose writer, Ansari has also written a delightful book of sketches, Aina Khane Mein, which includes his sketches and assessments of some of his contemporaries, such as Dr Zakir Husain, Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui, Khwaja Manzoor Husain, Maulvi Zia Ahmad Badauni, Dr Abdul Aleem, Syed Hamid, Malik Ram, Khaleeq Ahmad Nizami, Ale Ahmad Suroor, and Mukhtaruddin Arzoo.
Ansari brought out a literary journal in Urdu, Naqdo Nazar, which provided a platform to many of his colleagues to write on a regular basis. Among his colleagues in the Department of English, Professor ZA Usmani, Zahida Zaidi, Amin Ashraf, Mohd Yasin, Maqbool Hasan Khan, S Wiqar Husain, Abdul Raheem Kidwai, and Syed Asim Ali wrote for the journal regularly, often at his persuasion. He also motivated many young scholars from other disciplines, including people like Shafey Kidwai, now a Sahitya Akademi award winner in Urdu, to write for Naqdo Nazar.
Ansari himself contributed articles, analyses of poems and book reviews to the journal on a regular basis. In fact, often the major portion of the journal comprised his own contributions. He also brought out a collection of his editorials and obituaries published in Naqdo Nazar in his book Harf-e-Chand (2005). Many of Ansari’s articles, written over a long period of time, were published in book form in his last phase, largely due to the practical help he received from his former student Abdul Raheem Kidwai.
The work of Zahida Zaidi (1930-2011), a poet, dramatist, novelist, translator and above all a liberal face of Aligarh all through her career, will surely enjoy an afterlife as more and more English translations of her Urdu plays appear on the scene. Known for nurturing the talent of Naseeruddin Shah and introducing him to many Continental playwrights, Zaidi was one of the pioneers of Urdu drama. She translated the plays of Chekhov, Pirandello, Sartre, Beckett and the poems of Eugenio Montale, Garcia Lorca, and Pablo Neruda into Urdu. Full of elaborate stage directions, her Urdu plays are heavily inspired by absurdist theatre, where often there is minimalist use of stagecraft. Departing from the technique of realism, they have, however, been inspired by many real events and topical issues.
Woh Subah Kabhi Toh Ayegi (1990) a feminist play in many ways, responds to the issue of domestic abuse. In Doosra Kamra (1990) a play in which the line between dream and reality appears blurred, all characters meet in one room while another room becomes a frightening place, with dead bodies appearing in it one by one. Jungal Jalta Raha (1990) probes the complexities of human character and Kyun Kar Us But se Rakhoon Jan Azeez (1998) laments the loss of culture and values in academic spaces.
Responding to the tragedy of the Gulf War, she wrote Sahra-e-Azam (1991), an anti-imperialist play where she is critical of American bombing in Iraq. She also responded to the tragedy of Gujarat in her play Bahut Door Tak Raat Hogi (2006) and dedicated it to “the martyrs and persecuted people of Gujarat; those persecuted women who were victims of the lust of cruel beasts; those innocent people languishing in jails for their innocence; those innocent children who are in search of their lost paradise.” Like George Bernard Shaw, Zaidi wrote long prefaces to her plays which provide a rich commentary on the context, making it easier for her readers to appreciate the technique and thematic concerns.
Zahida Zaidi’s lone novel Inquilab ka Ek Din (1996) is a campus novel, talking about one day in the life of its young female protagonist, but its canvas is wider because her use of stream of consciousness narration in certain parts of the novel. Zaidi also has seven collections of poems, two in English titled Broken Mirror (1979) and Beyond Words (1984), and five in Urdu titled Zahr-e-Hayat, Dharti Ka Lams, Sang-e-Jan, Shola-e-Jan, and Sham-e-Tanhai.
