literature essay in urdu

The Presence of a Language: Journeys in Urdu Literature

Aamer Hussein

Aamer Hussein was born in Karachi, Pakistan, in 1955, and moved to London in his teens. He has been writing fiction since the mid-eighties, and his work has been widely anthologised in many languages including Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and Urdu. He is the author of the short story collections, Mirror to the Sun (1993); This Other Salt (1999); Turquoise (2002); Cactus Town and other stories (2002); Insomnia (2007); Another Gulmohar Tree (2009), a novella, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize; and The Cloud Messenger (2011). He is also the editor of Kahani: Short Stories by Pakistani Women (2005), a revised and extended edition of Hoops of Fire (1999).

A literary memoir on the raptures of discovering Urdu literature, this lyrical essay is the Pakistani-born, London-based writer’s eloquent and poignant testament of the mysterious and plural ways in which reading shapes one’s creative writing. The essay mentions the range of narrative techniques and aesthetic refinements of Urdu literature that has, for centuries, flown alongside the river of rasa explorations.

1. Maulana Rumi’s ‘Masnavi’ begins with a song of separation: the flute from the reed bed. I first read the verse when I was about sixteen. But I don't want to begin this piece on a note of complaint. Yes, I was given a language that wasn't my own to read and write in: this is the post-national story of my milieu and my generation. But perhaps the distance from my native tongue—and learning to read and speak several others, so that at times my head is full of languages, like an airport lounge—taught me to think of Urdu as my homeward destination.

2. I was sixteen when I first read Faiz in a bilingual edition with translations by Victor G. Kiernan. I wrote ‘read’ because I’d been hearing Faiz for much of my life. His ghazal ‘gulon me rang bhare/baad e nau bahar chale’ is the first ghazal I remember memorising, almost by default because my sister was learning to perform it; we'd all heard Mehdi Hassan sing it in a beautiful setting when I was about nine.

            Faiz lived down the road from us then, and on our way to school my sisters and I would often see him in his garden. The knowledge that he'd been in and out of prison and disfavour made his words more poignant.

             Faiz had taken the metaphors of traditional Indo-Persian verse—flowers, gardens, longing, exile, cages—and crafted something new, a poem that spoke of prison and companionship, loneliness and longing for the new day of liberation. He made the abstract images of classical poetry luminous and tactile. His cage is a prison cell and his exile a term in jail.

A copy of Faiz's Dast-e-Saba

            I suppose that finding that book of poems, hidden away on the bottom shelf of the public library’s Foreign Languages section, reminded me of the distances in my own life, how I’d left one country (Pakistan) for another (India) and then India for England; travelled from North to South and then further North than I’d ever been; how I’d always lived between languages and changed scripts, from Urdu to Hindi, and nearly lost the former on the way. I’d written a few poems myself—a few in the Hindi script—but Faiz’s poems gave me landscapes I'd left behind and dreamscapes I hadn't, addressed obliquely on what I felt about life and literature, and yet told me so much more than I knew; though I wouldn't have found the words for my reactions then.

            I knew, too, that something in the music of his words reached my inner ear in a way English verse, which I was studying then for my ‘A’ levels, hadn't done. If Faiz had merely reproduced traditional rhythms and metres I might have been less intrigued, but over and over his forms extended the structures and broke the mould. 

            I remember my teacher, Mr Shah, complaining a few years later: ‘The violet anklets of pain? What does he mean?’ He said ‘Faiz steals from Yeats and others.’ I think he mentioned Eliot. Later, I’d be told Faiz was influenced by Neruda.

            At the age of twenty, I met Faiz for the first time, spoke to him about culture and identity when I was twenty-two. Was it his syncretic idiom then that drew me to his words in my youth, or the fact that he remade or re-formed tradition that made him seem so approachable? Who knows?

3. But to claim that the door to my lost mother tongue swung open when I first read Faiz would be an exaggeration. What Kiernan’s book did do for me on a practical level, with its English versions, and transliterated Urdu and the originals on facing pages, was teach me to decipher my lost alphabet (which I’d never known very well), and give me a lexicon of  abstract words. It turned what was becoming aural into visual images, sounds into signs. I don't know what made me decide to study Urdu for another ‘A’ level when I was about nineteen, but one working reason was that I needed an additional subject to go to university. Finally, the chance to study Urdu had come.

            The book my teacher—the one who lambasted Faiz—gave me to read as a set text I knew already. (A memory: I'm in Karachi, aged about seven or eight. My mother goes to the cinema on a Sunday morning to see Zindagi Ya Toofan , starring Nutan, comes back excited by the film and asks her music teacher to bring her the book it's based on: Umrao Jan Ada . I hear her tell my father when she's finished it: ‘She was no saint. When she gave up being a courtesan, she kept other girls to do the work. It was only later that she turned her back on it all.’ Another memory: I’m fifteen, about to leave Bombay for London in a few days, when I find a pale pink paperback book called The Courtesan of Lucknow in a wayside bookstall. It’s Khushwant Singh’s translation of Umrao Jan . I read it as a historical text, about dancing girls and kings and the Uprising of 1857 , about music and dance and the composing of verses, the passing of an era and a world that I imagine but have hardly seen documented. I don't think about its literary merit or what it might be like in the original, but I'm struck by the self-reflexive mode of narration: the courtesan tells her story within the frame of the author's account, reflecting on and revising his version of her life when he reads it to her. I know about the period because I've read from cover to cover the Ghalib centenary issue of The Illustrated Weekly , put together by a family friend who works there, Urdu novelist Qurratulain Hyder: the Mutiny, as some still call it in the odd neocolonial language of the time, figures largely in Ghalib's last years; he laments the destruction of Old Delhi just as Umrao Jan laments the passing of Wajid Ali Shah’s Lucknow.)

            I learned from Mr Shah that the novel was written at the turn of the century by a certain Mirza Ruswa, and readers assumed it was based on a real story, just as I did. But anglocentric critics decreed that the character of Umrao was a fictional composite or even a construct. Ruswa was influenced by Daniel Defoe. Umrao Jan is an Urdu clone of Moll Flanders. (Today another theory emerges. ‘There really was an Umrao. What we're reading is her book, redacted by Ruswa. You have only to compare Ruswa’s other fictions with this one to see the stylistic difference.’ I’ve never managed to read another entire Ruswa novel to compare, though I have two or three on my shelves; but whether he redacted, transcribed or invented her story, he created a masterpiece and an original one.) 

            (The novel followed me through several years: I heard the Defoe theory at university where I took my degree in Persian, Urdu and History. On my post-grad vacation I went to Delhi for the first time and there, not far from the Lal Qila, I saw Muzaffar Ali’s film version with Rekha playing the title role. Many, many years later I watched on DVD the version Urdu poet Zehra Nigah wrote for Pakistan TV. That for me is the definitive film version, though it is still a version, not the original.)

            .

4. At university we read another novelist, probably Urdu’s first—Nazir Ahmed—who was also, according to one of our tutors, influenced by Defoe. I don't know why they chose the text they did— Taubat un Nasuh —a didactic parable (is that a tautology?) about a father whose children drift away from the right religious and social path and are forced by a cholera epidemic (hence the Defoe comparison) to examine their wicked ways I didn’t find it inspiring or even interesting. I didn't find any Urdu prose fiction very interesting. Not Premchand, Krishan Chander or Manto, whose stories we read. Not even, at that time, Ismat Chughtai, by whom we read one story, ‘Nanhi ki Nani’, that isn’t anywhere near her best.

            What I did take away from university was a knowledge and understanding of Urdu poets— Mir and Ghalib and Iqbal and Dagh whose work I knew at least in passing, and others such as Wali and Quli I’d hardly heard of. At home I’d listen to it all in musical settings, sung by Tahira Syed and Malika Pukhraj, Mehdi Hassan and Iqbal Bano. Learning about prosody and poetics, how to scan a poem (which I could do intuitively), I realised that the rhythms of Urdu and Persian, and Hindi too, were intrinsic to my understanding of language and music and the music of language in a way English verse had never been. I also studied forms I didn't know well: the marsias of Anis and Dabir, elegies for Hussein and the martyrs of Karbala, which I'd heard performed; and the masnavis of Mir, Mir Hassan and Shauq, verse romances which were the prototype of novels later writers would produce. There was also Bagh o Bahar or The Tale of the Four Dervishes , that magical sequence of prose narratives set in a frame, written in the early nineteenth century at Fort William by Mir Amman, apparently to satisfy the British need to read Urdu prose in a limpid and accessible form. These texts and the contexts in which I read them inspired a substantial segment of my recent novel, The Cloud Messenger.

5. I rediscovered Ismat Chughtai six or seven years after leaving university. A book called Aadhi Aurat, Aadha Khwab just fell into my hands at my local library. I began to read a story called ‘Meri Aap Beeti’ which whizzed through the events of her own life with a simplicity and elegance I hadn't looked for in Urdu (to which I usually turned for lyrical inspiration). It may have been a memoir but it read like fiction.

            In Rome on a rainy day that spring, I wrote a story set in the Karachi of my childhood, in which the offstage rumbles of the 1965 war between India and Pakistan accompany the games children play in their garden. Their games become darker as animosities grow and culminate in the killing of a rogue cat. I think that reading Chughtai had inspired me to find my voice.

