Ghalib & Maulana Azad debate

QUITE an interesting debate is going on in India these days whether Maulana Azad was the reincarnation of Ghalib or not. Actually it is Maulana Azad’s desire to equate himself with Ghalib - expressed in so many ways - which has been made the basis for this intriguing kite-flying.

Atiq Siddiqui’s book Ghalib Aur Abul Kalam, published in 1969, Ghalib centenary year - had gone a long way in establishing Maulana Abul Kalam Azad as the first serious writer who paved the way for the revival of Ghalib in the 20th century. Maulana Azad’s trend-setting weekly, Al-Hilal, was the first journal to bring Ghalib out of the cold storage of our general apathy towards the great men of our literature. Maulana Azad thought it proper to bring to light the unpublished verses of Mirza Ghalib in Al-Hilal in three instalments in 1914 and took the Urdu world by storm.

Up till then only the Persian Kulliyats of Ghalib had incorporated new additions to Ghalib’s Persian poetry but the Urdu Diwan - the one which is called Diwan-i-Ghalib today - different from Nuskha-i-Hamidya and Nuskha-i-Arshi - which contain quite a bulk of Ghalib’s rejected verses - came under the axe of its editors - Mufti Sadruddin Azurda, Maulana Fazl-i-Haq Khairabadi and Imam Bakhsh Sehbai. Ghalib did not want to discuss the rejected verses and thought them to be unworthy of any discussion though it is quite another story that some of these ‘rejected verses’ contain such couplets as: Hai kahan tamanna ka doosra qadam ya rab,/Ham ne dasht-i-imkan ko ek naqhsh-i-pa paya. Gham-i-firaq mein takleef-i-sair-i-gul mat do,/ Mujhe dimagh nahin khanda hai bay ja ka.

Not only the above couplets but there are so many more outstanding couplets of Ghalib - as furnished by Dr Farman Fatehpuri in his latest book, Taabirat-i-Ghalib, published by Ghalib Academy, Karachi. Dr Fatehpuri proves that the three editors of Ghalib’s standard Diwan left out scores of highly imaginative couplets. Dr Farman Fatehpuri has thrown ample light on the contention that Ghalib’s Diwan excluded couplets written in Abdul Qadir Bedil’s style of poetry.

The other publications of Ghalib Academy bring to light many an important aspect of Ghalib’s life to broad daylight. However what has surprised me most is why Maulana Abul Kalam Azad became the first highly important writer and politician to draw the attention of Ghalib’s fans in an editorial of Al-Hilal - dated 17 June 1914, using a language which could be termed ‘fantastic’ if not by hyperbolic. Ghalib’s first introducer was Nawab Ziauddin Khan Nayyar, the second Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the third Nawab Mustafa Khan Shaifta and then Khub Chand Zaka, Azam-ud-Daula Suroor and then Muhammad Husain Azad - though a bit adversarially. Hali scored over each of them in his Yaadgar-i-Ghalib. His hero was flawless.

While Hali is usually brushed aside as a disciple who was not capable of seeing any black spot in Ghalib’s character, Maulana Azad opened his account by admitting that Hali was a partisan and was exuberant in Ghalib’s eulogy. But Maulana Azad used Al-Hilal to present Ghalib as the finest example of Urdu’s poetic imagination. He also wrote notes on Maulana Ghulam Rasool Mahar’s book Ghalib, published in 1936 and he went on writing notes in the margins of the same book up to 1940. They were finally published by Ghulam Rasool Mahar as Naqsh-i-Azad.

