Tag Archives: Shamsur Rahman Faruqi – Urdu Poet – Urdu Critic

Translating India: How Ka’i Chand The Sar-e Asman became The Mirror of Beauty

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INDIA:

In a new Translating India series, ten noted translators will share their experiences of translating from their respective languages. In this first part, Urdu critic and writer, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi writes about how he translated his Urdu novel into English.

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi translated his Urdu novel Ka’i Chand The Sar-e Asman, which was about the mother of the famous poet Dagh, into English. It was published in 2014 as The Mirror of Beauty.(Facebook)
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi translated his Urdu novel Ka’i Chand The Sar-e Asman, which was about the mother of the famous poet Dagh, into English. It was published in 2014 as The Mirror of Beauty.(Facebook)

My name is Ka’i Chand The Sar-e Asman. In English, somewhat arbitrarily, I am called The Mirror of Beauty. I am an Urdu novel, a little above 850 pages long. My English avatar is nearly a thousand pages worth of prose of a somewhat quaint register, or registers.

I was somewhat horrified when an author approached me with the proposal to translate me into English. I said: “I hope you aren’t going to do to me what the Bard did to Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as he casually turned him into a donkey — “Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee. Thou art translated!”

“No, no,” he cried with a tight voice. “Do you doubt my proficiency…?”

“Yes, that too could bear some scrutiny, but my doubt mainly springs from the nature of the beast.”

“You believe I created a monster,” he fumed, somewhat red-faced.

“Do not misunderstand me. In fact, you know very well what you created, and I am quite comfortable with it. Let me remind you…”

“Yes, I know,” he said somewhat testily. “I made you somewhat exotic. I wrote you in about ten different styles, or registers. In general, you are highly Persianised; Arabic is just round the corner almost everywhere. Your narrative language is mostly archaic, so also the dialogues. Most of your women speak what is now called Begamati Zaban, that is, they use words which only women used. You have courtly language in play on almost all occasions in life, from speaking of love to being belligerent, even warlike. Irritatingly, or most piquantly-spicily, your pages are peppered with poetry in Persian or Urdu.”

“Yes, and the professional and technical details, some of them almost untranslatable,” I said.

“Yet you seem to be missing the chief point here,” he said, with his nose in the air.

“And pray, what’s that?” I must confess that I was somewhat nettled by his superior air.

Read the curtain raiser to the Translating India series here.

“Incompatibility,” he said. “English and Urdu are incompatible, and just not grammatically. Urdu’s a genius, especially in the creative modes, is given to elaboration, intensification, abstraction. And Urdu has many more words for emotions; English for all its vastness is remarkably destitute in this area. Take ‘love’, for instance. How many words can you think of in English, including Latinisms and archaisms, to convey the idea of love? Well, just one, or maybe another two or three if you stretch the matter. Urdu has at least 18 words to express the emotion of love. Apart from love too, Urdu’s language of formal discourse has numerous words expressing the same idea with different degrees of intensity or emphasis or nuance. English and Urdu make strange bed-fellows, almost always.”

I felt dispirited. So I will remain hidden behind Urdu’s veil, almost like Lucy, who though fair as a star, lived unknown. But I brightened at the thought that I won’t suffer the mutilation that almost all translations turn out to be. So I said: “Well, then you are saved the trouble of undertaking this back-breaking job, I hope?”

“No”, he smiled his artful, almost crafty smile. “You forget that I am the author, not just some hack pulling an ancient rickety cart of translation.”

“So?”

“First thing,” said he, “As author-translator, I can take liberties, within reasonable limits. I am aware that I am the author of the Urdu novel, I am not composing an original novel in English. But I’ll not let the Urdu text hang too heavy on my translator’s intuitions. Like all translators I’ll give up certain things (like the 18 or so words for love), but will also add certain things.

‘When I sit down to do the English version, I am able to visualise the spirit of the Urdu and almost see it passing into the English words that came to me as I put them then on the page.’

“Most importantly, I’ll exchange the archaic Urdu with a deliberately archaic, passionately and shamelessly 19th century English. I will not permit the entry of a word or usage which came into the language after the time of Victoria, that is, mid to late 19th century. The flavour of the specialised languages and registers of Urdu I’ll give up in favour of translating literally all Urdu words and phrases and make them sound natural to the narrative. I will render the ‘excesses’ of the Urdu into English.”

“And what will you do about the poetry?”

“Well, I am the author, and thus share a bit of the original author’s persona when I quote his poetry.”

It seemed to me that he bared his teeth, somewhat like a dog teasing and enjoying a favourite bone.