            Back in London, on dark autumnal evenings, I combed the library shelves for other titles by the author and found, in a Hindi transliteration, Ek Qatra e Khoon , her wonderful prose retelling of the marsiya tradition; chronicles of the Prophet's grandsons, the Muslim martyrs of Karbala. Some months later, in colder weather, her novel Terhi Lakeer kept me awake all night. The events of her own life that I’d read in the short story had been fictionalised to create a compelling account of one woman’s life and (colonial and nationalist) times in the toughest, richest modernist prose. The novelist expertly weaves strands of history into the tapestry of her heroine’s journey, especially when the author reaches World War II and marries off her heroine (unhappily) to a white ‘Tommy’. It's hard to describe the impact of this book on the novice writer I was; I’d thought until then that writers of fiction in my language weren't up to the international mark. Chughtai was, and much of her fiction would be made available to anglophone readers in the nineties. (Several other writers in Urdu are world class—that awful term—but the short story is Urdu’s distinctive genre).

A copy of Ismat Chughtai's Terhi Lakeer

For the first time, I’d discovered the joys of parochial reading and a tale-spinner I could claim as my own. I also read Chughtai’s short novels Ziddi, a lush Gothic melodrama, and Dil ki duniya , about a woman abandoned by her husband who escapes the claustrophobic atmosphere of her family home with another man. I was writing more short stories. The directness and the achieved simplicity of Chughtai’s short fiction validated my feeling that domestic interiors and family dramas were the finest settings and themes for my fiction. In her best work, Chughtai’s use of succinct metaphor was a revelation. I didn't actually write another story under her influence until much later; but reading her I understood what I’d been attempting, in some of my fiction, to do: to recreate those interiors (and exteriors) of my past as a painter would, and then bring them to movement and life. When people asked me in later years about Urdu and its influence on my prose, I couldn't honestly say how it did influence me but I can certainly admit that apart from validating my home truths as fictional material, Chughtai showed me how to turn sensory images into tactile text. 

            On a trip to Bombay in 1990, I told my aunt, who knew both, that I loved Chughtai's work but hadn’t quite come to grips with Qurratulain Hyder’s. ‘That’s because you live far away and Chughtai delights in the ordinary which you miss,’ she said. ‘I prefer Annie because she’s more adventurous, she takes more risks with theme and style. Living in the West you're more exposed to all that’. Q. Hyder—‘Annie’—was a family friend and often visited us in London. In the mid-eighties I’d heard her read out a magical story she’d written in English, ‘Memories of an Indian Childhood’. We often talked about literature in many languages and over the years she’d teach me a lot about Urdu fiction in its contexts. But apart from a handful of her English stories I found her work intimidating and difficult. It made me feel my Urdu wasn't up to the mark. A few years later, when I read her stories in Patjhar ki Awaaz , I would change my mind. I think she's one of Urdu's greatest writers. Her memoirs, as yet untranslated, taught me more about the social history of my people than any other book I've read. But I have to admit that I know her intricate and fascinating novels best in the English versions that she—to use her own term— ‘transcreated’.     

A copy of Qurratulain Hyder's Aag ka Darya

6. Nine years after leaving university, another novel by Nazir just fell into my hands in the library and made me laugh out loud as I read it, on my haunches, by a shelf: Mira’at ul-Urus is the story of two sisters, one efficient and the other foolish, and their marriages. Composed (as early Urdu novels are) mostly in dialogue, it employs the speech of well-bred women, what used to be called begamati zaban. It’s witty and hilarious, moving from social comedy to an almost picaresque mode of narration and then back to the real.

            I had been publishing fiction for a few years then and never known that nineteenth-century Urdu novels could be like this, I’d only read something by Abdul Halim Sharar, who’d set out to do for Islamic history what Scott did for Christianity and the Crusades. I had, however, read some good writers of twentieth century prose fiction by then, apart from Ismat Chughtai. Khadija Mastur, Intezar Husain, Abdullah Hussein, Ghulam Abbas. Perhaps I’d needed a knowledge of the contemporary to appreciate the wit and wisdom of a novel published in the early 1860s. (I call it a novel, though my tutors would probably have argued with that. ‘On the one hand Nazir was influenced by western fiction; on the other, he was writing tracts that were not quite novels.’ I’d say that in his search to create a new form (which is after all what the novel is meant to be) he was about equally in rebellion against the picaresque fantasies— dastaans —of past Urdu fiction, and influenced by their storytelling techniques—inset stories, frames, crazy adventures. He referred to his works as qissas, not novels. (Qissas are tales of no specific length.)

            In spite of their different modes, I see Nazir as closer to Mir Amman than to Defoe or any English novelist, although he may not have been aware of that. He wrote at a time when Muslim males were being encouraged to acquire Western knowledge and new universities were being established for this purpose. Women were increasingly being taught to read and write, and Nazir claimed he wrote the story for his daughters. His mission was to make the lives of the modern Muslim middle classes of Delhi into interesting reading, and to implant his reformist messages in the minds of his characters. He never allowed himself to be swayed by the lascivious fantasies of earlier days, and therein lies the influence of his era’s reformist mores—in order to beat the colonisers, we had to clean up our own act, and that began with cleaning up our literature and our lives. ‘Away with decadence. New, realist texts for new times.’ I’d read a lot of theoretical texts to that effect at university. Nazir put these ideas into his fiction, showing us a society in which women and men redefined their roles, as the old certainties died and were yet to be definitively replaced. If, in Ghalib’s poetry and occasional prose, you hear the sigh of the old word dying, in Nazir’s you might discern the new world’s call to arms. Rereading Nazir at thirty-five made me aware, too, beyond the call of duty and history, how lively and luminous his prose could be, how he could bring alive, in a few lines of dialogue, characters, situations and a social milieu.

I said I wouldn’t complain, but this flair, because of my inability to write easily in my native language, is what I lacked. When my English-educated characters spoke I knew their words. But when I delved into those recesses of my memory which lead me to a past before my own, I was forced to translate and to transliterate. Working with utterance and speech; I lost, in the translation from a vernacular to an expository mode, the wit and wisdom of a Nazir Ahmed, the pithy phrasing and the gruff warmth of a Chughtai.           

7.  It was inevitable that at some point I’d be asked to try my hand at translation, and soon enough —in 1991—I received a commission to edit a book of fictions from Pakistan. I was teaching Urdu to external students at SOAS then and would dash from my classes to the library. Armed with a handful of names, I read my way through dozens of collections of stories written after Independence, and translated a couple. There were examples of short fiction, whether traditional or in an experimental mode, that matched up to anything written anywhere. Among the living, working writers of the time, Intizar Hussain was the master of the modern fable, bridging the gap between Kafka and the Jataka tales, and reminding us of the Hindu-Muslim syncretic in our imagination. Khalida Husain wrote grim tales that borrowed freely from traditional and foreign sources, timeless but with some magic sleight of hand also deeply contemporary. Fahmida Riaz was writing post-modern novellas which were reminiscent in their odd juxtapositions and collagist transitions of recent Eastern European writings. (At that time, I was more attracted to the post-modern edge; today, perhaps, I prefer the more traditionally structured fiction of the mid-twentieth century.) The book I edited wouldn’t come out till 1999, and in a different form— stories by women writers—but I learned more in that season of reading than I would on any university course.   

At some point, I came across Shaista Suhrawardy (later Ikramullah)’s Critical Survey of the Development of the Urdu Novel and Short Story , and realised that I’d only just crossed into the hinterland of Urdu fiction. Her book, published in 1945, introduced me to writers of another time. Along with Nazir and Sharar and Ruswa, there were many others; and many of those others were women. We'd been taught, I realised, to read Urdu fiction in a blinkered way; to assess it in the context of colonialism and then to read it for its political context when we came to the Progressives with their leftist ideology. I read on in fascination, but it was the period of the Progressives, which I’d skimmed at university, that I focused on—Premchand and his successors. (There’d been a frisson in 1936 when a group of Progressives including Ahmed Ali who went on to become famous as the author of Twilight in Delhi, Sajjad Zaheer, and the radical doctor Rashid Jahan, the only woman in the group.). 

            Ikramullah looks at Rashid's work in a penultimate chapter on the short story, juxtaposing it with the work on another woman I’d never heard of—Hijab Ismail, later Imtiaz Ali. Rashid is tough and contentious; Hijab moves in an oneiric world concerned with memory and desire. I can’t remember if I read Rashid’s pieces of thinly-veiled polemic right then but I immediately went off in search of Hijab. (‘I was a teenager when I read her,’ my mother remembered, with a smile.) She took the 1932 novella I’d found, Meri Natamam Muhabbat, and read it out to me and to my father over the next couple of days. Hijab’s prose was luscious, probably influenced by the Arabian Nights and by Mir’s masnavis as well as popular French writers like Pierre Loti; she was a pilot, probably the first woman in the subcontinent to fly, and her heroines could literally as well as metaphorically take to the skies. Her stories could be melodramatic but were structured with a steely discipline and leavened with humour; beneath their opulent descriptions of upper-class life was a trenchant underlying critique of patriarchal norms which masqueraded as religious teaching but were actually feudal constructs. (Many years later, her journals would reveal her thoughts as both socialist and feminist.) Hijab had been forgotten for a while, it seemed, but just as I began to read her, Pakistan was discovering its lost star and beginning to reprint her work in glossy new editions. Over the next decade, I’d read each new reprint as it appeared. It was easy to categorise her as a light writer, because she doesn't deal with the poor or the dispossessed; critics in English were quick to bracket her with Barbara Cartland, but Hijab’s gallery of alcoholics and depressive males, and her interest in their transgressive loves, place her in a category that is closer, perhaps, to a Daphne du Maurier if we have to compare her with popular romantic writers. But Hijab's vocabulary is allusively literary, and her consistent experiments with form—plays and prose poems as well as long and short fictions—raise her work far above the level of popular romance and make her contribution to Urdu quite unique. (Discovering Hijab’s stories eradicated my last blinkered impulses to read Urdu fiction primarily for its ideological content. Though those elements matter and novels and stories have taught me a lot about history and society, my guiding motive now is to read fiction for the multiple pleasures of the text. I’ve translated, too, over the years, some of Hijab’s exquisite prose poems.)