A poet of ghazals and nazms, her poetry has different shades, topical, symbolic, experimental, and philosophical and spiritual; especially in her final collection Sham-e-Tanhai (2008). Defining the nature of her poetry in the preface of her book Shola-e-Jan (2000) she writes, “For me poetry is a practice of transforming deep and intense experiences into insights through the vehicle of creative rhythm and potential of language.” Her important write-ups on Urdu literature written in English are included in the book Glimpses of Urdu Literature: Select Writings (2011).
Syed Amin Ashraf (1930-2013), who joined the Department in 1963 and retired in 1991, was better known for his light-hearted conversation, bursting with anecdotes, and his Urdu couplets than for his scholarship. His three collections of poems, Jadah Shab (2000), Bahar Ejaad (2007) Qafs-e-Rang (2011), and a single collection of prose writings and translations Burg-o-Vabaar, were published many years after his retirement. Hailed as a poet of love, especially the sufic concept of love, his poetry, using very few words, holds an appeal for both heart and mind.
Amin Ashraf’s khanqahi background also colours his poetry. Jadah Shab, containing both nazms and ghazals, was written over almost half a century. In his introduction to Bahar Ejaad, a collection of his ghazals, eminent Urdu critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi expresses the view that reading just a few ghazals of Amin Ashraf’s makes the reader not only a confidant of the poet’s, but also in posses himself composed those couplets.
Jadia Asjad, a research scholar at Aligarh Muslim University working on Amin Ashraf’s poetry, is of the view that there appears a conflict sometimes in Amin Ashraf’s mind between classical and modernist (jadeed) models of poetry but he was too devoted to classical tradition of poetry to try modernist poetry. Burg-o-Vabaar includes his explication of many nazms and scholarly essays on various poets and writers like Iqbal, Fani, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Muzaffar Hanafi and a comparative view of the conception of Satan in Milton and Iqbal. His Urdu translations of Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) titled Shayri aur Shayri Zabaan-o-Bayaan, American critic Mark Schorer’s famous essay “Technique as Discovery” titled “Takneek Daryaaft ki Hasiyat Se” and an essay of French critic Paul Valery greatly benefited his Urdu readers.
Mohd Yasin (1932-2010), a hard working teacher, authored two very important books in Urdu titled Angrezi Adab ki Mukhtasar Tareeq and Naqoosh-o-Afkaar aur Nazaryat: Muntakhib Mazaamin (2010) in addition to his articles and book reviews published in Naqdo Nazar. First published in 1971, Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu Hind, at the insistence of famous Urdu critic Ale Ahmad Suroor, had its revised and expanded second edition in 1990 (Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy) and a third revised edition in 2009 (Educational Book House, Aligarh). This book, indebted to Legouis and Cazamian’s famous A History of English Literature, was written with an awareness that Urdu readers not only need to know English literature in order to assess the limitations or the special features of their literature, but they can also approach world literature through a window provided by the ideas, forms and philosophy contained in English literature.
His essays in Naqoosh-o-Afkar, written over a long period of time, include his sketches of Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui, Majnoo Gorakhpuri, Amelendu Bose, Maulana Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi, Ale Ahmad Suroor, Ateeq Ahmad Siddiqui, and Syed Amin Ashraf, including his observations on different literary issues and his point of view on many social and political problems faced by Aligarh Muslim University and Indian Muslims. He also familiarised Urdu readers by writing essays on French novelists Balzac and Flaubert in Naqdo Nazar.
Najma Mahmood’s collection of poems Registan mein Jheel (2014) reflects the modernist sensibility of an accomplished poet of nazms and songs. Drawing upon the images from nature like lake, river, water, rains, waves, sea, lightening, moon, sky and many others, her work touches on, among other subjects, themes of creativity, beauty, gender-relations and problems of existence. There is not only an element of restlessness in her poetry, noted by Syed Hamid, or shades of romanticism, noticed by Waheed Akhtar, there is also a deep psychological and spiritual probing in her nazms. Her feminist concerns are most visible in her famous poem Mother Goddess.
(From L to R): Asloob Ahmad Ansari, Zahida Zaidi, Syed Amin Ashraf, Najma Mahmood.
