Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Sarwarul Huda

http://thewireurdu.com/89209/remembering-eminent-urdu-critic-and-scholar-shamim-hanfi/

شمیم حنفی: ایک ادبی اور تہذیبی بصیرت کا شخص
ہندی والوں سے آپ شمیم حنفی کے تعلق سے کچھ پوچھیے تو وہ انھیں ہندی کا ادیب نہ سہی مگر وہ اپنا پاٹھک ضرور مانتے ہیں۔ یہی وجہ ہے کہ وہ نقاد سے زیادہ قاری کو پسند کرتے ہیں۔
thewireurdu.com

Sunday, May 16, 2021

https://www.dawn.com/news/1623832/in-memoriam-the-lamp-of-words-falls-silent

When it comes to Professor Mohammad Shamim Hanafi, a brief obituary is insufficient. But if this renowned teacher, critic, literary journalist, novelist, poet, playwright, translator and observer of the Urdu language were to be introduced in one line, it would be that Hanafi was a bright reference in the pedagogic, scholarly and cultural history of our time.

Hanafi was born in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh — also the birthplace of the great Progressive poet Majrooh Sultanpuri — on May 17, 1939. His father, Mohammad Yaseen, was a law graduate and deeply interested in learning and literature. With his father having friends such as Professor Aal-i-Ahmad Suroor, Khawaja Ahmad Abbas and Congress leader Sadiq Ali, and his mother, Zebunnissa Begum, also having a taste for reading and writing, Hanafi came of age in a scholarly and literary milieu.

After initial education in Sultanpur, Hanafi was sent to the University of Allahabad from where he earned his bachelors, masters (in Urdu literature and history) and PhD degrees under the tutelage of eminent writers and critics, including Ehtisham Hussain, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Dr Ejaz Hussain and the renowned intellectual of English literature, S.C. Dev.

In Allahabad — a great centre of language and literature — Hanafi mingled with Hindi writers and poets. This strengthened his grip on the Hindi language and the linguistic and cultural harmony granted breadth of vision to his mind. He believed in respect for all religions and social tolerance, and did not brook discrimination among Hindus and Muslims, Shias and Sunnis, Wahhabis and Barelvis. Positive human values were his creed.

After completing his PhD from Allahabad, Hanafi was appointed lecturer of Urdu at Indore University in 1965 and soon became head of department for Urdu, Farsi and Arabic. In 1969, he was appointed lecturer at Aligarh Muslim University. The learned air of Aligarh gave him new powers to fly; here, in 1976, he obtained the prestigious qualification of D. Litt with a double distinction, under the supervision of Professor Aal-i-Ahmad Suroor.

Professor Shamim Hanafi, who passed away in Delhi on May 6 from Covid-19, conquered the heights of fame and popularity with his scholarly, artistic and intellectual labours

In the same year, he was appointed lecturer at the Jamia Millia Islamia. In 1984, he acquired a professorship. After holding several illustrious positions at the university, including dean, director and acting vice chancellor, he retired in 2008. However, for the Jamia to not be deprived of his services, he was made professor emeritus.

Hanafi rendered his services to Urdu literature alongside his educational and teaching activities. In research and criticism, his books — Jadeediat Ki Falsafiana Asaas [The Philosophical Foundation of Modernism], Nayee Sheri Rivayat [New Poetic Tradition], Ghazal Ka Naya Manzarnama [New Landscapes of the Ghazal], Tareekh-i-Tehzeeb Aur Takhleeqi Tajruba [The History of Culture and Creative Experience], Iqbal Ka Harf-i-Tamanna (Iqbal’s Word of Desire), Firaq: Dayaar-i-Shab Ka Musafir (Firaq: The Traveler of the Country of Night), Ghalib Ki Takleeqi Hisiyat [The Creative Sensibility of Ghalib], Infiraadi Shaoor Aur Ijtimaaee Zindagi [Individual Consciousness and Collective Life] and Qaari Se Mukaalma [Dialogue with the Reader] — marked him as an insightful critic and observer of his age.

Hanafi also possessed a creative mind. A collection of his best plays, Mitti Ka Bulava [Summons of the Earth], is part of the literary curriculum of various universities, as are many of his other books.