            Shaista Ikramullah, too, has been given an eminent place in the canon of Pakistani literature with reprints of her work, in Urdu and in English, memoir, essay, biography, and criticism. And just this morning, as I wrote, the postman came to the door with a registered parcel which contained a new edition of Koshish-e-Natamaam, her brief collection of finely-crafted short fiction, first published in the fifties (with an introduction by Ahmed Ali who, while he praises them, talks about the ‘limited canvas’ that is so often synonymous with women’s writing and with the short story.) There's a new intro to the new edition to this edition, which I’ll read in bed tonight.

8. The publication of Mirror to the Sun , my first collection of stories, in 1993, distracted me for a while from my pursuit of Urdu literature. But in early 1994, wandering around the shelves with Ikramullah’s book in hand to guide me, I read my way round the shelves of early 20th century Urdu novels. In a way their world was familiar from Nazir’s works, but the authors—mostly women, from Delhi and Lahore, Hyderabad, Lucknow and Calcutta—had an exuberance and a leisurely pace that was entirely their own. It's easy to say they were inspired by Nazir, but encouraged would be a better word: in a way, they were adding, amending and revising his masculine (albeit sympathetic) view of a woman’s world. Many of them tended towards a tragic worldview, but almost without exception they mined a fine vein of humour, often based on wordplay, linguistic excess and local dialect. I’d thought women began to write in about the twenties, when Nazar Sajjad Hyder, Q. Hyder’s politically conscious and liberal mother, writing about the landed and service gentry at the time of the Raj, was the most popular of all novelists; I’d thought her an exception, but how wrong I was—they’d started at the turn of the nineteenth century, and there were dozens of them.

            Foremost among them was Muhammadi Begum, not just because she wrote three novels (or rather book-length qissas) in the first decade of the century, in a fairly short career (she died in 1908 at about thirty) but also because she ran a press that published fiction by women for women, and edited a women’s magazine. She was aided in her effort by her husband Mumtaz Ali, who was more a scholar of Islamic law than a novelist, and left it to his wife to produce the fiction. I was able to find all her fiction in its original editions in a SOAS vault. Two of her novels are relentless tragedies about women’s lives destroyed, in one case, by a marriage arranged in childhood; in another, by the narrator-heroine’s own indolence in an overly symbiotic relationship with her husband. (It’s tempting to see in her plight not only the workings of patriarchy but also the dilemma of a colonised Indian nation, but the author, while explicit about the former, does not belabour the latter metaphor). In a third she breaks the mould and produces a joyous story, probably written for younger readers, of a family of youngsters without parents and how their resourceful older sister finds her way in the world as a teacher. This novel is probably also unique in portraying a lower-middle-class family and including as one of its major and positive personages a working-class ‘nayan’ who becomes the family's benefactress, and non-magical fairy godmother.

            I was only slowly absorbing the effects of this fiction, but a meeting with a friend who edited a magazine led me to write a non-fiction narrative about one of these writers. My essay ‘Forcing Silence to Speak’, which looked at the life and work of Muhammadi Begum (and her husband Mumtaz Ali) in the context of her times, was first published in an Arabic translation in 1995. It was probably the longest essay I’d ever writen and a new departure for me to write at length in one language about another to be translated into a third. The next year, I delivered it as a paper to an audience in the Iqbal Library in Lahore, the city Muhammadi Begum lived and worked in, and shortly after that it received the accolade of being published in its original The Annual of Urdu Studies. To this day, fifteen years later, young scholars write to me about reading the essay and what it taught them about women writers and the Urdu novel.

9. Some more Urdu writers and their influence on me.

a. Ghulam Abbas. His finely-honed stories, which I first read in the late-ish eighties, have passed the test of time. Rereading him on a train in 2007, I was inspired to come home and write a story about a Pakistani journalist who meets an English illustrator in mid-twentieth century London. They marry and live in Karachi. As I wrote and wrote on, I realised that my story had approached the story of his life. I don’t know if the prose of what was published as my first novel, Another Gulmohar Tree , echoes the economies of his.

b. A.R. Khatun. Considered a mid-twentieth century writer of decorous and slightly old-fashioned romances, she wrote a novel-length fairy tale, ‘Nurulain’, which fell off a shelf into my hands in 1994. As I read, entranced, this story of a princess who weds a black dog (actually a fairy prince in disguise), I realised it was just about the only children's book in Urdu I'd known as a child, when my mother read it out to us all. Lines of text soared back into my memory as I read it after thirty-odd years. Imagine my pleasure when, four years later, I came across a massive volume of similar, though shorter, stories by her. As the millennium began and I started a new book, I wrote a story, ‘Adiba: A Storyteller’s Tale’, which juxtaposed a reimagined life of the author with a fairytale I wrote in English, in imitation of her style. That was in my third book Turquoise , which is a compendium of my Urdu influences.

c. Shafiq-ur-Rahman. Known as a humourist rather than a writer of fiction. I’ve heard him compared to Wodehouse, Leacock and Jerome, but Himaqatein , the collection I discovered among my mother’s cookbooks in 1994, was entirely original. In his stories about childhood and about the goings-on of groups of college friends, he combines a crazy, antic sense of humour with an ear for dialogue and an eye for natural imagery. In another collection, Mazid Himaqatein , he offers a series of pastiches of modern and traditional genres: chronicle, legend, tale, progressive verse. He’s a master of fictional form; as I wrote my second novel, just reading his stories helped me visualise and construct mine. Much, much later, as I reached middle age myself, I think, as I write about youth and disappointment and anticipation, about his fiction, and my fingers move faster on the keyboard.

A copy of Shafiq-ur-Rahman's Mazid Himaqatein

d. Rafi Ajmeri. Once celebrated but now forgotten short story writer. My mother’s maternal uncle. He died young. We thought his book was lost until a writer friend photocopied it and sent it to me from Karachi. Many of his stories, moving freely between humour and melancholy, are symmetrically formed and are very good, but one in particular, ‘Muhabbat ka Bulava’, a long, complex story about an impoverished tutor and his student (his rich best friend's sister) is one of my favourite Urdu stories. (As with Shafiq, I think of Rafi’s work when I write of youthful loves or the tragic lives of poets.) It has a happy but subversive end as his heroes turn their back on wealth and a bourgeois society.

            I wish I’d written the story. Maybe one day I’ll translate it into English, or write my own version of it.   

10. I’ve often been asked whether the sense of loss and longing, exile and yearning in my stories comes from my native language. I can't really answer. Classical Urdu poetry often speaks of loss, but rarely of loss of a home; of longing, but not of a homeland. These elements, so easily adapted to a native idiom, are imports. And I'm a storyteller, not a poet. What of prose, then? Urdu fiction, which is diverse as any, can't be said to have inherited the tropes of poetry; much of it is character-centred and resolutely new. If anything, it's often about the building of hopes and new homes. But mine has been a story of building a shelter when days are short and trees leafless and the skies are dark in the afternoons. Urdu isn't a language for a cold country. It may never have been the vehicle for some of what I've been compelled to write at times, my stories of dispossession. Because English could never quite contain me, I've looked for metaphor and meaning in other tongues: Italian. French. Spanish. I've learnt as much from Pavese and Tanizaki, Yourcenar and Paz as I have from my uncle Rafi.

11. An epilogue :

‘Urdu isn't a language for a cold country,’ I wrote above, last winter. But when summer came, an Indonesian friend who'd always written in English told me that when she switched to her native language the pages filled up so swiftly she had a novel in just a few months. But she is writing about the country she lives in, I thought, with the sounds of her mother tongue echoing everywhere around her. And then in July I began to write, pieces so short they could almost be poems, of those elements I’d thought of as imports, because if I was a migrant I had the right to sing my songs of my passage in my native language. Then everything changed. Metaphors, images, dialogue—like frescos emerging after centuries, or a rediscovered musical mode. I continued to write, longer and longer stories and reminiscences, and I was reminded of my own words of eighteen years ago: ‘as I wrote, rapidly, from right to left, the syllables of my lost tongue licked my skin like fires.’ In Urdu, my writing isn't translation or transcreation, it’s a rootless, homeless flight of bird in search, to quote Farrokhzad, of a blue direction. And somewhere the flock of birds remembers a place it came from once: both point of departure and port of destination. In a sense, Urdu is always the point I’m flying to.

