Parveen Malik’s “Kassian da Paani” (Mountain Streams) is an unusual book in the sense that it’s an autobiography. We seldom come across autobiographical writings in our part of the world especially by women for reasons obvious and well-known. Even men rarely dare to undertake such projects and when they do, they churn out half-truths and self-serving claims born of an exaggerated sense of self-importance. They reveal little.

Historical context of such a cultural situation is still not fully analysed. It can be asserted that as a civilisation grows old, it starts suffering more and more from the malaise of taboos and hypocrisy in the name of cultural refinement and social mannerism. Society instead of tackling the ills that debilitate it, tries to sweep under the carpet what is considered unsavoury. The cure is wrongly sought in hiding rather than in exposing. Parveen Malik’s autobiography published by Sarang Publications, Lahore, is a significant literary event that can encourage autobiographical writings which slither in the dark of manipulated hibernation. Ms Malik is a well-known fiction writer, translator, literary editor and media person who have a number of diverse publications to her credit. She is one of the leading cultural activists and currently serves as secretary of Pakistan Punjabi Adbi Board, a leading literary body dedicated to promoting Punjab’s language and culture.

Her family is from the north Punjab; her father from Swaan area and the mother from Pindi Gheb. The family spent quite some time in Chhachh region. One sees her as a child in the hauntingly beautiful hilly north which can boast of having one of the earliest human settlements in the Pothohar, Dhann and Swaan valley. Her life as penned down is a fascinating trajectory showing us noticeable milestones of her life. From sedate and sleepy villages to the happening metropolis of the Punjab is a remarkable journey that helped her become a serious writer transcending the confines of a housewife’s life which invariably proves to be the destiny of overwhelming majority of girls in our patriarchal society with defined gender roles. Ms Malik is not, as one would normally expect, a self-proclaimed feminist but surely she looks at the world with a woman’s eye and experiences it with the female antennas. She, shunning sloganeering, depicts the reality of individual and social life without using the worn out tools of ideology and anachronistic artistic conventions. She is generally neither pretentious nor ideologically abrasive which in no way means she has no worldview. Her literary and social vision inspired by personal experiences has a humanistic perspective. Her rural background has indelibly imprinted on her mind a strong sense of cultural identity and her life in metropolis exposed her to urbanity born of contemporary liberal and secular values, the mainstay of the modern world. Parveen Malik’s socio-cultural milieu enabled her to employ an idiom of language that communicates all across Punjab. She uses standard dialect in her narrative punctuated by dialogues in Chhachhi, Ghebi and Pothohari creating magical effect with its vigorous freshness. It’s a must read if you are in any way interested in knowing the Punjab’s culture and its unflappable and resilient women.

Jamil Pal, a literary editor and indefatigable language rights campaigner, deserves credit because it was he, Ms Malik tells us, who nudged her to write her autobiography and serialised it in his literary magazine.

Anjum Qureshi is among the new lot of women who have in the recent years mounted our literary stage. She, with her distinct expression, has added to the richness of our poetic landscapes which are usually dominated by joyless male voices. “Main te Amalltaas” is her second book of verses published by Sanjh Publications, Lahore. Her first book had created quite a stir with its bold expression and defiant optics. The worst thing that happens to a woman is sexual repression and exploitation when she is reduced to a sexual commodity, a fetish. If and when she raises her voice, things start to “fall apart” simply because things have been arranged to the perpetual advantage of male. Demystifying eroticism from female perspective is the threat male world is not prepared to tolerate. What male world expects from a woman is weepy sentimentalism, saccharine smiles and telltale smell of sensual secrets the female body supposedly hints at. But the moment the opposite happens, the entire social and moral edifice seems to be in a process of crumbling. This is what can make women writers dreaded though for all the wrong reasons. Ms Anjum is no longer as dreaded as she appeared in her first book. Nurture seems to have played a role as strong as nature in her case. With the passage of time and richness of experience, her tone has acquired a poise that signifies a measure of artistic maturity. Her expression is still bold but there seems little effort to create shock and awe as her poems are marked by spontaneity and simplicity of natural speech. At times reading her poetry one’s imagination is titillated by the ambiance the love-songs create.

Ms Anjum as a poet is more concerned with the concrete sensual and erotic experiences than with abstract ideas. And subject is woman. Irresistible desire to be oneself is the dominant theme that runs throughout her lyrical verses. Since she composes poetry in metre, she should pay a little more attention to the nuances of prosody (Chhand). Let’s savour some of her verses. “Am I guilty if I explore my being with no stratagem employed? / am I guilty if the burning fire to know the reality intoxicates me? / am I guilty if I am not scared and do what drives me? / am I guilty if I don’t take everything to heart and pain can’t entrap me for long? / am I guilty if I don’t say yes, oh yes and am never tired of looking at myself in the mirror…”. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2016