He was influential in Urdu literary journalism and the issues of Jamia — Jamia Millia’s quarterly journal — published under his editorship were a mirror of his journalistic competence. He wrote on civilisation, culture, current affairs, literature and society; penned biographies of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi; spun children’s stories and translated important works from English, Hindi and Bengali into Urdu. He compiled biographical memoirs of poets and wrote essays on contemporary writers and poets. He also wrote ghazals and nazms of his own, but did not want to publish them.

Generally, advancing age slows down the power to act. But even after passing his eighth decade, Hanafi’s energy often surpassed that of those much younger. He remained active after retirement, writing, travelling, attending seminars and conferences and consulting for India’s National Council of Educational Research and Training.

Prevalent standards and measures of Urdu criticism are associated with foreign literature and trends. Hanafi, too, practised this very manner to a certain extent. He had a deep view of English, Farsi and the literature of other languages as well, but his critical mode did not adhere to any ‘ism’ or ideology. He imagined constructive criticism very much to be in evaluating the masterpieces and artists within the creative, social, cultural, psychological and aesthetic background of India.

He liked the critical manner of Hasan Askari, who stressed the importance of evaluating literary works based on one’s own indigenous sensibilities, aesthetics and creative perspective, rather than imported Western contructs, and his own critical language was extremely sophisticated and dignified.

Aside from within India, Hanafi’s scholarly and literary works were extremely popular abroad. He presented a valuable essay on Iqbaliyat at the international Iqbal seminar in Heidelberg, Germany. Before this, he had read an article at Iqbal’s alma mater, Government College University, Lahore, which was acknowledged as a healthy addition to the understanding of facets of Iqbal’s thought. He presented thoughtful research addresses also on Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi and Ghalib at Pakistan’s University of Sargodha and University of Faisalabad respectively.

Hanafi was generally a serious and cautious man who bore decorum in mind. Outwardly strict and irritable, below the surface he was soft, humble and polite, respectful of elders, affectionate towards the young and loving with friends. When he chose to be silent, he became cold and hard, but when he opened up, conversation bloomed.

He was not a worldly man and his domestic life showed not the slightest trace of artificiality. His wife was highly educated and retired from Jamia Millia after a long association with teaching and learning. Both his daughters are also teachers. Simplicity and good disposition were the beauty of his home. He enjoyed sleeping under the open sky and walking on foot, but vehicles are a compulsion of this era.

With the passing away of Professor Shamim Hanafi, a tall tower of Urdu literature has fallen. In the words of Jamia Millia’s Professor Wajeehuddin Shehper Rasul:

Chiragh-i-lafz hi chup ho gaya hai
Andhera kis qadar ghup ho gaya hai

[The lamp of words has very much gone to sleep
The darkness has become so very deep]g

The writer is a Lahore-based social scientist, translator, dramatic reader and president of the Progressive Writers Association. He is currently working on a book, Sahir Ludhianvi’s Lahore, Lahore’s Sahir Ludhianvi. He can be reached at razanaeem@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 16th, 2021

Friday, May 14, 2021

http://muslimstoday.in/khuda-hafiz-shamim-sahab/

Khuda Hafiz Shamim sahab

At 8.30PM on the sixth of May 2021, Shamim sahab’s family received a call from MD City Hospital, New Delhi, “We are going to give CPR to the patient as his heart is not responding. We have to incubate him. Could you please come soon?” Just an hour back doctors were hopeful about his condition.

With prayers in our heart, we rushed from Jasola to Model Town. That 40-minute drive was the longest I ever took. We reached hospital at 9.20PM and dashed towards the ICU ward, only to be stopped by the doctor outside the ward, “We tried our best but could not succeed, he is no more.“ Shamim Hanfi had left for his heavenly abode at 8.50 PM, to be united with his parents, brothers, his illustrious friends like Intezar Hussain, Balraj Menra, Zahid Dar, Shamsur Rahman Farooqui, Asif Farrukhi, Zubair Rizvi, Manglesh Dabral, Mohammad Alvi, Mohd Shahid and many others. He left behind a grieving wife and two daughters.
Shamim Hanfi was born in Sultanpur on November 17th, 1938. Son of a renowned advocate, Mohd.Yaseen Siddiqui and Begum Zaibunnisa, he was the eldest of the six siblings. His father was an Aligarian and a literary enthusiast who completed his education from AMU in 1932-33. Shamim Hanafi recalled that his father used to prepare a list of literary classics, which he had to read every month. He was introduced to Tagore, Doestovosky, Dickens and others quite early in his life. Being a voracious reader, during his school days itself, he read the likes of Zafar Umar, Tirath Nath Firozpuri, Krishna Gopal Abid, Rashid Akhtar Nadwi, Shibli Nomani, Hali, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Nazir Ahmad.