             From Shams by Aamer Hussein [1]

            (an excerpt, translated from Urdu by the author with Carole Smith):

            1.

            That day Shams and I sat on the train and talked endlessly. The landscape outside was drowned in water. It was July but there had been floods.

            2.

            We travelled for seven hours and reached the town on the edge of the river at five. The sun was still high and the roofs of the tall fort-like buildings glowed in its rays. At once we set off to wander the lanes of the unknown town. The river had broken its banks and several streets were under water.

            3.

            After the literary festival that evening and the next morning we made the same long journey back. Shams said, I brought along a book but I'm not in the mood to read; let’s talk. We talked and talked and outside the rainwater still drowned the fields. Once it seemed as if the branches of a submerged tree were making gestures to the sky—but we talked on and on.

            4.

            I’d known Shams for thirty-five years. When we first met I was seventeen and she about thirty-five. We both liked singing and poetry. Then there was a revolution in her country, and traitors took over mine. At thirty, I gave up singing and some years later she did too. She’d had some successes, but I was too shy and too busy to look for fame. We also began to write at about the same time. I wrote stories and she accounts of her life. People remarked to us both, You colour your writings with exile.

            5.

            Some time ago we’d had a misunderstanding. It was on her side. But during that long journey she didn't refer to it, and neither did I. Perhaps silent anger can be washed away by rainwater. I remember Shams saying, What a worry it is, this having to make a living wage—it kills you—I’m far away from my country, far away from my faith—I don’t want to die alone in this desolate city.

            6.

            When we said goodbye, I saw regret in her eyes.

[1] Hussein, Aamer. 'Shams,' Interlitq 21 (November 2013): http://www.interlitq.org/issue21/aamer-hussein/job.php

Bibliography

Aamer Hussein. 'Shams,' Interlitq 21 (November 2013): http://www.interlitq.org/issue21/aamer-hussein/job.php

More from Sahapedia

• Search Menu
• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Urban Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Emotions
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Acquisition
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Religion
• Music and Culture
• Music and Media
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Lifestyle, Home, and Garden
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Neuroanaesthesia
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Oncology
• Medical Toxicology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Medical Ethics
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Strategy
• Business History
• Business Ethics
• Business and Government
• Business and Technology
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic Systems
• Economic Methodology
• Economic History
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• International Political Economy
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Theory
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Politics and Law
• Public Administration
• Public Policy
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Developmental and Physical Disabilities Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

A Life in Urdu: Personal Encounters and Selected Essays on Urdu Literature by Ralph Russell

• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

This book brings together writing by Ralph Russell, the eminent 20th century scholar of Urdu, which illuminates his life-long engagement with Urdu speakers and their literature. He learnt Urdu as a young man sent to India for war service in 1941, went on to study its literature in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he taught for 30 years, spent extended periods in South Asia working alongside Urdu-speaking scholars, and became a widely acknowledged authority on Ghalib. Written in his lively, accessible style, it provides a unique introduction for those new to Urdu literature, and unusual insights for those familiar with it. Part 1—autobiographical. It describes how he first came in contact with Urdu speakers during World War 2, his studies at SOAS, and later encounters which reflect his interest in everyone he met. Part 2—essays on key figures in Urdu literature. Poets in the 18th and 19th Centuries, early novelists and short story writers, popular literature, memoirs by remarkable women, all set against social and political contexts; plus an essay describing his approach to translating Ghalib’s ghazals. Part 3—essays on language and literary history. The Progressive Writer’s Movement; Aziz Ahmad; the relationship between Hindi and Urdu; and his well-known article ‘How Not to Write the History of Urdu Literature’. The Foreword by Marion Molteno, his student and literary executor, introduces his life and work. The Afterword brings together appreciations by some of the hundreds of people who were influenced by him. The Editor’s Note explains the criteria of selection and gives notes on sources.

Signed in as

Institutional accounts.

• GoogleCrawler [DO NOT DELETE]
• Google Scholar Indexing

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code

Institutional access

• Sign in with a library card Sign in with username/password Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Sign in through your institution

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Sign in with a library card

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Urdu Tanqeed Notes

اس نصاب میں ہم اردو تنقید و تحقیق کے تمام مصنفین کی ادبی خدمات کا تفصیلی جائزہ لیں گے۔اردو ادب میں تنقید کو بہت بڑا رتبہ حاصل ہے کیونکہ تنقید کے بغیر کوئی بھی فن پارہ وجود میں نہیں آ سکتا۔تنقید اچھے اور برے میں تمیز کرنے کا نام ہے۔ ہر کسی میں کسی نہ کسی شکل میں تنقیدی شعور پایا جاتا ہے۔یہ بھی حقیقت ہے کہ تنقید کے بغیر انسان آگے کا سفر جاری نہیں رکھ سکتا۔ یہی تنقید جب ادب میں شامل ہوجاتی ہے تو ہمیں ادب پارے کی اچھائی اور برائی سے متعلق آگاہ کرتی ہے۔ اردو ادب کے مشہور و معروف تنقید نگاروں کی تنقید نگاری کا تفصیلی جائزہ لینے کے لئے درجہ ذیل کورس کی طرف رجوع کریں۔

اردو تنقید کا بیان

اردو تنقید کا آغاز و ارتقا, اردو تنقید اور اقسام, اردو تنقید کا ارتقا, ادبی تنقید کے اصول,  تنقید اور تخلیق کا رشتہ, اردو میں متنی تنقید, رس کا نظریه, مشرقی تنقید, فارسی تنقید, تاثراتی تنقید, رومانی تنقید, جمالیاتی تنقید, مارکسی تنقید, ترقی پسند تنقید, نفسیاتی تنقید, سائنٹیفک ادبی تنقید,  تنقید نگار, مغربی تنقید نگار, افلاطون کی تنقید نگاری, ارسطو کا تانقیدی نظریه, کارل مارکس اور فرائیڈ, لونجائنس اور دانتے کا تنقیدی نظریہ, اسلوبیاتی تنقید, سر سید کے تنقیدی خیالات, محمد حسین آزاد کی تنقید نگاری, الطاف حسین حالی کی تنقید نگاری, شبلی کے تنقیدی خیالات, مولوی عبدالحق کی تنقید, نیاز فتح پوری کی تنقید نگاری, مجنوں گور کھپوری کی تنقید نگاری, ابن رشیق کی تنقید نگاری, آل احمد سرور کی تنقید نگاری, احتشام حسین کی تنقید نگاری, کلیم الدین احمد کی تنقید نگاری, پروفیسر خورشید الاسلام کی تنقید نگاری, محمد حسن عسکری کی تنقید نگاری, پروفیسر محمد حسن کی تنقید نگاری, پروفیسر گوپی چند نارنگ کی تنقید نگاری, شمس الرحمن فاروقی کے تنقیدی نظریات, وزیر آغا کے تنقیدی نظریات, پروفیسر قمر رئیس کی تنقید نگاری, سلیم احمد کے تنقیدی نظریات, وحید الدین سلیم کی تنقید نگاری, امداد امام اثر کے تنقیدی نظریات, ڈاکٹر عبدالرحمن بجنوری کے تنقیدی نظریات, عبدالقادرسروری کی تنقید نگاری, سید سجاد ظہیر کی تنقید نگاری, فراق گورکھپوری کی تنقید نگاری, شکیل الرحمن کی تنقید نگاری, سید شبیہ الحسن.

We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us!

Internet Archive Audio

• This Just In
• Grateful Dead
• Old Time Radio
• 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
• Audio Books & Poetry
• Computers, Technology and Science
• Music, Arts & Culture
• News & Public Affairs
• Spirituality & Religion
• Radio News Archive

• Flickr Commons
• Occupy Wall Street Flickr
• NASA Images
• Solar System Collection
• Ames Research Center

• All Software
• Old School Emulation
• MS-DOS Games
• Historical Software
• Classic PC Games
• Software Library
• Kodi Archive and Support File
• Vintage Software
• CD-ROM Software
• CD-ROM Software Library
• Software Sites
• Tucows Software Library
• Shareware CD-ROMs
• Software Capsules Compilation
• CD-ROM Images
• ZX Spectrum
• DOOM Level CD

• Smithsonian Libraries
• FEDLINK (US)
• Lincoln Collection
• American Libraries
• Canadian Libraries
• Universal Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Children's Library
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Books by Language
• Additional Collections

• Prelinger Archives
• Democracy Now!
• Occupy Wall Street
• TV NSA Clip Library
• Animation & Cartoons
• Arts & Music
• Computers & Technology
• Cultural & Academic Films
• Ephemeral Films
• Sports Videos
• Videogame Videos
• Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

• Wayback Machine (iOS)
• Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

• Explore the Collections
• Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

• Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

A History of Urdu literature

Bookreader item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

• Graphic Violence
• Explicit Sexual Content
• Hate Speech
• Misinformation/Disinformation
• Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
• Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

168 Previews

6 Favorites

DOWNLOAD OPTIONS

No suitable files to display here.

PDF access not available for this item.

IN COLLECTIONS

Uploaded by station47.cebu on August 10, 2022

SIMILAR ITEMS (based on metadata)

Today's Paper | May 11, 2024

Literary notes: urdu’s first essay writer and sir syed’s selected essays.