What makes me take up Maulana Azad’s fascination with Azad to the extent that whatever he thought, wrote and did was generally ascribed by him as a simple Taqlid or recurrence of Ghalib’s acts. Be it the Azad’s beginning as a poet at the age of 12-13 or his general temperament, he would make us regard as an exact correspondence with Ghalib’s doings. Scores of incidents in Maulana Azad’s life could be cited, which for Maulana Azad, were similar to the incidents which happened to Ghalib. Ghalib appears to be suffering from narcissism; and so does Maulana Azad so much so that Malik Ram thought that Ghalib’s soul had, perhaps, transmigrated into Maulana Azad. Quite an interesting comment! Maulana became so enamoured of Ghalib that the best compliment which could get an affirmative nod from him was “Maulana, you are very much like Ghalib. Your literary taste, your deep thinking, your mighty pride and your sense of propriety lead to one conclusion that you are nothing but Ghalib.” Maulana would only smile and his close companions affirmed that he won’t be very much perturbed by such fantastic leap of imagination.

Maulana Azad has recounted in one of his articles that even when he got a jail term in Delhi he imagined that he should get the same room in which Ghalib was imprisoned. Not only this, Maulana Azad recounts his father, Maulana Khairuddin’s discipleship of Mufti Sadruddin Azurda and Maulana Fazle Haq Khairabadi, both of them were functionaries of the East India Company at one point of time. Mufti Sadruddin became Sadrus Sudoor after 1857 as well. Maulana Azad’s father’s maternal grandfather - Maulvi Munawwaruddin - was a disciple of Shah Abdul Aziz, son of Shah Waliullah, and Maulana Azad does not spare him from criticism, saying that Shah Abdul Aziz had allowed his son-in-law, Maulvi Abdul Hai, to serve as Sadr-i-Adalat in Meerut court disregarding his Fatwa that no Muslim should serve the East India Company. He thinks that Shah Abdul Aziz had issued several contradictory statements and it was really unfortunate that a great scion of Shah Waliullah could be interpreted both ways — for and against the British. This is possibly the very important issue on which Maulana Azad has put his finger.

How strange that Maulana Azad brings out scores of reasons to suggest that Ghalib’s liking for Calcutta (Kolkata), in spite of the general opinion that it was not a good place for health and eastern values. He also supports his contention that Ghalib’s family, particularly the House of Loharu, was pro- British and Ghalib’s association with Azurda and Maulana Fazlul Haq Khairabadi, whose brother Munshi Fazle-Azeem was a Deputy Collector and two of his relatives were serving with the British resident were also close to the British. This was possibly the reason that Ghalib was destined to like Calcutta, a city of western moorings, much more than was the case with the persons of traditional outlook could. Ghalib’s Taqriz of Sir Syed’s edition of Aain-i-Akbari was also due to the same reason that he was mentally not averse to the western society of Calcutta.

With Maualna Azad’s articles in Al-Hilal, Naqsh-i-Azad, Atiq Siddiqui’s book Ghalib Aur Abul Kalam and the new writings on Azad and Ghalib it is becoming clear that even a pro-West or modern poet like Ghalib did not go to the Red Fort after 1857 where the Delhi aristocracy was thronging in to record its loyalty to the East India Company and was thus charged with sedition. He remained in his house, lamenting the fall of the House of Timur.

Had it not occurred to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to go to the Red Fort and impress upon the British officials that Ghalib had no hand in the 1857 ‘mutiny,’ Ghalib could get a death sentence because the charge of sedition was being argued quite forcefully. Maulana Azad has brought this fact on record in Al-Hilal.

Now the Ghalib scholars will have to revise their view that it was Dr Abdur Rahman Bijnori who introduced Ghalib in a big way. Perhaps Dr Bijnori did it in response to the fervour which Maulana Azad’s Al-Hilal writings had created. It is a pity that Maulana Azad’s writings on Ghalib were not given due attention because of the fact that greater attention was paid to his political and religious writings and it was easier to ignore the story of Ghalib’s transmigration into Maulana Azad.

Selection of team for first ODI flawed

PAKISTAN has made an unsteady start in South Africa though, those of us who are old hands, see it as business as usual. Pakistan start with a whimper and end with a bang. I have no doubt that the waywardness shown by the bowlers, with the exception of Wasim Akram, will have been noted by the coach and the batsmen will be stricken with shame at the loose shots they played.