Many other members of the Department wrote and published in Urdu. Masoodul Hasan(1928-2019), a prolific writer in English till his last days, wrote interesting and critical reviews of all books sent to him as presents. His articles, reviews and creative pieces in Urdu are included in Maya-e-Khewesh (2019), ably compiled and edited by Mohammad Haris Bin Mansoor.
Maqbool Hasan Khan’s writings on Ghalib, Iqbal and Qurratulain Hyder were greatly appreciated. In fact, Khan disagreed with the largely held view of Urdu critics about Hyder’s stream of consciousness technique in her novels. ZU Usmani, widely praised for his insights into difficult literary texts, wrote on Ghalib, Fani, Premchand, and Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui in Naqdo Nazar. S Wiqar Husain, a very well-read person, wrote insightful essays on Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui’s symbolic characters, features of Moin Ahsan Jazbi’s poetry and analyses of ghazals of Iqbal, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Nasir Kazmi, Asghar Gondvi, and Fani.
Raza Imam’s collection of stories in Urdu titled Shor aur Sannata, which has a foreword written by noted Urdu critic Shamim Hanafi, was published after his death. AR Kidwai, a celebrated translator of difficult philosophical and religious texts, has written a number of books in Urdu. Syed Asim Ali, who has written substantially in Urdu and translated important works, is also a poet of ghazals. He has written essays on Iqbal’s criticism, Shelley’s intellectual evolution in his poetry, analyses of the ghazals of Mir Taqi Mir, Khwaja Mir Dard and other Urdu poets apart from incisive book reviews in Naqdo Nazar.
Urdu poets, creative writers and literary critics at the Department of English at Aligarh Muslim University have contributed in their own ways to make Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav a meaningful affair.
Mohammad Asim Siddiqui is professor in the Department of English at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Language of Literature / by Mohammad Asim Siddiqui / October 09th, 2022
Dr Tahera Qutbuddin, a professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Chicago, recently became the first person of Indian-origin to win the 15th Sheikh Zyed Book Award. The award is considered to be the Nobel Prize of the Arab world.
Dr Qutbuddin, who was born in Mumbai and was educated until class 12 in India, also serves on the editorial board of NYU Abu Dhabi’s Library of Arabic Literature. She won the award for her latest book, Arabic Oration – Art and Function, published by Brill Academic Publishers of Leiden in 2019.
In the book, she puts forth a comprehensive theory of Arabic literature in its foundational oral period dating the seventh and eighth centuries AD. She discusses it’s influence on modern-day sermons and lectures as well.
Having completed her higher secondary from Sophia College in Mumbai, Dr Qutbuddin pursued her BA from Ain Shams University, Cairo and got her PhD and MA from Harvard University, USA.
In a recent interview with a portal, she said that although she has lived away for many decades in Egypt and now the US, her roots are vital to who she is, and Indian culture is part of the fabric of her being.
“It (Mumbai) is the place of my childhood memories, of playing in the monsoon rains and eating mangoes in the summer. I come back to Mumbai often. I love my Mother India, and pray for her security and progress, and for harmony and love between the many beautiful communities that call her home,” she said.
According to her bio, her research “focuses on intersections of the literary, the religious, and the political in classical Arabic poetry and prose.”
She is the recipient of several prestigious fellowships, including support from the Franke Institute of Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
source: http://www.femina.in / Femina / Home> Trending> Achievers / by Shraddha Kamdar / April 30th, 2021
Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world. There is no limit to what they can accomplish. Now, one can learn all about the achievements of Muslim women at a two-day exhibition being organised at the Salar Jung Museum on October 1 and 2 by the Intellectual Learning Methodologies (ILM) Foundation in association with the Shaheen Group of Educational Institutions, Islah and Asli Talbina.
Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, general secretary, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, will inaugurate the exhibition which showcases the achievements of 40 women in different fields. Details of their accomplishment will be explained through posters, said Dr Lateef of ILM Foundation.