WHO was Urdu’s first essay writer? This may be a tricky question.

Dr Jameel Jalibi thinks it was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. In his Tareekh-i-adab-i-Urdu, or history of Urdu literature, Dr Jalibi has mentioned Sir Syed as “pioneer of the genre essay writing in Urdu literature” (vol. 4, page 874).

But in the same book Dr Jalibi admits that “when Sir Syed began writing essays, he benefited from the works that had been published before”, which simply means essay writing did exist in Urdu before Sir Syed. Dr Jalibi then names a few magazines and newspapers which Sir Syed must have had before him while writing essays. And, according to Jalibi, such periodicals include Urdu’s first newspaper Jam-i-jahan numa (1822) published from Calcutta, Urdu Akhbar (1837) published from Delhi, Syed-ul-akhbar published by Sir Syed’s brother Syed Muhammad, Master Ram­chandr’s newspaper Fava­aid-un-nazireen (1835) and Master Ramchandr’s magazine Khair khwah-i-Hind (1827), which was later renamed Muhib-be-Hind (vol. 4 , page 877).

In the same vein Dr Jalibi writes that “Master Ramchandr was Sir Syed’s predecessor in many senses”. What is missing, however, from this great work of Jalibi Sahib’s is an account of Master Ramchandr and his efforts for introducing the genre of essay in Urdu. In fact, Dr Jalibi has written merely a few lines on Master Ramchandr and Delhi College. Though it does not affect much the importance and greatness of his work, it would have made his book even more worthy had he taken into account the role that Master Ramchandr and Delhi College played in the development of Urdu prose and Urdu essay writing.

Master Pyare Lal Ashob (1834-1917) was another teacher at Delhi College whose contribution towards Urdu literature and essay writing has largely been ignored. Jalibi Sahib has not written much about him either in his four-volume history of Urdu literature. It is a fact that Master Ramchandr was the pioneer of Urdu essay writing and no matter how rudimentary his early essays were and no matter how they lacked the literary touch — which Sir Syed later introduced in his Urdu essays — Master Ramchandr’s role as the pioneer of Urdu essay writing cannot be overlooked.

This issue of Urdu’s earliest essays has been promptly and skilfully tackled by Prof Dr Tanzeem-ul-Firdous in the intro to the book that she has edited. In the book titled Mazameen-i-Sir Syed Ahmed Khan: intikhaab, she says that “as for the beginning of essay writing in Urdu, it was Qiraan-us-sa’adain, an Urdu magazine issued from Delhi College in 1845, that first began publishing Urdu essays. Despite their rudimentary nature, the historical and academic status of these essays is recognised”.

Dr Tanzeem-ul-Firdous posits that it was this early stage of Urdu essays that determines the basic ingredients and characteristics of Urdu essays. She agrees that Urdu essays written before Sir Syed were mostly focussed on scientific and historic issues and they were basically pedagogic in nature. So it was Sir Syed who gave an impersonal and intellectual touch to Urdu essay writing and raised it to the level of literary art as well as using it to reform the nation, keeping in line with some of the great essayists of English, such as Richard Steele and Joseph Addison. But at the same time she takes into account the early efforts put in by Master Ramchandr, giving him the credit that he truly deserves, saying that it was Master Ramchandr’s magazine Favaaid-un-nazireen that first began publishing Urdu essays.

Published by Oxford University Press Pakistan, the book is a selection from Urdu essays by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. It consists of 35 articles on various topics. The book is divided into sections according to the topics of the essays. Some of these topics are: language and literature, etiquettes and manners, morals, culture and civilisation, education and pedagogy, philosophy and Tehzeeb-ul-akhlaaq, a magazine launched by Sir Syed which was so dear to him.

A succinct intro by Dr Firdous describing the outlines of Sir Syed’s biography and his literary works as well as the prominent features of his essay writing shows her vast reading as well as her ability to grasp ideas and see them in proper perspective. Dr Tanzeem-ul-Firdous teaches Urdu at Karachi University and has a number of creative, research and critical works to her credit.

Since Sir Syed Ahmed Khan is an integral part of curricula at our educational institutes, the book definitely caters to the need of certain students who look for the definitive version of Sir Syed’s selected articles with an authentic intro.

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was born on Oct 17, 1817. He died on March 27, 1898.

[email protected]

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2018

Amid lack of protection, witnesses caught between devil and deep sea

Standoff with school staff costs ex-mqm lawmaker party membership.

PPP Karachi leadership raises civic complaints with CM

Culinary powerhouse National Foods Ltd inaugurates the largest plant in Faisalabad

بھارتی انتخابات: سیاسی قوتیں سینما کو کس طرح استعمال کرتی ہیں؟

کراچی کا سابق اسٹریٹ کرمنل، ایف بی آئی ایجنٹ کامران فریدی امریکی قید سے رہا

دبئی کنسرٹ میں ارجیت سنگھ ماہرہ خان کو پہچاننے سے قاصر، معافی مانگ لی

How Israel’s Killer Robots In Gaza Are Redefining Automated Warfare?

What On Earth Does The Government Want From Us?

Top News Stories: Pakistan’s Lunar Mission

Why Are Israel And Its Western Allies On The Edge Over ICC Arrest Warrants?

Top News Stories: Modi Aggression In Kashmir

Americans Are Upset Over US Supporting Violence Against Palestinians

Top News Stories: Palestinian Casualties Rise As Israel Tighten Control In Rafah

Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.

Latest Stories

UNGA backs Palestinian bid for membership

Ruling coalition loses 27 reserved seats in Punjab

Wheel-jam, shutter-down strike observed in AJK’s Muzaffarabad against police crackdown

Downside risks for Pakistan remain exceptionally high: IMF

At least 50 dead in flooding in northern Afghanistan

PM Shehbaz orders immediate reconstruction of girls’ school blown up in North Waziristan

Going loco for local: Jugnu’s Chief Saab candle is the ultimate Karachi kid nostalgia

Herstories: The untold narratives of Pakistani women through theatre

Security guard shot outside rapper Drake’s home

Most popular.

Pakistan’s iCube-Qamar beams back first images from moon’s orbit

Cartoon: 10 May, 2024

Govt seeks Chinese support for hydropower projects

The net metering dead end

No compromise or deal with planners and architects, says army chief on May 9 anniversary

Enrolment drive

Imran tasks Alvi with ‘important’ job

Education emergency

Pakistan remain unbeaten in Azlan Shah Cup as match with New Zealand ends in tie

Editorial: A strategic, well-funded and inclusive approach can transform Pakistan’s education landscape

Mercurial Pakistan’s last pit stop before T20 World Cup 2024

Unless the process is streamlined, lawyers will wait years to practise at the SC

Urgent and comprehensive work is needed to provide quality education to all our children

Special report: may 9, mayhem and military trials — a year on.

The lethal troika

An inclusive judiciary

Street safety

Child marriages

Taxing pensions

Orwellian slide, terror against girls.

Gwadar outrage

Save the witness, economic crisis deepens amid political instability.

Essay Writing Tips in the Urdu Language

• Post author: Mr-Teacher
• Post last modified: February 21, 2023

Sharing is Caring Share this content

• Opens in a new window

Are you learning Urdu and need to write your first essay in the Urdu language? It won’t be as easy as ABC because you must do much research to complete a high-quality paper. Urdu refers to rare languages and has distinctive features and peculiarities. More and more students decide to contact professional academic writers at essay writing services not to fail and submit a flawless essay in Urdu. Want to write an insightful essay that will be evaluated positively? You’ve come to the right place. Here is a collection of expert writing tips from SmartWritingService that will make the essay writing process easier and more effective. 

Choose the Topic You Know the Best

First, choose the topic you can reveal in the Urdu language. If you are a beginner, you shouldn’t pick complex topics. It will be hard to discuss them, and you won’t be able to give information on all the topic issues. Don’t choose too broad or too narrow topics. Brainstorm ideas on the topics you are interested in and feel passionate about discussing. Ensure you know all the necessary Urdu words and terms to discuss the chosen subject.

Conduct Research and Analysis

The second thing you need to do is to search for credible sources of information. You need to use only educational websites and electronic libraries with trusted sources. Don’t use any facts or data until you make sure all the information is true. You can use books, articles from newspapers, and web sources. The more sources you use, the better. Collect all the information on the topic you can find and analyze what pieces of information are valuable for your essay.

Write a Detailed Essay Outline

Now you have a topic and enough material to get started. Make an essay outline to have a clear picture of how to structure your essay paper. Using a good outline you won’t miss any important ideas on the subject. 

Divide Your Content into 3 Parts

Your essay should consist of 3 parts: an introduction, the main body, and the conclusion. You should start with an engaging opening paragraph. The main key to success is to include interesting facts or a story about your topic. You should structure your essay, so the content is easy to perceive and understand. There is a wealth of literature in Urdu. This is the literature of Indian Muslims that dates back to the 13th century. Until the beginning of the 19th century, it was represented mainly by lyric poetry on religious-philosophical themes and was strongly influenced by Persian poetry. It’s a good idea to include poetry in your essay. Find several lines that reflect on your essay topic and use them at the beginning of your essay paper.