“I will translate faithfully, but I’ll use a compromise language – a little modern, a little archaic – to suit the environment of the narrative. And remember, the poetry that I have quoted (and I even wrote some of it, under the names of Dagh, or his mother) is entirely in harmony with the narrative. So, without doing violence to the original, I should produce passable English poems, effective and genuine in their own right.”

“I fear your labours may result into transcreation of some sort,” I said somewhat timidly.

“Transcreation? I defy transcreation. You either translate or create. When I am done, you open any page of the translation, you will recognise the relevant Urdu text instantly.”

“That is something that most translators from Urdu have despaired of,” I said. “How do you hope to do it?

“For one thing, I am fully steeped into the Urdu – its moods, its inner complications, its special characteristics. And I have lived with you for a long time before you came into existence. When I sit down to do the English version, I am able to visualise the spirit of the Urdu and almost see it passing into the English words that came to me as I put them then on the page.”

“But you haven’t even started, how do you know you can do it?”

“Come back after a couple of years and see for yourself.”

A recipient of Saraswati Samman (1996) and Padma Shri (2009), Shamsur Rahman Faruqi is a leading Urdu critic and theorist. The views expressed are personal.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Books / by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, IANS – Indo Asian News Service / February 10th, 2018

How the pandemic is depriving lovers of Urdu literature of their environment for enjoyment

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INDIA:

Discussions and debates, critiques and readings, held at haunts of Urdu books and writing around the country have been interrupted rudely.

(From left) Shadab Rashid, Urdu drama writer Aslam Parvez, and Shakeel Rasheed at Kitabdaar | Mahtab Alam

In Malegaon

On the first Saturday of every month, the textile city of Malegaon in northern Maharashtra used to become home for lovers of Urdu literature, who meet to discuss, debate and critique new writings in the language, mostly by local writers. Organised under the aegis of Anjuman Muhibban e Adab (Association of Literature Lovers), the gathering began at around 9 pm, and went on till midnight.

Between 30 and 50 people – both writers and readers – would come together, a number that would at times go up to as many as 100 or even 150. Asif Iqbal Mirza, the secretary of the Anjuman, said the practice began 25 years ago on the suggestion of local journalist and editor Samiullah Ansari, who published new Urdu fiction in his weekly, Hashmi Awaz.

Over the years, the publication had emerged as a popular local magazine for young and budding writers to publish their works. The weekly, now in its 35th year of publication, had a considerable fan following and readership at the time. Ansari then suggested that admirers of the magazine form a group comprising readers as well as writers.

The group was initially named Anjuman Muhibban e Hashmi Awaz (Association of Admirers of Hashmi Awaz), but within a few years, its following grew to encompass more than just the readers of the magazine, and in 1998 it was rechristened Anjuman Muhibban e Adab, Malegaon. “Ansari sahib formed the Anjuman so that writers could get their new works critiqued by readers before getting them published in the weekly,” Mirza ssid.

Back then, Mirza himself wrote for a local children’s newspaper called Khair Andesh. But his association with the Anjuman helped him grow into a prolific Afsana Nigar, a short story writer. He was 17 when the group was formed; in the past 25 years, he has written and published more than 200 short stories in different publications.

Apart from Anjuman Muhibban e Adab, there are two more literary groups in Malegaon that held regular meetings until the lockdown was declared in March. No such meetings have been held since then. “Unlike earlier, we now have enough time to read and write. But the irony is we don’t have the opportunity to discuss and publish them,” said Mirza, who also runs a printing business. Several local publications had to halt their issues, including Hashmi Awaz, owing to the lockdown.

According to Mirza, although social media outlets such as WhatsApp and Facebook have, to some extent, helped to keep in touch with fellow writers and readers, the literary life of Malegaon has come to a standstill, since a large number of local writers and readers came from the working class and worked in local looms. “The year 2020 is the silver jubilee of my literary career. I had plans to publish a collection of my short stories, but thanks to the pandemic, that will not happen this year,” Mirza said with a great sense of despair.

In Mumbai

Both readers and writers have felt a deep loss during the pandemic. His love of books took Shakeel Rasheed, editor of the Urdu daily Mumbai Urdu News, to various bookshops in and around the Mohammad Ali Road area of Bombay. “Visiting bookshops was a part and parcel of my life. I feel a deep loss when I don’t visit them,” he said. For him, bookstores are not just spaces to buy books, but they also served as addas for readers and writers. As soon as some relaxations were in place, he rushed to the stores. “Par ab pahle wali baat nahi rahi,” said Rasheed. “Things are not as they were before.” The pandemic has made it more difficult to meet new people.