The main objective of holding the exhibition is to inform the common man about the achievements of women, particularly Muslim women.
A study of early Islamic history showed that women enjoyed the freedom of movement and took an active part in all walks of life. They excelled as rulers, warriors, nurses, scholars, jurists, teachers, traders and companions of the Prophet (Sahabiat).
In fact, they defined success on their own terms and proved that they are the real architects of society. When he started working on the subject some one-and-half years ago, Dr Lateef said, he stumbled upon the names of at least 10,000 women who had made immense contributions in their chosen field of activity.
These details he accessed through four books. They are Al Muhaddthat written by Oxford scholar of Indian origin, Dr Akram Nadvi, Muslim Women Biography Dictionary of Aisha Bewley, Great Women of Islam written by Mehmood Ahmed Ghazanfar and Achievements of Muslim Women in Religious and Scholarly Field by Maulana Qazi Athar Mubarakpuri.
Some of the well-known names whose exploits and achievements are being showcased include Hazrath Aisha, wife of the Prophet Muhammed, who made an enormous contribution to the cause of Islam through her intelligence and scholarship. Besides being an important narrator of Prophetic traditions (Hadith), she proved to be more learned than many men of her period.
Many male companions of the Prophet used to approach her for clarification of Hadith. Similarly, Hazrath Zainab, daughter of Hazrath Ali, was also a great scholar. Eminent Islamic scholar, Ibn Hajar, is stated to have studied under 53 women while Al Suyuti is under 33 women. All this is history now. Other prominent women are Queen Zubaida, Princess Razia Sultana, Durru Shehvar, and Princess Niloufer.
These women could leave their indelible marks as Muslim society gave them their fundamental rights to education and self-development.
“Lives of early Muslim women represent exemplary models, transcending time and boundaries. And they are a great source of inspiration,” Lateef said.
Organisers plan to take the exhibition to other parts of the country after Hyderabad. The exhibition on the inspiring women achievers is the result of the hard work put in by two talented girls -Juveria Sabir and Zoha Ansari. The latter is working at Edventure Park, a start-up incubator.
The two-day exhibition is being held in the eastern block of the Salar Jung Museum from 11 am to 5 pm. Entry is free.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Featured News / by J S Ifthekhar / September 27th, 2022
Thanks to the painstaking efforts of biographer Yashodhara Dalmia, Sayed Haider Raza: The Journey of an Iconic Artist gives an insight into the global phenomenon
S.H. Raza, Bombay, 1964
Imagine being born in the early 1920s in a small village in Madhya Pradesh amid the lush, inviting Kanha National Park, with quietude all around, only to reinvent the boundaries of contemporary modernist and abstract paintings.
When Yashodhara Dalmia—a renowned art historian and curator in her own right—met S.H. Raza in Paris just a few months before his passing, it was the most extraordinary day of her life for all the right reasons. Of course, she could never have envisioned writing the biography of the man; but the memories are fond and wistful. “His presence itself was so welcoming,” she recollects. “I came out spell-bound. He was strikingly informative and ever so humble.”
pix: harpercollins.co.in
Dalmia was commissioned by HarperCollins to work on Raza’s biography shortly after his passing in July 2016. Naturally, her biggest source—the man himself—was inaccessible. The only way for her to attempt near-accurate documentation of Raza was through his correspondences with other artists, interviewing his loved ones, and tracing his continent-spanning journey of more than seven decades.
Raza, Kathe Langhammer, Rudolf von Leyden (sitting front row) and Walter Langhammer, Ara (standing behind)
But it was an undertaking Dalmia had willingly signed up for. And she was in it for the long haul.