Write a short introduction to attract the reader’s attention and proceed to the main part of the essay. Here, you need to discuss all the key issues, give arguments for each of the discussion points, and start any new idea from the new paragraph. Finally, conclude your Urdu essay with several sentences that will make it clear to the reader why he/she has spent time learning the topic. Write about the possibility of further research on the topic. The conclusion should be brief, clear, and concise. 

Pay a Special Attention to Grammar in Urdu

The grammar of Urdu is generally similar to that of Hindi; however, due to the cultural separation of Muslims from Hindus, Urdu has incorporated some elements characteristic of the grammar of Arabic and Persian. 

• Nouns, pronouns, and verbs change in numbers (singular and plural) and cases (direct, indirect, vocative), verbs, some adjectives, and nouns also in gender (masculine and feminine). Some postpositions also vary in gender and number.
• Urdu pronouns are classified into several groups of meanings. Urdu has no negative pronouns; instead, negative constructions with indefinite pronouns are used. By the nature of the changes and functions in the sentence, pronouns are divided into pronouns-nouns, pronouns-adjectives, and pronouns-numerals. There are several types of participles in Urdu. The participles combine verbal and nominal signs. Foreign language (Arabic, Persian) participles in Urdu are used as ordinary adjectives.
• There are several types of verb tenses in Urdu. In terms of the present, there are two kinds, in terms of the past – three, and in terms of the future, the kind can both be expressed (in three forms) and remain unexpressed. Most tenses are formed by creating a nominal predicate from a participle and an auxiliary verb. The imperative mood has several forms, which differ in the degree of politeness. Also, in Urdu, there are “intensive verbs” – combinations of the stem of a verb with one of the 12 service verbs. As a result of this combination, the main verb receives a refined shade of its meaning. Intensive verbs are usually not recorded in dictionaries, they are not separate verbs, and in each particular case, they are formed directly in speech.

Proofread and edit the essay, if necessary. Make sure it doesn’t contain grammar errors, and that the whole essay sounds logical. If you lack essay writing skills or knowledge of the Urdu language, don’t hesitate to ask custom writers to check your paper and make it error-free. Experienced writers will provide a high-quality essay sample on the necessary topic to get inspired and learn how to express your thoughts in Urdu.

You Might Also Like

5 Best English Learning Apps for Free in 2023

10 of the Best YouTube Channels for Learning English in 2022

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

aaj ik aur baras biit gayā us ke baġhair

jis ke hote hue hote the zamāne mere

Rekhta Magazine Stand

You can find Largest collection of Urdu & Hindi Magazines right here. Browse this page for best Urdu & Hindi magazines and find the popular magazines of all time. This page features best urdu magazines.

EXPLORE MAGAZINES BY

Browse all the weekly, monthly & yearly issues of Urdu & Hindi Magazines by publishing frequency

All Magazines

Half yearly, fortnightly, most popular magazines.

Browse this curated collection of most popular magazines and discover the next best read.

Aiwan-e-Urdu, Delhi

Publisher : marghoob haidar aabidi, editor : marghoob haidar aabidi, year : 2010.

Al-Maarif, Lahore

Publisher : mohammad ashraf daar, editor : shahid husain razzaqi, year : 1977.

Faran, Karachi

Publisher : masroor husain, editor : mahirul qadri, year : 1962.

Iqbaliyat, Pakistan

Publisher : iqbal academy pakistan, lahore, editor : prof. mohammad munavvar, year : 1986.

Urdu-e-Mualla, Aligarh

Publisher : matba faiz-e-aam, aligarh, editor : syed fazl-ul-hasan, year : 1907, other issues of aiwan-e-urdu, delhi.

Other Issues of Al-Maarif, Lahore

Shumara number-001.

Shumara Number-000

Other Issues of Faran, Karachi

Other Issues of Iqbaliyat, Pakistan

Iqbal Number: January-June: Shumara Number-004

Ishariya-e-Iqbaliyat

Other issues of urdu-e-mualla, aligarh.

Recommended Magazines

Browse this section for top recommended magazines, specially curated by Rekhta team for magazine lovers.

Publisher : Shobi Offset Press, Delhi

012,013,014

Feb, Jan, May, Jun 2008

Afsana, Hyderabad

Publisher : Amanat Press

Shumara Number-002

Ahl-e-Hadees, Faridabad

Publisher : Hakeem Ajmal Khan

Al-Furqan, Lucknow

Publisher : Mohammad Hassaan Nomani

Shumaara Number-005, 006, 007, 008

Shumaara Number-009, 010, 011, 012

Dec, sep, nov, oct.

Shumaara No-010, 011, 012

Publisher : Yusuf Jaleel

Shumara Number - 001

Shumara Number - 002

Publisher : Sayyad Bahauddin Ahmad

Jul, Aug, Oct, Apr, May, Sep, Jun 1980

January: Shumara Number - 005

Afsana Number : Shumara Number-062

Publisher : Wazir Agha

Feb, Jan 1999

Feb, Jan 1997

Feb, Jan 1976

Publisher : Karnataka Urdu Academy, Bangalore

Mar, Feb, Jan 2012

Apr, Jun, May 2012

Publisher : Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Karachi

Sep, Jul, Aug 1995

Oct, Sep 2002

Publisher : Secretary Urdu Academy, U.P

Jan, Mar 2022

Shumara Number-005

Children's magazines

Browse this section for top children's magazines, specially curated by Rekhta team for children magazine enthusiasts.

Aankh Micholi

Publisher : Zafar Mahmood Sheikh

Shumara Number-011

Shumara Number-004

Publisher : Daftar Risala-e-Ataleeq, Hyderabad Deccan

Bachche Man Ke Sachche

Publisher : Al-Waheed Adabi Academy, Khanpur

Kitabi Silsila-010

Kitabi Silsila-004

Kitabi Silsila-001

Bachchon Ki Duniya

Publisher : Shaikh Aquil Ahmad

Bazm-e-Adab, Hyderabad

Publisher : Chishtiya Press Chhatta Bazar

Shumara Number-001,012

Ehsas Number : Shumara Number-002,004

Radha Number : Shumara Number-002,003

Publisher : Mohammad Majeed Hasan

Publisher : Farooq Syed

Shumaara Number-007

Publisher : Mohammad Yunus Dehlavi

Publisher : Ziaur Rahman Ghausi

Shumara Number-003

Naya Khilauna

Publisher : Khurshid Jahan

Entertainment Magazines

Looking for famous entertainment Urdu magazines? You'll find everything you need right here.

Akhbar-e-Nojawan, Delhi

Publisher : Unknown Organization

Shumaara Number-000

Awadh Punch

Publisher : Munshi Sajjad Hussain

Shumaara No-001

Kanhaiya Lal Kapoor Number: Shumara Number-012

Chahar Rang

Publisher : Tariq Mustafa Siddiqiq

November: Shumara Number-121

July: Shumara Number-117

Nayab Kahani Number: August: Shumara Number-118

Dehli Punch

Huma, New Delhi

Publisher : Tariq Siddiqi

Khizr-e-Rah, Lahore

Publisher : Hakeem Mohammad Yusuf Hasan

Mohabbat Number : Shumara Number-028,029

Husn-o-Shabab Number : Shumara Number-031

Salgirah Number : Shumara Number-006

Publisher : Ghulam Rabbani

Jan, Dec 1981

Publisher : Syed Mustafa Kamal

Shama, New Delhi

Sports Aur Film

Publisher : Sami Ahmad Malik

Shumara Number-024

Shumara Number-009

Shumara Number-006

Literary Magazines

Looking for Urdu magazines in Literary categories? You'll find everything you need right here.

Aab-e-Hayat

Publisher : Lala Devi Diyal Gupta & sons Malikan Gupta, Hisar

Shumaara Number-006

Aab-o-Gil, Delhi

Publisher : Seemab Ahmad Khan

Aab-o-Gil, Dhaka

March-April

Aabshar, Karachi

Publisher : Anjuman Ittehad-e-Talba Jinnah Government Polytechnic Institute, Karachii

Aabshar, Kolkata

Publisher : Mohammad Nizamuddin

Aagahi, Karachi

Publisher : Syed Mohammad Mahfooz Ali

Nov, Oct 1994

Allama Jameel Mazhari Number

Aahang, Delhi

Publisher : Kalam Haidari

Jul, Aug 1975

Aahang, Gaya

Publisher : The Cultural Academy, Gaya

Publisher : Aaj Ki Kitaben, Karachi

Balon Ka Ghuchcha (Novel) : Shumara Number-072

Arabi Kahaniyan : Shumara Number-013

Czech Adeeb Milan Kundera Ki Tahreeron Ka Intikhab

Publisher : Weena Jain

Adab-e-Lateef

Publisher : Iftikhar Ali Chaudhary

Household Magazines

Looking for famous household Urdu magazines? You'll find everything you need right here.