Shadab Rashid’s Kitabdaar publications and bookstore in Temkar Street of Nagpada was one such adda for Urdu writers in Mumbai, as was Maktaba Jamia on Sandhurst Road West. Today, Kitabdaar and a few other bookshops have opened their stores for a few hours every few days, while Maktaba Jamia remains closed. “Due to lack of public transport and fear of the pandemic, people cannot come to Kitabdaar,” Shadab said. He also edits the quarterly literary magazine Naya Waraq, founded by his late father and noted journalist and writer Sajid Rasheed.

Shadab Rashid said the lockdown brought significant hardships and losses to Urdu publishers and distributors. “It is not that people don’t want to read Urdu books anymore – the problem is they cannot buy them,” he said. “I have received lots of online orders, but I cannot fulfill them because I rely on postal services as they are the cheapest means of delivery, but the services are not fully functional yet.” His online Urdu bookshop kitabdaar.com is one of the few digital distribution platforms for Urdu books exclusively in India. Another such platform, urdubazaar.in, was recently launched from Delhi.

Owing to the discontinuation of physical interactions between readers and writers, people have lost touch with each other, since not all Urdu writers are active on social media, Shakeel Rasheed told me. “We have lost many good writers during this period and found out about their demise several days later,” he added. “Moreover, we could not participate in their last journeys.”

In Hyderabad

Another writer recounted similar thoughts after the death of noted Urdu satirist Mujtaba Hussain in Hyderabad on May 27. Hussain was awarded the Padma Shri in 2007 for his contributions to Urdu literature, but in December 2019, he announced he was returning the award to protest the enactment of the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act. “[T]he democracy for which I fought is under attack now and the government is doing that,” he had said, “that’s why I don’t want to associate the government with me.”

In Hyderabad, another centre of Urdu writing, literary activities have come to a similar halt due to the pandemic. Publications like Shagoofa, a monthly magazine of satirical writing, have been temporarily discontinued since the lockdown.

In Delhi

In Delhi, too, the pandemic has left an adverse impact on Urdu writing. Khan Rizwan, a poet and a known “addebaaz” from Delhi, loved participating in and organizing adabi addas (literary gatherings). He misses visiting the Nai Kitab book store, located in one of the many bylanes of Jamia Nagar, which is one of the famous addas for Urdu lovers in the city. Run by veteran writer and publisher Shahid Ali Khan, Nai Kitab is a haven for young and old writers alike, Rizwan said, as Shahid sahib treated them alike. “It is not just a bookshop but an institution where one got to meet noted writers and lovers of Urdu literature,” he said.

Rizwan would visit the shop at least twice a week, and meet a new literature enthusiast or writer, or find out about a new book or risala /parcha (journal/magazine). “I miss the black tea and chips that Shahid sahib served us with love and affection,” he recalled. “He is a storehouse of information, and several veteran writers were his friends, so he would tell us stories all the time.”

I couldn’t agree more with Rizwan. I have been visiting Nai Kitab once every few months for more than a decade now, and on each of my visits, after asking khabar-khairyat, Shahid sahib would say, “Achcha aap bahut dino baad aayen hain, ye nayi kitaabein aayi hai dekh lein (Since you’ve come after a long time, here are some new books).” Last year, when I visited the bookshop around this time, he directed me towards dozens of books written by noted Urdu satirist Fikr Taunsvi and Shaukat Thanvi. I immediately bought all of them, as they were usually out of print and seldom available.

As the person in charge of the Maktaba Jamia, the publication division of Jamia Millia Islamia in Bombay, Shahid Sahib befriended writers and poets like Jan Nisar Akhtar, Meena Kumari, Sahir Ludhianvi and Jagan Nath Azad. Some of them were regular visitors to the Maktaba Jamia. Though he moved to Delhi after serving the Maktaba for several decades, he did not stop hosting literature lovers. He then founded Nai Kitab publishers and a quarterly journal by the same name.

It was in 2007 at his bookshop that I first chanced upon Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s celebrated novel Kai Chand The Sare Aasman, later translated into English as The Mirror of Beauty by the author himself. The novel went on to become a major critical and commercial success.

Faruqi was also associated with the Nai Kitab journal as chairperson of its advisory council and would visit the shop once in a while. The journal eventually stopped publication owing to Shahid sahib’s failing health, but he continued with the bookstore as it was like “oxygen for him”, he had once told me.