Childhood: The Only Muse
Dalmia observes that almost all of Raza’s works were informed by his childhood in India. He consciously made a point to visit the country annually, meet its burgeoning artists, and travel the interiors. “He grew up in the dense forests of Kanha. And he had more-or-less a happy childhood. Naturally, his relationship with nature which was solidified in his early years, manifested very powerfully on the canvas,” notes Dalmia. Raza channelized the concentrated beauty of Kanha through the funnel of expressionism in works like Saurashtra and Tapovan. His relationship with nature was symbiotic—he sought his creative muses in the spaces between the hushed silences of the night and the stillness of the imposing trees.
When he broke into his legendary bindu paintings it again stemmed from this very distinct memory of his childhood. “As a child, he was quite the wayward kind—easily distracted. He found it hard to concentrate on his studies. His teacher then told him to focus on a single dot and then this dot would go on to become the bindu,” Dalmia explains. Like all of his styles that later evolved—bindu advanced too. “The circle graduated into different spaces. Initially, it was solid, later it became concentric and diaphanous and then even suspended in space,” she says.
Global: Deeper Colours
Raza’s arc of global recognition was running in parallel to his own evolution as an artist. He’d started to experiment with more liberal brushstrokes and his relationship with impasto paintings became only more acute. The year 1956 had proven to be a turning point for the master in more ways than one—he was the first foreign artist to receive the prestigious Prix de la critique award. This would pave the way for his first solo exhibition because with this award he was in the august company of past winners—auteurs like Debre, Kito, and Buffet. “Even when he went to Berkeley in 1960s, he encountered a range of abstract and surreal artists,” notes Dalmia. “It’s not that he learnt anything new from them. But getting acquainted with these experimental art forms triggered the vast reserves of his childhood experiences.”
More than anything, Dalmia credits Raza’s relationship with his partner, Janine Mongillat, as being immensely influential on his liberation and artistic fulfilment.
“She was an artist too but hers was a wholly different style. And yet, the conversations Raza had with Janine deeply impacted his works. He used to look forward to those conversations as he found them intellectually stimulating on multiple levels,” says Dalmia. Mongillat’s unfortunate death due to cancer in 2002 shook Raza to the core. He was confronted with an intense longing for the woman he had deeply loved. It naturally influenced his works, the bindu became more celestial and ruminative.
S.H. Raza, Rajasthan, 1975
Pinnacle: Towards Home
Towards the last phase of his artistic career, Raza grew fonder for the home country that had taught him so much and had shaped him, creatively, to be the master that he became. The longing for his home and his deceased partner was intense. And there was no way he could have reconciled with both. “After the 70s, he became more conscious of his Indian roots. Now, he did not channelise it into abstract expressions. He even explicitly started using verses in Devanagari in his works,” observes Dalmia. For instance, in L’inconnu, he uses a line in Devanagari to convey the dichotomy between sects and identities. The local character of India then formed a bulk of his works. And he captured the verve of India in its fullest spirit. “When you see Bombay or Rajasthan the colours are vivid. With Rajasthan he brings out the searing sensations of the desert so powerfully on the canvas,” elaborates Dalmia.
S.H. Raza, L’inconnu, 1972
Mahatma Gandhi’s influence on his works cannot be understated at all. As a child when Raza first saw him with a singular lathi in his hand a simple white cloth wrapped across his body—the image seared in young Raza’s consciousness. As Dalmia notes in the biography, Raza did not follow the footsteps of his family to choose Pakistan after the partition of 1947 because he simply “couldn’t bear to leave the land of Gandhi” and even during his annual visits to India he would religiously bow before Gandhi’s samadhi in Delhi.
The Ethereal Touch
While the spiritual element in him only became more acute with each work. “Without divine intervention, paintings cannot be made,” he is quoted in the book. And the spiritual elements in his bindu paintings became perfectly attuned with the character of India on his canvas. With these multiple resonations in his works—ranging from the spiritual to the Gandhian and to the personal—for Dalmia, even writing the book and studying him was an “opening up experience” in many ways. She believes that Raza was an artist who lifted you up, he drew from life and made it bigger.
