Singing to Jane Austen

She is singing all my Janeite dreams :) I so want to live in that old time frame. 

Quotation of the Day

Danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own exaggeration ... and in the end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too blunt for his purpose—as, in fact, not good enough for his insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy to sniveling and giggles.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

Ismat Chughtai ~ A Woman of all Seasons

Excerpts from "The Life’s Too Short" Literary Review by Faiza Sultan Khan. The first complete English translation of the memoirs of the subcontinent’s iconic Urdu writer and feminist

A Life in Words: Memoirs, with due credit to M. Asaduddin’s elegant translation, is how utterly unconscious, unaffected and natural the writing seems. It isn’t bogged down with explanations of everyday objects and rituals. There is no positioning of the voice within some sort of global (that is, white) context. One isn’t looking in as if from the outside. The writer is merely the writer and hasn’t taken it upon herself to act also as interpreter. It allows for a wealth of subtlety often lost in subcontinental writing in English.

And subtlety is Chughtai’s forte. Hailing from an educated, liberal Muslim family, the sort that educated their children equally in the Quran, Farsi and Urdu literature, with her elder brother already a well-known writer in her teens, Chughtai is best known for her stories about the lives of middle-class Indian women. If her sensitive, thoughtful work is pegged as controversial, it must also be said that it only causes a flutter among those who adamantly refuse to see the world for what it is. Writing largely on women, religion and the domestic sphere, she neither generalizes nor preaches, as she knows her subject far too intimately for that sort of artless moralizing.

Nevertheless, Chughtai as moralist—and that too of the Shavian school—is a major feature of her life and work. “From a young age we were aware that there was some distinction between Hindus and Muslims. Outward profession of brotherhood went hand in hand with discreet caution... They talked about enlightenment and liberal ideas, professed deep love for each other, and recounted tales of great sacrifice for each other. The English were held to be the main culprits. All this would go on while the elders were secretly nervous about the children doing something that would defile the purity of religion!”

While one would wish to imagine it otherwise, this split between private sphere and public face, between conversational and actual liberalism hasn’t exactly faded into oblivion. Chughtai’s unforgiving eye picks it out in the details. If their Hindu guests weren’t due, “then seekh kebab and roast chicken would have been cooked; lauki raita and dahi bade would not have been prepared. The difference between ‘cooked’ and ‘prepared’ was interesting.”

In the first chapter itself, Chughtai, quite casually, while discussing her fiction, puts forward theories over which contemporary feminists are still fighting pitched battles, “If a wife stays with her husband simply because he is her provider, then she’s as helpless as a prostitute.” She disapproves of purdah, but when writing about women, manages to focus on what’s in a woman’s head rather than what’s on top of it.

Her own marriage is a subject largely absent from this memoir, other than her initial reluctance to get married at all, and her husband’s threats of divorce during the notorious censorship trial of Lihaaf. A Life in Words focuses more on her education, her writing, and her struggle to become the first Indian Muslim woman to get both a bachelor’s degree in arts and a bachelor’s in education degree. This is enough for a memoir, but it’s a shame nonetheless. She is so perceptive when it comes to pointing out the myriad ways in which women are oppressed and the way in which they get around this, as in the account of Mangu, the coachman’s daughter, who feigns demonic possession to get away with hitting her mother-in-law when finally tired of being at the receiving end of beatings.

Women manipulate, she deduces, as fairness is often not an option for them. Hers is the feminism, the defiance, learnt from a full engagement with life and not by rote and politically correctly from books, often from entirely different cultural contexts. She advises the reader quite simply to “talk to people”, to engage with them, to ask them questions, to understand the context of their life before attempting to understand them. If only the various Pakistani op-ed writers who present “I asked the driver” as their most profound communication with a class outside themselves, would listen.

Chughtai does not position herself as a crusading truth-teller. She is far too honest and straightforward for the truth to be a special mission; it is, quite simply, the truth. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the moving account of her and Saadat Hasan Manto’s obscenity trials which happened to come up before the same judge on the same day.

She has far more social clout than the beleaguered Manto, and the judge calls her into his anteroom for a private conversation, “‘I’ve read most of your stories. They aren’t obscene. Neither is Lihaaf. Manto’s writings are often littered with filth.’

‘The world is also littered with filth,’ I said in a feeble voice.

‘Is it necessary to rake it up, then?’