Waiting for freedom

Some writers have managed to turn the lockdown into a creatively productive period. “Personally, the pandemic has proved as a blessing in disguise as I read books I wanted to for years and finish other important work, such as recording videos of Urdu literature lectures,” says Khalid Mubashir, a poet and assistant professor of Urdu literature at Jamia. He quickly added, however, this was not common, as most writers and poets were stuck at home, either because of their age or in fear of the pandemic. “Moreover, not all writers have access to technology and books like I do. I am fortunate enough to have friends who helped me with technology to do something substantial during this period.”

Mubashir’s videos, as many as 60 of them, are each about 30 minutes long, and cover the history, evolution and development of Urdu and its literature in the subcontinent. Though the lectures are prepared keeping in mind the need and syllabus of Urdu literature students, ordinary Urdu lovers can also benefit from them. All lectures are available on the YouTube channel Safeer e Adab.

Similarly, although younger poets like Mohammed Anas Faizi from old Delhi have been trying to keep Urdu literature gatherings going by using social media, online addas do not have the feel and impact of offline and in-person gatherings. “Technology and social media can only help to a certain extent. Online gatherings, mushairas and addas cannot substitute for the real ones, no matter how well they are done,” he said.

With apologies to Faiz Ahmad Faiz, what the Urdu writers, poets and addebaaz seem to be telling the pandemic is:

Gulon Mein Rang Bhare Baad e Nau Bahar Chale
Chale Bhi Jao Ki Gulshan Ka Karobar Chale

Mahtab Alam is a multilingual journalist and until recently was the executive editor of The Wire Urdu. His Twitter handle is @MahtabNama.

This series of articles on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on publishing is curated by Kanishka Gupta.

source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Publishing and the Pandemic / by Mahtab Alam / July 14th, 2020

Ode to Shamsur Rahman Faruqi

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Azamgarh / Allahabad , UTTAR PRADESH :

Granddaughter of India’s greatest Urdu poet pens a poignant tribute to her late grandfather

“And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light.”— Matthews 17:2-9

My family keeps trying to talk me into mourning the loss of my grandfather, who I lovingly call ‘Bhai’, as did everybody else who knew him. I can’t exactly put this into words and I can’t make people understand that mourning his death is an insult to the madness, the magic, the man, the movement, the miracle, the marvel, the Master. Why don’t you understand that this loss isn’t the kind for me to cry about? This is the kind of loss for me to die about.

When I was a kid, I used to love watching The Lion King. I like to believe that literature and media that you absorb during childhood, shapes your personality as an adult. I always made sure I skipped the scene of Mufasa’s death, with a bewildered and heart-broken Simba trying to wake his father up. It was because I always feared that this day would come, and I would see myself trying to awaken Bhai from eternal, unending sleep. And it did, it happened. And now I am here, and he is there — out there, up there. He is missing from me.

Are they still memories if they’re engraved in my heart, etched on my mind and tattooed on my skin? I like to believe they’re a part of me, my body, an extension to my entity, and as long as I shall live so shall they. So many people argue that he wasn’t my father. They’re right. Because to me, he is God. He is the giver, the provider, creator, the all-encompassing, the all-knowing, the omnipresent.

Provider, because he gave me everything I have and survive on, from my passion and love for animals to my affinity towards literature, music, art. We would stand inside his aviary, enough to accommodate two human beings, where he kept his birds. He would clean and wash their water bowls with his beautiful, wrinkly, holy hands and then he would pick up a bird in the palm of his hands — sometimes a cockatiel, sometimes a budgie, sometimes a quail — and show me, directing my gaze with his finger, the feather patterns, and beak shapes, explaining how a certain type of bird crushes the seed with which exact part of its beak. All-knowing, because he knew everything, quite literally. Anything and everything.

Driving home from a homeopathic clinic, we would have long conversations about The Battle of Karbala, and pretty much every historic event that ever occurred on the face of this planet. We talked about the possibilities of the existence of mermaids — how perhaps, in the course of evolution, a third of the primate population went towards the water and even into it, and developed webbed limbs and tails. We talked about the Fer-De-Lance, we sat and browsed through pictures of wildlife. We discussed dog breeds and how they evolved. He always told me (before the world went ‘vocal for local’) that nothing can beat the hounds of India — the Rajapalayam, The Chippiparai, The Rampur, and the Mudhol. He always had an eye out for the Saluki (a superior type of sighthound that originated in the Fertile Crescent), and would say to me, “Abey Saluki hai kya kahin pe? Saluki mile kahin toh batana, hum le lenge.”