“His journey is simply astounding,” says Dalmia. “I don’t claim to have done total justice to his life because there are a lot of things only his eyes were privy to. But one thing remains unchanged: the story of a little boy who rose from the forests of Kanha to conquer the art world is nothing if not astounding.”
source: http://www.architecturaldigest.in / AD , Architectural Digest / Home> Culture / by Arman Khan / Photography by The Raza Foundation Archives / New Delhi / June 11th, 2021 / Front cover pix. edited in ..harpercollins.co.in
Abdul Wahid Sheikh, who was acquitted in 2015 of all charges in the 2006 Mumbai train blasts case. | Photo Credit: Youtube Screengrab
The film, releasing today, is about Abdul Wahid Sheikh’s fight for justice and the pain of a commoner accused in 2006 Mumbai train bombings
For many years, Abdul Wahid Sheikh lived a life of peace and quiet. He would go to school in the morning, teach his students, spend time with them sorting out their issues, come back home in the afternoon to his family. The beautiful bubble burst when the police asked him to report to the local police station and arrested him as an accused of Mumbai train blasts of 2006 which claimed more than 180 lives.
The next nine years were spent proving his innocence. After being acquitted in the case, Sheikh decided to put it down in a book Begunah Quaidi, later translated into English as Innocent Prisoner. This Friday, Sheikh’s story makes it to cinema halls as director Sudarshan Gamare’s film Haemolymph releases at theatres across the country. Sheikh is both a relieved man, and emotional. “The film brought back memories of the prolonged stay in jail, the third degree treatment, false implication,” he shares his experience with The Hindu.
Excerpts from the interview:
You had already penned your experience in Innocent Prisoner. What led to Haemolymph now?
I returned from jail in 2015. A year later my book was published and many filmmakers started approaching me for making a film around my life. I did not say no to any of them. After listening to my story, nobody mustered up courage to make the film. When Sudarshan Gamare approached me, I told him, ‘You are not the first or the last to talk of making a film on my ordeal’. He had read Sunetra Choudhury’s book Behind Bars, which had a chapter on me, and my book too. We had many sittings about the script. Their team went through my chargesheet of 20,000 pages and the judgment of 2,000 pages. They saw the work I had been doing.
The film unit met you in Mumbai?
Yes. They hired space in a hotel in Mumbai and said, ‘You will have to sit with our team for two-three days and discuss minute details of the jail days’.
Didn’t you fear revisiting past trauma?
Yes, every now and then explaining the prison experience, I would get emotional. But I had a larger vision that if the film actually gets made, the world will know about my experience. What the book failed to do, this film has already done; those who watched the film at the premier (in New Delhi this past week), shed a tear. The film overwhelmed the audience and people asked about the 12 other accused too.
How long did it take to shoot the film?
It took two years to complete the film from research to shooting. As soon as the film’s shooting was completed, lockdown was imposed in March 2020. So the release was delayed. It will be screened at nearly 300 theatres from May 27.
How involved were you with the shooting?
I knew all the time where were they shooting in Mumbai. They used to call me regularly, and I attended whenever I had the time as I am also teaching in a school.
Was Riyaz Anwar who plays Abdul Wahid Sheikh in the film your choice?
No, he was the director’s choice. Sudarshan has worked with him in a couple of short films earlier. Riyaz has done a good job. There is a resemblance to my face and voice in the film.
How satisfied are you with the movie?
To a large extent…I understand it is not possible to encapsulate nine years of life in a two-hour film. Whatever the film shows is factually correct; whatever I underwent in jail or court, has been shown with honesty.
Were you arrested from school?
Yes and no. The illegal arrest took place when I was in school. They came and took me along. I came back a little later. For official arrest, they phoned me at home, asking me to come to the police station. I went over and they arrested me there. We have shown it in the film.
Aren’t you worried that the Intelligence Bureau guys who you say have often followed you will see the film too?
No, I am not worried. Let them watch a movie that narrates the life of a school teacher who is falsely implicated in a crime he did not commit.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Delhi / by Zia Us Salam / May 27th, 2022
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