During his college days he was inclined towards fiction and read Krishnachander, Saadat Hasan Manto, Bedi, Ismat Chugtai, Willayatullah Ansari, Ghulam Abbas, Mumtaaz Mufti, Munshi Premchand and others.

He did his schooling from Sultanpur and learnt Persian from Maulvi Mugheesuddin. His interest in Urdu literature was the result of his father’s perseverance and close proximity to his Urdu, History and English Teacher Syed Moinuddin Qadri (translator of many noted English literary works). While in Intermediate he translated in Urdu, the Persian play “Aakhiri Yaadgaar-e-Nadir Shah” of renowned Persian playwright Saeed Nafisi.

He shifted to Allahabad to pursue his college studies. At Allahabad University he came in contact with Firaq Gorukhpuri, Dr. Aijaz Hussain, Prof. Ehtesham Hussain and Prof. S.C. Deb, who left an indelible impact upon his sensibilities. They were not just teachers, but also intellectual guides for him. He completed his D. Phil from Allahabad University in the year 1966, his subjects were English Literature, History and Urdu. He was the first regular student of D. Lit in Aligarh Muslim University, which he completed in 1976.

Shamim Hanfi was not an individual but an institution. His contribution to the Urdu language is unparalleled. He had a memory of an elephant, if he heard something once, he will remember it forever. He could recite hundreds of couplets of any poet, whom he had read. In a book launch ceremony at Rekhta few years back, Javed Akhtar requested Shamim Sb to launch his grandfather, Muztar Khairabadi’s, collection of poetry. The launch was scheduled an hour later, Shamim Sb asked Javed Akhtar to give him the book as he had not read Muztar’s poetry that much. An hour later, he was eloquently reading one couplet after the other of Muztar Khairabadi, relating them with various themes and the audience was spell bound to his oratory skills.

Shamim Hanfi was a distinguished Urdu critic, dramatist & one of the leading voices of Modernist movement in Urdu Literature. His books on Modernism like, “Jadeediyat ke Falsafana Ahsaas”, “Jadeediyat aur Nai Shairi” and “ Nai Sheri Riwayat” are considered as path-breaking and profound works. He was one of the most sought-after keynote speakers on Urdu language and personalities who have contributed to the development of Urdu. His addresses were engrossing, touching the sensibilities of audience. He was a man of wit and humour. His clear and in-depth narrative and interesting anecdotes keep the audience glued to their chairs.

His interviews on leading personalities of Urdu world had brought many unknown facts to the fore and also helped in understanding their contributions. His books on Manto, Meraji, Iqbal and others are a delight to Urdu lovers and provide them with engaging facts and rich material. Shamim Hanafi was of the opinion that the spirit of twentieth century couldn’t be understood without acknowledging the work of Faiz, Rashid and Miraji. He pointed out that unlike Faiz and Rashid, Miraji existed in many spheres at a time. He remarked that Miraji achieved many things including altering the geography of Urdu poetry, since the “jungle” played a key role in his poetry.

Shamim Hanafi held certain values close to his heart, as he believed that literature or the arts is not based on any one single ideology or a certain line of efficient thinking. That the ingenious effort is only to be an aside, an addition or an elucidation of what one holds to be of importance. Therefore, arts and literature cannot be custom-built.

Hanafi also valued immensely the quest of intellect and art for its own sake, and not for the purpose of either public acclaim or reward. He seemed to be disgusted with those who in their honest pursuit somehow fall prey to an endorsement from influential circles and then compromise their positions and hence taint their intellectual integrity. Khawaja Ahmed Abbas and Devandarnath Sidharti were chosen as two examples that he personally knew and they both worked not for personal profit but for the discovery of what were right.