On his birthday in 2019, I had gifted him a deep grey, white-speckled Cockatiel who he named Sooty. He stayed in Bhai’s room, and the two whistled to each other all day. Bhai would talk to him lovingly, and Sooty would chirp back in adoration. When Bhai got sick, Sooty mysteriously died. I had begun to believe that like Bhai’s previous dogs and other pets, Sooty too had died of loyalty in an attempt to take the impending death upon himself. Bhai always believed that wafadaar jaanwar aane wali museebat ko apne sar le lete hain. While it is unlike me — and everyone else in my family — to respond to the death of an animal, that too a beloved pet, with gladness and optimism, Sooty’s sudden passing had given us some hope. We were counting on life to make Bhai get better and to help us get through this untimely qayamat.

Grandfather — this word always gave me the same serotonin release you get from a warm blanket, a cup of hot chocolate, biting through the layers of a Ferrero Rocher, the morning of the day of Id, seeing my birthday cake for the first time.

And now it’s all gone, all taken away away from me. It is so ironic and at the same time baffling how our worst fears manifest right before our eyes. I didn’t allow myself to watch enough of The Lion King growing up because I was afraid if I looked at it then it would somehow happen. And now I see how everything unfolded just like it did in the movie. Covid attacked us like Uncle Scar. And while all of us got Covid, he somehow took it upon himself and while we lived, he left.

My animals in Delhi found me, picked me up, and saved my life, just like Timon and Pumba did with orphaned Simba in The Lion King. I think I have managed to figure out where this affinity comes from and why it has always been this way — the need to be around animals in order to survive. It was just another gift, another tool, another strength my Grandfather was equipping me with and conditioning me for, so that I may be able to carry on someday in his absence, and so that I have a purpose, a reason to live till the time he and I can finally reunite.

Only mourning him isn’t enough, isn’t fair, isn’t needed. His existence was a celebration of life, a creation of art, and his death was transfiguration. He didn’t just lay there still. He sublimated, became one with what he loved most, nature. He united with a power that was of the same immense magnitude that only he alone in this world was made of. If one should live, one should live like this. Not in the lap of luxury but in the embrace of nature. Not in bursts of passion, but in the steadiness of an unwavering purpose. Not for moments of moping, but for the unfazed ambition of the human spirit.

Lead my longing heart

To the high ground, to the clear view

And in awe I’ll be there

Beholding You…

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> Culture / by Tazmeen Amna Siddiqui / March 04th, 2021

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi Dies a Month After Recovering from Covid-19

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NEW DELHI / Allahabad, UTTAR PRADESH :

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi.

The legendary Urdu critic and Padma Shri awardee has contributed immensely to modern literary discourse

New Delhi :

Legendary Urdu writer and critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi died in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, on Friday. His death came after a month of recovering from Covid-19. Faruqi, 85, was discharged from a hospital in Delhi on November 23.

“He had been insisting to go back to his home in Allahabad. We reached here only this morning and within half an hour he passed away at around 11,” Faruqi’s nephew and writer Mahmood Farooqui told PTI.

He used to live in Delhi after retiring as a chief postmaster-general and member of the Postal Services Board in 1994.

Faruqi was born on 30 September 1935 in Uttar Pradesh.

Author of several books, Faruqi has contributed to modern literary discourse with a profundity rarely seen in contemporary Urdu critics. His books of fiction, The Mirror of Beauty (translated into English from the Urdu Kai Chaand The Sar-e-Aasmaan in 2006), and The Sun That Rose From The Earth (Penguin India, 2014), have been highly critically acclaimed.

He used to edit a literary magazine Shabkhoon which he himself had launched. He is also credited with reviving “Dastangoi”, a 16th century Urdu oral storytelling art form.

Faruqi was the recipient of numerous honours including Padma Shri, Sahitya Akademi award and Saraswati Samman award.

His burial will take place at Ashok Nagar cemetery in Allahabad at 6 pm on Friday.

Writer William Dalrymple took to Twitter to mourn the demise of Faruqi.

“RIP, Janab Shamsur Rahman Faruqi saheb, one of the last great Padshahs of the Urdu literary world. This is such sad news,” Dalrymple said.

Sanjiv Saraf, the founder of the famous Rekhta portal, also condoled the death of “the century’s most iconic figure in the realm of Urdu literature”.

“His demise has left us bereaved as an entire generation of literature lovers mourn this loss. I extend heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones,” Saraf said.

source: http://www.clarionindia.net / Clarion India / Home> India / by Team Clarion / December 25th, 2020