‘If it is raked up it becomes visible, and people feel the need to clean it up.’”
http://www.livemint.com/2012/03/30205813/A-woman-for-all-seasons.html

And then there was Light- Shah Hussain~ by Raza Rumi

Lahore, the ancient city of Loh, the age-old halt for invaders, is also the home to eclectic Sufis. Men and women who shed conventions and discovered newer planes of spirituality found a home in this city. The merging of centuries' old Indus valley bastion - the Punjab and its primordial language - with core strands of Islamic Sufism was a unique moment in South Asia's cultural evolution. And, no one can better represent the composite soul of Lahore than its poet and Sufi master Shah Hussain, whose identity has forever fused with his Hindu disciple Madhu Lal. Those who seek Lahore's Mela Chiraghaan or Festival of Lights still frequent the 16th century shrine of Madhu Lal Hussain.
Shah Hussain's father, Shaykh Usman, was a loom weaver, and his grandfather Kaljas Rai (Kalsarai) was a convert to Islam who gained the confidence of the state during the reign of Emperor Firoz Shah Tughlaq. Shah Hussain Lahori was born in 1538 AD near Taxali Gate, Lahore. His early religious education was followed by induction into the Qadiriya order by Hazrat Bahlul Daryavi at a very young age. As a devout Muslim in his early years, he gained a formal outward knowledge and imbibed the spiritual moorings of Lahore, including the blessings of Hazrat Usman Ali Hajvery, aka Data Saheb, whose shrine has guided scores of saints, fakirs and yogis for nearly a millennium.
Mythological accounts suggest that at the age of thirty-six, while studying a commentary on the Quran, Shah Hussain was struck by a line which equated the 'life of this world' to 'game and sport.' He asked his instructor to explain the concept but his teacher's response did not satisfy him. He is said to have interpreted this verse as a means to undertake sport and dance. It is said that Shah Hussain pursued dancing, sport and frolicking but his mentor Hazrat Bahlul Shah Daryavi was not alarmed as he thought his student was spiritually intact.
A life of questioning and seeking alternative meanings in conventional beliefs had arrived. This turning point in Shah Hussain's journey proved to be a major milestone. The first step was to question the clergy and the religious establishment that was co-joined with the monarchy in medieval India. Muslim rulers had sought refuge in religious legitimacy to entrench their dynasties, and in divine right to rule a mass of infidels. Sufis such as Shah Hussain were rebels against the established power-cliques and this is why they gained a huge following across religious, sectarian and caste divides.
Shah Hussain's intoxication with love for the Beloved succeeded his admiration for a Hindu boy named Madhu Lal. Madhu was to become a disciple of the Sufi master in due course and join his khanqah. A Brahmin and a convert weaver duo challenged all the established social hierarchies by acknowledging the ascendancy of humanism above everything. The path to God only lay through the realization of love for fellow human beings. In an extraordinary short poem or kaafi, Hussain speaks through the voice of Heer, who rejects her well-to-do in-laws for her cow-herder lover Ranjha, and declares her rebellion against the social order:
Ni Mai menoon Kherian di gal naa aakh
Ranjhan mera, main Ranjhan di, Kherian noon koori jhak
Lok janey Heer kamli hoi, Heeray da wer chak

Do not talk of the Kheras to me,
O mother, do not.
I belong to Ranjha and he belongs to me.
And the Kheras dream idle dreams.
Let the people say, "Heer is crazy; she has given herself to the cowherd." He alone knows what it all means.
Oral histories suggest that Madhu Lal's parents wanted him to accompany them for a ritual bathing ceremony at Hardwar, but Shah Hussain did not allow him to go. When Madhu's parents reached Hardwar, Shah Hussain made Madhu Lal shut his eyes, strike his feet upon the ground, and then open his eyes again. Madhu Lal did as he was told, and to his and his parents' utter amazement, found himself in Hardwar. Madhu Lal along with his parents later converted to Islam following this miracle. And popular belief is that the name "Madhu Lal Hussain" was bestowed on the young Brahmin.
Madhu became the successor of Shah Hussain after the latter's death in 1599. Madhu Lal survived his pir for the next 48 years, and his tomb lies next to Shah Hussain's at the eclectic shrine today in Baghbanpura, Lahore. This shrine is the centerpiece of the annual Mela Chiraghan, or Festival of Lights, celebrated on the Sufi saint's death anniversary (urs). It was previously celebrated on the 22nd day of the Islamic calendar month of Jamadi-at-Thani, but is now celebrated on the 14th of Baisakh or on the last Sunday of March. It is the biggest religious festival in Lahore, and was considered the biggest public festival of the city until Basant occupied the slot.
Shah Hussain's stature as a Sufi equals his literary stature in the world of Punjabi language and literature. Composing in a kaafi style (short rhyming poems), Hussain employed a variety of styles and enriched the genre. His kaafis speak of the yearning, both spiritual and temporal, faced by Sufis in their pursuit of the divine path. Hussain was acquainted with the nuances of music - and this is why his kaafis have an innate musicality and layers of meaning, which surprisingly are similar to the Urdu and Persian ghazal that was soon to flourish in medieval India. In this kaafi the beauty of Punjabi is explored to its limits as Heer, the yearning lover, sings a song of separation:
Sujjen bin raatan hoiyan wadyan
Ranjha jogi, main jogiani, kamli kar kar sadian
Mass jhurey jhur pinjer hoyya, karken lagiyan hadyan
Main ayani niyoonh ki janan, birhoon tannawan gadiyan
Kahe Husain faqeer sain da, larr tairay main lagiyaan