Publisher : University Publishers Muslim University, Aligarh

Shumara Number-001,002

Anees-e-Niswan

Publisher : Shaikh Mohammad Ikram

Awaz-e-Niswan

Publisher : Mohammad Amanur Rahman

January: Shumara Number-001

Shumara Number: 001

Shumara Number: 002

Hoor, Lahore

Shumara Number : 009

Dec, Jan 1948

Ismat, Delhi

Publisher : Tamaddun Press, Delhi

Shumaara No-003

Shumaara Number-003

Ismat, Karachi

Publisher : Tarique Al-Khairi

Khatoon, Aligarh

Publisher : Matba Ahmadi, Aligarh

April: Shumara Number-004

August: Shumara Number-008

December: Shumara Number-012

Khatoon-e-Mashriq

Publisher : Fareed Farooqi

Jashn-e-Rekhta | 8-9-10 December 2023 - Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium, Near India Gate - New Delhi

Rekhta Foundation

Devoted to the preservation & promotion of Urdu

Rekhta Dictionary

A Trilingual Treasure of Urdu Words

Online Treasure of Sufi and Sant Poetry

World of Hindi language and literature

The best way to learn Urdu online

Rekhta Books

Best of Urdu & Hindi Books

Humour and Satire in Urdu Literature Essay Example

• Pages: 11 (2791 words)
• Published: May 19, 2017
• Type: Essay

Humour & Satire are an integral part of all forms of literature; & when the tragic part of a drama/story becomes unbearable, humour/satire provide a much needed diversion & relief. This article examines the effect of humour & satire with reference to some of the leading men of letters of Urdu literature. Keywords: Humour, Satire, Urdu, Literature It is difficult for human beings to always lead a solemn and glum life.

They require amusement, mental relaxation and recreation of some sort. Humour is the most suitable & innocent option for this purpose.Humour can be verbal, visual or physical. Non-verbal forms of communication for example – music and art can also be humorous. Since literature is the replica of life it produces not only serious, subtle and delicate literary pieces but also the need for mild, mature and mellow compositions has

always been longed for to coax and cajole the readers. To maintain the regularity and steadiness of life the elements of humour and satire are always needed.

Prevalently humour and satire are used as a compound genre but they are two different words having two distinct meanings.Simon Wiesenthal is of the opinion that humour is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people who are oppressed to smile. In fact, humour succeeds where wisdom fails. Stephen Leacock asserts: “Humour may also be defined as the kindly contemplation of the incongruities of life and the artistic expression thereof. I think this is the best I know, because I wrote it myself. ”1 This classification demonstrates three important aspects, which are the ‘irregularities of life’, ‘kindly contemplation’ and ‘artistic expression’.

The first point explains that a humorist doe

not look at the irregularities Tazeen Gul, Assistant Professor, Jinnah College for Women, University of Peshawar. ** Tabassum Javed, Lecturer, Jinnah College for Women, University of Peshawar. * Humour and Satire in Urdu Literature Tazeen Gul & Tabassum Javed of life disdainfully rather gets amused with them, the second is that he deals up with comic situations and gruesomeness of life and the third point explains that a humorist adopts a very skillful manner of portraying such funny situations instead of presenting them in a blunt and boring way.Moving on to the better half of humour that is satire, sarcasm and gibe as defined by the encyclopedia Britannica; “Satire in its literary aspect, may be defined as the expression in adequate terms of the sense of amusement or disgust excited by the ridiculous or unseemly, provided that humour is the distinctly recognizable element and that the utterance is invested with literary form without humor, satire is invective; without literary form, it is mere clownish jeering”2 Abual- al-Ejaz Hafeez Siddiquee defines satire in the following words: “The comic situations of life which can be pointed out and the contemptuous aspects of life which can be opposed and humorously criticized are termed as satire”.

3 The process of sarcasm shares a lot with surgery.As a surgeon dissects and opens up the human body in order to extricate it by the infected portion, similarly a satirist identifies the follies of the society and extricates it of the corruptive matters. Although it is true and admitted that a satirist definitely has the gusto and ardor of elatedness and supremacy present in him. Whatever a satirist targets he shows his

soreness towards it and is desirous to modify and aspire it. Perhaps the element of sympathy is absent which is considered to be the spirit of humour.

Abu-Al-Khair considering, states: “Those satirists who extract amusement and laugh at the helplessness of people can never reach the heights. A good satirist is a merciless surgeon and ruthlessly dissects but in his satire there are no signs of personal revenge or hollowness.His sole purpose is constructive and to bring forward a positive change. The objective of his art is to point out the hideousness of life and to beautify society. ”4 Whether it is satire or humour both require sincerity and fidelity, whereas, prejudice, priggishness and ego are all considered injurious for them. Making somebody a subject of humour or satirizing someone on the basis of personal grudges is a complete violation of the rules and is The Dialogue 179 Volume VII Number 2 Humour and Satire in Urdu Literature Tazeen Gul & Tabassum Javed extremely cheap in itself.

That is the reason, why in every literature it is considered to be the humour and satire of the lowest degree.Contrary to this, the earnest pleasure or displeasure of mind and thought gives vitality to humour and satire. Then the most difficult aspect of this skill is to criticize your own self. To ridicule others and make them the target of buffoonery is comparatively easy but to mock at oneself jovially is most difficult thing in the world. It is therefore rightly said by Shabi-ul- Hassan that only those nations are considered to be civilized who can make fun of their weaknesses. 5 Satire can only grow and

develop in such societies where people have prudent and practical approach towards life.

Only those people give space to satire who have the patience and will for change.Rasheed Ahmad Siddiquee says that humour and satire can only develop in those countries and nations who are independent and value independence. But this genre cannot build up among the nations who are bound in the shackels of slavery. Among the people where gods and monarchs are worshiped only abusive language vulgar pranks can be found but not decent and quality humour and satire.

6 Sarcasm exposes before the readers the personal folly and humiliation of others which can only be handled by a mature mind of decent taste and disciplined attitude. In short, it is a genre whose reader is not only able to see the faults of others but their own misdeeds as well.The element of humour makes this genre light hearted, jovial, intimate and infectious. It is therefore necessary that it should not be cheap and vulgar but should rather be meaningful, far reaching, universalized and enduring. In another situation humour and satire can be made the basis for estimating standards of the literature of any language. Humour and fun are cultural and represent the customs, traditions, beliefs and norms of a particular society.

In fact, the types of humour vary from people to people and society to society. The comic gestures and funny situations which can be a laughing stalk for us may not be humorous at all for a Britisher or an American.On the other hand, according to Muhammad Alam Khan humour and satire together can create the history of the mentality of

a nation and also are its heritage. Also it can be agreed upon that humour and irony of any community or civilization can be used as an absolute scale to test the glee, perception, temperaments and feelings of them. 7 Now we have to observe whether humour and satire are correlated or not.

Norman Forlong in this connection states that for literary satire two components are worthwhile; one is criticizing and satirizing an odious incident or thing and the other humour. The Dialogue 180 Volume VII Number 2 Humour and Satire in Urdu Literature Tazeen Gul & Tabassum Javed Rashid Ahmad Siddiquee’s opinion is contrary to that of Norman Forlong’s.According to him satire is implicit in humour, whereas, humour should not be a part of satire. He considers humour superior to satire and a form of arts which is difficult in execution.

For humour, he says: complacent attitude and conferment is required, whereas, for satire energy, sorrow, anger and assertion all are required simultaneously. 8 In comparison to Rasheed Ahmad Siddiquee, Sayed Ahtesham Hussain’s notion is comparatively more steady where he writes that the sour feeling that people develop while reading a satirical work is the very reason why people separate it from humour. Hence, Thekrey and Meerdath both have accepted the vitality of humour but not of satire.The reality is that the existence of satire is impossible without the presence of humour, whereas, humour can exist without satire. 9 Anyhow, it is important to observe the several techniques of humour and satire.

i). The first technique is that of comparison in which humour is created by the sourness which arises while comparing the similarities

or conflicts of two things simultaneously. ii). The second technique is “the use of language”. Developing humour by creatively using the human speech and expression in which Takrar (repetition), Riayat-e-lafzee (pun) and Bazla Sanji (wit) are included. iii).

The third technique is that of a humorous situation. iv). The fourth technique is the use of a humorous character. ).

The fifth technique is that of parody. vi). The sixth technique is that of irony. No doubt there are other techniques like Qol-e-mohaal (paradox), Mubalagha (exaggeration) etc.

but the ones given above are universally known and popular. After observing the general aspects of humour and satire, we switch on to the art of humour and satire in Urdu literature. When we throw a cursory glance at it we learn that the early onset of it can be found in some ancient Dastan (legends). But the quality of humour and satire in some places is quite inferior while at others the jazzy effects of naturally pleasant and amusing humour and satire are visible.

In Urdu literature humour and satire are conspicuously observed for the first time in the letters written by Ghalib where frank humour and offhandedness are quite domineering. Ghalib was blessed with dual attribute of being a poet and a prose writer. Humour was a part of his nature, that’s why Hali called him “Hewann-e-Zareef” (humourous animal). His humour is pious and pure. He smiles at the occasions when people are whining and crying.

He is capable of laughing at himself not only on others. In his The Dialogue 181 Volume VII Number 2 Humour and Satire in Urdu Literature Tazeen Gul & Tabassum Javed letters

we find soft smiles instead of whole hearted laughter. In his letters, instead of using loud and sharp colours, he uses a beautiful blend of light colours of humour.Besides Ghalib, hunour and wit are also observed in the writings of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Shibli Naumani, whereas, the elements of satire are more specific in the literature contributed by Deputy Nazir Ahmad. Sir Syed’s work was serious, constructive and persuasive but in reaction the humour and satire of demeanor was introduced in the form of Owad-e-punch, which swathed the irregularities, serration and jaggedness of the society. But the quality of humour and satire of this newspaper was below standard.