Shamim Hanfi was one of the greatest advocate of bonhomie between Hindi and Urdu and for that reason he traveled worldwide to express his views and his articles on this subject were published across the globe and he had participated in talk shows, discussions and also participated in events like Hindi Urdu Flagship programme of University of Texas (USA).

Shamim Hanfi maintained that Hindi and Urdu are historically close to each other but politics has created a rift between them. He was of the opinion that a curriculum should be designed where both Hindi and Urdu should be taught together as this will bridge the gap between the two languages and also revive the mutual tradition of both the languages. He emphasized that there is a need to protect both the languages from religious extremism and politics. He was of the view that if both Hindi and Urdu respect each other’s space and don’t intrude then both the languages will flourish and complement each other in the best possible way.

Shamim Hanfi noted that we have seen the world being split into blocs with new boundaries coming up every now and then but as far as literature is concerned , there are no boundaries, “Literature is the common heritage of all societies regardless of caste, colour, creed or race”. He further said, “Books respect our solitude.”

Shamim Hanfi was conferred with the first Jnangarima Manad Alankaran Award, by the Bharatiya Jnanpith in 2015. He received the “International award for promotion of Urdu literature” in January 2021 from the Majlis-e-Farogh-e-Urdu Adab, a Qatar-based literary organization. He also received the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Award, Pervaiz Shahidi Award, Delhi’s Urdu Academy Award and the Ghalib Award.

An obscure fact about Shamim Hanfi was that he was an artist as well. His sense of aesthetics was unique and rich and was evident in his passion for performing arts, painting, pottery, etc. This is the reason that some of his close friends were from the artist community such as Gogi Sarojpal, Ved Nayyar, Ramachandran Nayar, Arpita Singh, Rajiv Lochan, Paramjit Singh, and Jatin Das.

He also served as the member of AMU court in 2010 and as a patron to many literary societies and organisations like Rekhta and Jashan-E-Adab.

Shamim Hanafi authored and edited more than 40 books (on culture, criticism, drama & literary history) and about half a dozen collection of stories for children. Recently Rekhta published his first poetry collection by the name of “Aakhri Pehar ki Dastak”

“They don’t make them like you anymore,
That’s for sure,
And when they made you,
They made sure they threw away the mold”

Khudahafiz Shamim sahab. You will always remain as the guiding light for millions of Urdu lovers and literary enthusiast like me.

Author: Zartab Jafri

A social activist. Managing Director at Maksus Mimer Energy Solutions India Private Limited which is a subsidiary of Mimer Energy AB. (Swedish Firm). Governing Council member of Power Foundation, a NGO working in the field of gender equality and empowering underprivileged women. National Executive council member of Aligarh Muslim University’s Alumni Affairs. Guest columnist with Renewable Energy portals and magazines & preferred speaker on the panel of CII on geothermal heating and cooling. View all posts by Zartab Jafri

https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/833830-a-literary-giant

Sub-microscopic pathogens are not just lethally destructive but also absolutely mindless and blind. They do not care about who is going to be their next victim. Among the cohort of Urdu writers claimed by the coronavirus pandemic, Shamim Hanfi is the latest. He was equally popular among the Indian and Pakistani literati and readers, Hanfi’s departure is a huge and irreparable loss. Not only have many of Hanfi’s books on criticism been published from Pakistan, but he also frequently visited Lahore and Karachi. He attended almost every edition of the Karachi Arts Council’s Urdu conference as a keynote speaker. The conference is one of the most-awaited events of Pakistan’s literary calendar due to the relentless efforts of Ahmad Shah. Recently, Hanfi participated in a couple of sessions of the Lahore Literary Festival’s online edition.