The first one-day international gives much food for thought. What went wrong that Pakistan should have lost by such a hefty margin? Pakistan had South Africa on the rack at 151 for six. But South Africa went on to make 272 and that too for seven wickets. Waqar Younis did the right thing to bring back Wasim Akram in the middle overs but blundered by bowling him out. Saqlain too had bowled his quota of overs and Pakistan had no fall-back.

The key was that the selection of the team was flawed. Pakistan had gone in with five bowlers, a huge gamble. There should have been Shahid Afridi bowling in the middle overs. He may or may not have got Jonty Rhodes or Shaun Pollock out but he would have contained them and not fed them the short pitched deliveries that Razzak, Sami and Waqar himself did in the crucial end-overs.

Rhodes and Pollock just took the game away from Pakistan. And Waqar was helpless to stop the onslaught. He was the grass-hopper who had frittered his savings in the summer months, leaving nothing for the hard winter. It was an extravagant life-style.

A target of 273 was not all that awesome but it needed a planned approach. The opening pair of Taufiq Omar and Salim Elahi seemed too nervous, as itf they were on trial and Pollock was able to bowl, as if the ball was a hand-grenade, and the innings never got started. The rest of the batting lacked conviction with Yousuf Youhana and Inzamam further de-railing the innings by playing ill-timed, expansive shots. The main disappointment was Abdul Razzak who looked out of sorts with both bat and ball. He seemed out of touch and short of match-practice.

But it would be unfair to single out one player. The team, as a whole, looked out of sorts. That it had not adjusted to South African conditions, is an excuse that doesn’t wash. Let me be charitable and say that it was a collective off-day with the notable exception of Wasim Akram who also clouted two sixes, suggesting, perhaps, than he should be batting higher in the order. Wasim himself must realise that he is an all-rounder.

What, however, was good to see was the improvement in the Pakistan fielding and obviously some hard work has been put in by the coach. Pakistan is one down but there are four more ODIs and Shoaib Akhtar will have done his penance and there are Faisal Iqbal and Shahid Afridi and Mohammad Zahid. I don’t believe in chopping and changing a team but with the World Cup coming up, Pakistan must use the ODIs to get the right combination and the team that played at Durban was not the right one.

There is an aspect of modern cricket that should be a matter of concern. And that is sledging which is on the increase. It is now called ‘verbals’, as if, a change of name makes it acceptable. The quality of TV production is so good that one is able to read the lips of the players.

I find it ugly. I remember Ian Botham giving an explicit farewell to Javed Miandad when he was out at Lord’s on Pakistan’s tour of England in 1992. The then TCCB media manager spelt out for us in the press-box what had been said and he was quite cheerful about it.

At a press-conference later that evening, far from apologising, Mickey Stewart who was England’s coach/manager justified it, saying that “it was fiery out there.” I asked whether it was alright for me to use that kind of language in that press-conference and I walked out.

Unfortunately, the television commentators are all ex-Test players and probably sledged themselves. They are unmindful of the fact that many young and budding cricketers are watching the matches and they are influenced by the gestures of their heroes and imitate them.

The gestures made by bowlers when they get a wicket would come in the category of obscene, if made off a cricket field. The match-referee needs to take notice of this breach of good manners. And then there is all that chirping by the wicket-keeper and the fielders.

The Australians used to be the worst offenders but the South Africans are not far behind. Boucher’s voice like a bull-frog with a sore throat, comes booming out and Ntini was jabbering away, in a high-pitched voice. Like a vendor selling hot dogs and peanuts at a baseball match.

I don’t know how it is for the batsman but as a television viewer I find it irritating in the extreme. Cricket, of all games, needs a sense of decorum. And while we are concentrating on crowd control, some thought should be given to the fish market that the playing field has become.

Finally, congratulations to Waqar Younis for his 400 wickets in the one-day game. No small achievement. Well done.