Sajjad Hussain, Machu Baig Sitamzareef, Tarbhon Nath Hijjar and Jawalla Parshad Barq etc. are the eminent figures of this age. After this, there were seen several different kinds of humour and satire in Urdu literature and it gained a lot of popularity, some were self evident while others were mellow and mild.The names of Mullah Ramuzi, Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui, Farhatllah Baig, Azeem Baig Chughtai, Patras Bukhari, Shaukat Thanwi and Falak Pema, etc. are worth mentioning here. In Farhat Ullah Baig’s style, there is a wonderful fusion of seriousness and humour.

His purpose is always serious but style of expression is pleasant and witty. His choice of diction is the main reason of his successful writings and he is an expert of using idiomatic and flowery language of Dehli. He loves antiquity and traditional people and is considered a conservative person. His style is productive and he talks about the improvement of society but never becomes dry and stringy.Wazeer Agha says that liveliness and vivacity are

the main features of his style.

In his writings certain happenings, characters and comparison are not used as tools to create laughter but words and sentences are constructed in such a pleasant way that they pleasantly touch the sensations of mind and heart. Such expressions automatically create smiles and one feels fresh and lively. 10 Although Patras Bukhari has less contribution (in volume) but whatever he wrote gives him a prominent place in Urdu literature. His study is very vast and he has a great appreciation & understanding of international and especially English literature. There is a touch of delicacy, liveliness and good taste in his humour.

He creates humour with situations more than words. He is good at parody writing but repartee is his special technique. He does not laugh at the individuals but at the groups and classes. Sayed Abdullah writes about him that the essence of his humour is based on integrity, uprightness and sincerity more than sympathy and kindness.

He dislikes and hates absurdities. He is a misanthropist and sometimes mocks himself. 11 The Dialogue 182 Volume VII Number 2 Humour and Satire in Urdu Literature Tazeen Gul & Tabassum Javed Rasheed Ahmad Siddiquee’s name is also mentioned along with Patras Bukhari. Rasheed Ahmad was an alumni of Aligharh and taught there as a professor of Urdu literature.

His essays are not easily comprehensible and intelligible because he keeps on referring to specific incidents and only those people can enjoy his writings who have deep knowledge in history, politics and literature. He quickly mentions one thing and the mind keeps on collecting segments into a single whole. The delicacy and fore-sightedness of his

thoughts is quite different from other humourists. Alle-Ahmad Saroor writes about him that Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui is different from Patras and Farhatullah Baig. He is among those people who are neither considered conservative nor modern rather he belongs to both the categories.

He is an expert in paradox as well as repartee.Because of this dual quality he is considered Chesterton and Bernard Shah of Urdu literature. 12 Alle Ahmad Saroor gives a very good comparison of these three humour and satire writers, “Patras takes the raw material for his humour from the living beings where as Farhatullah Baig from the dead ones and Rasheed Ahmad Siddiquee from poetry and literature. ”13 Some of the literary writers were those who were not basically humorists but their writings reflect the sweetness of humour and satire.

Some salient names of such writers are Mehdi-ul-Afadi, Abualkalam Azad, Mehfuz Ali Badauni, Maulana Zafar Ali Khan, Qazi Abdul Ghaffar, Khawaja Hassan Nizami, Abdul Majeed Salik, Majeed Lahori, Ibrahim Jalees and Abdul MajDaryabadi etc.The eminent names among modern humour writers are: Colonel Muhammad Khan, Shafeeq-ur-Rehman, Kanhaiya Lal Kapoor, Ibne Insha, Mashkoor Hussain Yaad, Attaul Haq Qasmi, Sadique Salik, Yousaf Nazim, Khawaja Abdul Ghafoor, Mujtaba Hussain, Younas Butt and Mushtaq Ahmad Yousafi. The most prominent name among them is Mushtaq Ahmad Yousafi who is a natural humourist. His writings are adorned and decorated with special formalities but his sentences are smooth, pleasant and abrupt. He is witty and derives meanings out of meanings and deduces deep hidden meanings from apparent descriptions which seem to be an extempore conversation of a scholar. Most of his topics are taken from our day-today life but even

from these common topics he seeks out some strange and amazing aspects of humour.

Shahid Mashqi says that the foresight of Yousafi penetrates into human psyche and makes observations…He sometimes talks about such things which are not real but seems to be a reality and sometimes presents such things which are not apparently real The Dialogue 183 Volume VII Number 2 Humour and Satire in Urdu Literature Tazeen Gul & Tabassum Javed but are based on sheer reality. Both these ways are the techniques of paradox which are found in abundance in the writings of Patras and Rasheed Ahmad Saddiquee. The pleasant form of such paradox is found at many places in the writings of Yousafi. 14 This journey of humour and satire is still on and many new writers are striving to make their names in this field.Only time will decide as to whether or not they will be able to make their place or be lost in the flow. The Dialogue 184 Volume VII Number 2 Humour and Satire in Urdu Literature Tazeen Gul & Tabassum Javed Notes & References L.

Stephen, Humour and Humanity (Montreal: McGill Queens University Press, 1988), 11 2 Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 20, (USA: William Benten publishers), 6 3 Abu-al-Ejaz, H. Sadeeqi, Akshaf Tanqeedi Istalahat (Islamabad: Muqtadira Qaumi Zuban, 1985), 121 4 Abu-al-Kher Kashafi, Hamarey Ehad Ka Adab Oar Adeeb (Qamar Kitab Ghar, 1971), 57 5 Shabi-ul-Hassan, Mafahim (Lahore: Izhar Sons, 1989), 6 6 Mehar I. Nadeem & Uz-Zama L.Khan, Compiler Khatoot-e-Rasheed Ahmad Siddiquee, Vol: 7 (Multan: Multan Art Forum, 2006), 314 7 M.

Alam Khan, Chand Naey Adabi Masael (Lahore: Pakistan Books and Literary Sounds, 1991) 60 8 Rasheed

Ahmad Siddiquee, Alighar Magazine (March, 1944) 24 9 S. Javed, Athar & Rasheed Ahmad Saddique, Shakseeat-o-Fan, 2nd Edition (Hayderabad: National Book Depot, 1954),145 10 W. Agha, Urdu Adab Mein Tanz-o-Mazah (Lahore: Jadeed Nashreen, 1966), 236 11 S. Abdullah Urdu Adab 1957 ta 1966 (Maktaba-e-Khayaban-e-Adab, (1967), 161 12 Ahmad A. Saroor, Tanqeedi Isharey (Lakhnaow: Idarae Farog-e-Urdu, 1955), 32 13 Ibid. 14 H.

Nawaz, (compiler), Urdu Adab Besween Sadi Mein (Lahore: Maqbool Academy, 1988), 367 1 The Dialogue 185 Volume VII Number 2

• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: Review Essay Example
• Literary Genre Or Form Of Satire Essay Example
• Introduction To Poetry Analysis Essay Example
• Orality vs Literacy Essay Example
• The Social Context of Pink's Song, Stupid Girls Essay Example
• One Art by Elizabeth Essay Example
• Gullivers travels-satire w/bibliography Essay Example
• Alexander Pope And Jonathan Swift As Satirists Similarities And Dissimilarities Essay Example
• World Literature Analysis Essay Example
• The Art of Early Autumn Essay Example
• The Merchant's Prologue and Tale Essay Example
• The Knight in the Wood Essay Example
• As for me and my house analysis Essay Example
• Notes on the Rape of the Lock Essay Example
• "Animal Farm" Essay Example
• Creativity essays
• Art History essays
• Theatre essays
• Pastoral essays
• Visual Arts essays
• Postmodernism essays
• Symbolism essays
• ballet essays
• Color essays
• Modernism essays
• Mona Lisa essays
• Work of art essays
• Body Art essays
• Artist essays
• Cultural Anthropology essays
• Ethnography essays
• Aesthetics essays
• Realism essays
• Heritage essays
• Harlem Renaissance essays
• Concert Review essays
• Voice essays
• Theatre Of The Absurd essays
• Playwright essays
• Scotland essays
• Tennessee williams essays
• Design essays
• Graffiti essays
• Graphic essays
• Typography essays
• Painting essays
• Photography essays
• Sculpture essays
• Architecture essays
• Interior design essays
• Arch essays
• Area essays
• Tattoo essays
• Pablo Picasso essays
• Vincent Van Gogh essays
• Michelangelo essays
• Frida Kahlo essays
• Book Summary essays
• Metaphor essays
• Reader essays
• Rhyme essays
• Literary devices essays
• Villain essays
• Books essays
• Genre essays

Haven't found what you were looking for?

Search for samples, answers to your questions and flashcards.

• Enter your topic/question
• Receive an explanation
• Ask one question at a time
• Enter a specific assignment topic
• Aim at least 500 characters
• a topic sentence that states the main or controlling idea
• supporting sentences to explain and develop the point you’re making
• evidence from your reading or an example from the subject area that supports your point
• analysis of the implication/significance/impact of the evidence finished off with a critical conclusion you have drawn from the evidence.

Unfortunately copying the content is not possible

Tell us your email address and we’ll send this sample there..

By continuing, you agree to our Terms and Conditions .