Shamim Hanfi was born in Sultanpur (Uttar Pradesh), India, on May 17, 1939, in a learned family. His formative years were spent in Allahabad where he completed his education right up to his DPhil. It was in Allahabad that he was inspired by Firaq Gorakhpuri’s person and works. After serving Indore University as a lecturer in Urdu for a while, he joined the Aligarh Muslim University in 1969. In 1976, working under the supervision of Ale Ahmad Suroor, he completed his DLitt thesis titled Jadeediat Ki Falsafiana Asas that established his credentials as a literary critic. The same year, Hanfi left Aligarh to join Jamia Millia, Delhi, where he served as professor of Urdu, dean and director till his retirement in 2007. In recognition of his services to education and literature, he was appointed a professor emeritus by Jamia Millia. He also edited Jamia, the university’s research journal. His literary oeuvre is enviably vast and diverse. He has over 50 books to his credit ranging from criticism to drama, poetry, translation and children’s literature.

Zehr-i-Ishq, the masnavi by Mirza Shauq Lucknavi (1780-1871) was the first major book of poetry he ever read - at the tender age of 9. While the theme did not leave a permanent imprint on his mind, its aesthetics, inundated with plenty of sensual metaphors, did. While he kept reading classical texts of Urdu literature — Meer and Ghalib in particular – his forte was modernist and contemporary literature of Urdu as well as Western and Indian languages. He was not only a well-versed scholar of English, Persian and Hindi, but also a connoisseur of music, painting and theatre. Unlike some contemporary critics, he did not believe in formulating different canons for classical and modern literatures. He held that literariness was where classicism and modernism converged. In Khial ki Masafat, one of his representative works on criticism, he went on to claim that all classical literature of the world is the common heritage of the modern world.

Both his critical and creative writings exhibit his adherence to a particular version of modernism. In his magnum opus Jadeediat Ki Falsafiana Asas, Hanfi seems to have developed that specific version, delineating the schemas of theories and concepts Western modernism is rooted in, Hanfi argues that some enlightening ideas of Zen Buddhism are a marvellous contribution to twentieth-century thought. He was the first Urdu critic to discover a deep-rooted relationship between Buddhist ideas and modern concepts of art. In Jadeediat, he asserts that “Zen is the [perfect] response to the logic of [modern] West. As Zen prioritises daily reality, Hanfi correlates it with existentialism, too. Denying great philosophical theories, existentialism — propounded by the twentieth century Western writers like Heidegger, Camus, Sartre, Karl Bath, Ionesco and Karl Jasper etc – is based on the observing of and reflection on daily, ordinary realities. Hence, it termed as “coffee cup philosophy”. Zen Buddhism also seeks reality by observing daily, ordinary happenings and things. Hanfi called it the Eastern notion of existentialism. Western modernism and existentialism reflect on ordinary and immediate reality through the mediation of language. Zen Buddhism, on the other hand, while encountering daily reality, not only avoids language but considers intervention of the language ‘hazardous’; hence the idea of silence, or s nyat . The specific notion of modernism Hanfi embraced was embedded more in East than West — not because of some essentialist view of culture but because of the artistic significance of the Eastern thought.

Throughout his critical writings, we find him reiterating that “Adeeb ka samna jeeti jagti zindagi say hae’’ (a writer has to encounter the daily reality). This may account for his aversion to retrieving ideas from literary texts. Again, unlike some contemporaries, he detested extracting meaning and then setting on interpreting them in some social, Marxist, historical or psychological perspective. “We don’t read poetry to remember the idea a verse contains, rather it is the lingual and sound image that our mind retains”, he contended. He was also of the view that in poetry the word and the meaning are not distinct or divisible realities. The word per se turns into an image of reality. He contended that “a word doesn’t communicate an idea or thought or some information; but a totality of the poetic experience”. In this context, his dislike of post-modernism, entrenched in linguistic binaries, is understandable.

To him, the act of reading poetry was not social or cultural but personal. Poetry, he said, spoke to our senses, to our soul, to our whole being. In poetry, the divide between body and soul, present and past, becomes redundant. Writing on Zahid Dar in Bazm-i-Hamnafsan, Hanfi went on to assert that insistence on the truth of the body did not entail denial of the soul as it was the body where the soul resided. Furthering the idea of personal engagement with poetry, he claimed that the rebirth of the moment of creativity can take place in the very act of reading. To him, reading poetry was not just seeking something out of it, rather, it was replicating a creative experience. However, he was not oblivious to the fact that creative experience is not just psychological but also embedded in a tehzeeb. He had an aversion to history and psychology and at times would not hesitate to scold those engaged in studying literature in the perspective of extra-literary disciplines. He was all praise for contextualising poetry and fiction in their respective tehzeeb and its values. In this way he appreciated mythology and symbolism and writers like Meeraji and Intezar Hussain whose writings are steeped in mythology.