Nights swell and merge into each other as I stand in wait for him.
Since the day Ranjha became jogi, I have scarcely been my old self
and people everywhere call me crazy.
My young flesh crept into creases, leaving my young bones a creaking skeleton.
I was too young to know the ways of love; and now as the nights swell and merge into each other,
I play host to that unkind guest - separation.
(Translation: Najam Hosain Syed)
There is a universe of symbolism within these kaafis: the charkha (spindle) emerges as a metaphor for the wheel of spiritual journey and also as a symbol peaceful coexistence of humanity. More importantly, the weaver is the Divine force of Creation as well as an embodiment of the human desires and vicissitudes of temporal life. The folk tales of the Punjab such as Heer-Ranjha figure prominently in Shah Hussain's poetry. These kaafis also condemn violence as noted by scholars such as Salman Saeed (The South Asian, April 2001), the limits and boundaries of life's journey, and acceptance of mortality. Long before 'symbolism' was noted in literature, this Punjabi Sufi was weaving allegories and complex themes using simple and easily accessible folk symbols. The timelessness of these poetic celebrations have inspired a variety of singers from the maestros Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Abida Parveen to contemporary pop outfits such as Mekaal Hasan Band and Junoon who have rendered Hussain's kaafis with ease.

This one is a particular favourite of mine as it invokes the Heer-Ranjha tale and alludes to the path of Love that entails crossing of a dangerous river that stands between "desire and fulfillment", to quote Najam Hosain Syed, who has rendered a competent translation of this kaafi:

Main wi janan dhok Ranjhan di, naal mare koi challey
Pairan paindi, mintan kardi, janaan tan peya ukkaley
Neen wi dhoonghi, tilla purana, sheehan ney pattan malley
Ranjhan yaar tabeeb sadhendha, main tan dard awalley
Kahe Husain faqeer namana, sain senhurray ghalley

Travelers, I too have to go; I have to go to the solitary hut of Ranjha. Is there anyone who will go with me? I have begged many to accompany me and now I set out alone. Travelers, is there no one who could go with me?
The River is deep and the shaky bridge creaks as people step on it. And the ferry is a known haunt of tigers. Will no one go with me to the lonely hut of Ranjha?
During long nights I have been tortured by my raw wounds. I have heard he in his lonely hut knows the sure remedy. Will no one come with me, travelers?
The lighting of lamps at the start of every spring is a metaphor for killing the inner darkness that we live with. By invoking spiritual light through love and self-knowledge, we can overcome ourselves and reaffirm our need to love and be loved. The urs of Shah Hussain is also an occasion for celebration. It defies convention and the religiosity of the Mullahs and allows for much festivity. Qalandars and mystics from all over the country congregate and indulge in dhamaals (dancing in a trance) which celebrate the love of Sufis for their Divine beloved and masters.

Amid our many clouds of extremism, Madhu Lal's syncretic shrine represents the long-gone era of spirituality rising above religious identities and rituals. Shah Hussain was feared by the Mughal Emperors and unconfirmed accounts relate that Hussain was sympathetic to Dulla Bhatti (the rebel leader of the peasantry) but Hussain's popular status prevented his arrest. Madhu and Shah Hussain represented and continue to represent the unity of people against all divides and labels:


They alone know what is love and longing,
Who have it in their lives.
Like digging a well in dry land,
With no cart to carry away the sand.
(Translated by Sant Singh Sekhon)

Remembering and learning from Past!

Learning through history’s chronological events one cognizes that it is in a state of perpetual repetition. Sometimes the time and space differs, at others continent and century but the phenomenon recapitulates. A tainted ruling class with autocratic powers, discriminatory rule of laws, judicial system null and void, unheeded working class, leading to bloodily revolution for the freedom from cannibalistic system and a lengthy civil war. Among them a leader emerges, who intends to make the fresh system roll, device his own ideals and standards for good and against the evil. But during the culmination of these ideals becomes tyrant, indulges in mass murders and terrorism against his own countrymen. Lose the intrinsic value of the pristine goal, at the hands of one person paranoia and the system is back to square one even after a lengthy grind. Until and unless individuals have  a perspective and learning from the past, their chances of having a cutting edge in future is rare. So are bound to repeat incursions, rendering much toiled struggle  in vain. (Samima)

Thomas Jeffersons 10 Rules

Wisdom to apply in Practical Life

Rumi

Travelers, it is late.
Life's sun is going to set.
During these brief days that you have strength,
be quick and spare no effort of your wings.

Rumi