The Urdu world tamasha perfectly defines the reality of our being in the world… It is short-lived, ephemeral, and dreamlike. So are our lives on this planet. Hanfi sahib has left this tamasha. The tamasha goes on, albeit in an ambience of never-ending sorrow and grief.

We have to bear in mind here that his notion of tehzeeb was not religious or racial – not even secular. It was an imaginative space in which all creative activities were embedded simultaneously; a sum total of all creative experiences that find expression in poetry, fiction, music, pottery, painting and dance. In the preface to Dukan-i-Shishagran — third volume of the trilogy (Hamsafron kay Dramian and Hamnafson ki Bazm mein, being the other two volumes) – he had declared that he could never develop pure scholarly or scientific interest in literature; that his passionate love for art and its (pure) aesthetics left no room for human sciences.

Borrowing from Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri’s division between personal and public stories, we can say Hanfi went for the personal ones. He remained sceptical of art’s social and historical role. He thus avoided some pertinent questions regarding the relationship between literature and socially constructed realities.

It was his love for literature rooted in a jeeti jagti zindagi that led him to realise the significance of the writings of Bengali Hungry generation poets, Dalit writers, Black writers, and African and Latin American writers, for all these writers portray their immediate, real, ordinary, existing reality. Hanfi co-edited a book on Siah Faam Adab. In that too, he said that literature produced by the Third World was free from the ideological shackles of the First and the Second Worlds, creating a distinct niche in the history of world literature. Elaborating on the distinctions of black literature, he quoted lines from a black poet: “White races need to nurture a habit of listening while Blacks are required to nourish the habit of speaking (to white).” The courage to speak to White people has been integral to the project of decolonisation. Interestingly, a hint of decolonisation surfaces in his writings. Reviewing a critical edition of Masnavi Gulzar-i-Naseem, edited by Rashid Hasan Khan, Hanfi said that without decolonising our collective taste, character and consciousness, we could not realise the full significance of our past and the sensibility ingrained in our classical works. He was also of the view that until we juxtaposed our classical works with our contemporary sensibility in a bid to reveal their contemporary significance, our engagement with the past was of no value. The present is privileged to determine the value and significance of the past; it hence enjoys a “semantic leverage” to change the past and administer the future course.

Paradox, as a poetic device, has been the backbone of literary modernism. Hanfi’s oeuvre of criticism also harboured a suite of paradoxes. His perception of reality, too, is paradoxical in nature. In Bazaar Mein Neend, his fourth collection of Urdu drama, he quoted Hazrat Ali (with whom Allah was pleased): “People are asleep, they will awake the moment they die”. Thus, the sleep and wakefulness are illusory. It is not just that these states are illusory, but also their meanings. Hanfi held that the reality appearing in art and literature is so weird, dreamlike, illusive and surreal that our intellectual and logical minds fail to grasp it. However, our inner beings can take in the elusiveness of literary reality, for our inner beings themselves nurture contradictions and paradoxes in contrast to our logical minds which do not allow such disorder and consequently any paradox. Being logical, criticism sets out to unravel all paradoxes turning disorder into order. Hanfi’s critical writings avoid being logical and consequently evade unravelling and interpreting paradoxes. He keeps prioritising sensual-surreal assemblage over semantic aspects of the text.

Hanfi loved nature and silence on one hand and cities on the other. A paradox, indeed. Love for nature brought him close to Intezar Hussain and Ram Chandran, the renowned Indian painter; his love for cities to Balraj Manra, the modern short story writer. Writing on the idea of humanism in literature, Hanfi said art and literature sprouted from silence and solitude — another Zen concept. He loved trees, birds, streams and rivers. The city lacking the chirping of birds seemed like a factory to him — a symbol of modern capitalist society that he censured all along. He abhorred noise, breakneck speed, reckless haste, overcrowded bazaars — major characteristics of all modern cities. However, he was cognisant of the Janus-faced charterer of cities. A city is the site of capitalism and tehzeeb alike. Its capitalist and consumerist face causes dehumanisation while the tehzeeb face of it heralds creative activities, shielding city dwellers from dehumanisation. Raat, Shehr aur Zindagi is an anthology of pieces about cities originally written by Hanfi for Balraj Manra’s Shaoor, one of the best Urdu magazines that drew other creative arts into its fold. Other than a noteworthy essay on the city of Calcutta, this book contained four assemblages on Pakistan, Hindustan, Gujarat and Baghdad. The assemblage about Pakistan, focusing on Gen Zia’s regime, particularly on Bhutto’s death and its aftermath, is worth reading not only for its marvellous technique – which features assembling of pieces from contemporary poetry, fiction, history, and newspapers – but also for its significance to us today.

Though less appreciated, Hanfi’s Urdu dramas merit a mention here. His four books of drama, Matti ka Bulawa, Mujhay Ghar Yaad Aata Hae, Zindagi ki Taraf, Bazaar mein Neend, and the anthology Aap Apna Tamashai deal mostly with lives of common people in capitalist, cosmopolitan cities. His dramas Bazaar and Pani Pani are worth mentioning especially. Bazaar, written in the last decade of the 20th century, is about dehumanising of people at the hands of capitalist consumerism. We must put the brakes on, we must slow down, this tamasha must end now — is the gist of the play. Pani Pani, written using the assemblage technique, tells the sad story of South Asia. Its kernel can be subsumed in Coleridge’s famous lines uttered by a nameless character: “Water water everywhere/ but not a drop to drink.” The word tamasha appears repeatedly in all kinds of Hanfi’s writings like a central motif. In Akhri Pehr ki Dastak, his sole anthology of poetry, we come across this verse:

“Zameen say aasman tak apnay honay ka tamasha hae/ Ye saaray silasaly ik lamha-i-fani mein rehtay hain”

[From earth to sky there is just a spectacle of our being in the world. All this concatenation is pinned to ephemerality].

The Urdu world tamasha perfectly defines the reality of our being in the world. Tamasha is the site where real and unreal converge. Though a product of imagination, it is played with high seriousness, putting everything one has at their disposal into it, with intent to give this tamasha some semblance of reality. It is short-lived, ephemeral, and dreamlike. So are our lives on this planet. Hanfi sahib has left this tamasha. The tamasha goes on in an ambience of never-ending sorrow and grief.

I conclude with these lines from a poem by Rabindranath Tagore for whom Hanfi sahib had great regard.

“Farewell, farewell, /my friends, /I smile and bid you goodbye/No, shed no tears, /for I need them not/All I need is your smile/if you feel sad/think of me/for that’s what I’d like”.

The writer is a Lahore-based critic, short story writer, professor of Urdu at University of the Punjab and author of Urdu Adab Ki Tashkeel-i-Jadid , Jadeediat aur Nau Abadiyat (criticism) and Aik Zamaana Khatm Huwa Hai

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A literary giant

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Ahmad Ali Barqi Azmi Paying Poetic Tributes To Prof. Shamim Hanfi On His...

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Sunday, May 9, 2021

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You decided to go Shamim Hanfi Saheb!!

But we will never say Alvidaa!!!

We all know that with you goes away so much of our collective heritage & shared culture, history & it's splendour, memories and their sweet candour.

آسماں تیری لحد پر شبنم افشانی کرے

سبزہ نو رستہ اس گھر کی نگہ بانی کرے

The sad reality is that we will grieve forever for our loss and the scars will never heal. We will not ‘get over’ the loss of a philosopher & guide like you whose approval and appreciation will remain our best reward & award.

We will be in a void, to live with your affectionate memories. The void will be our shelter and our cocoon, our little lagoon.

Shamim Saheb!! You will always be with Jamia, in Jamia, above Jamia ... You will remain inseperable, indistinguishable, indivisible from Jamia!

You may go Sir,

but we will never never say Alvidaa!!!

Rumi says... Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation