What is humour? For about 2000 years philosophers, scholars, psychologists, writers and critics — from Plato to Rene Descartes to Sigmund Freud to Arthur Koestler — have been trying to find an all-inclusive answer. But Koestler had it right, perhaps, when he said “humour is an elusive thing.”

Humour is often associated with amusement, smiles and laughter. Human beings and apes are the only species that laugh or can laugh. But when and why do we laugh? As E.B. White put it, “humour can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process, and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.” There are myriad theories, seriously dissecting humour to find its origin, nature, causes and effects. Some experts say that humour is the result of a sense of superiority. We laugh at something we consider inferior, ugly or nonsensical. Others believe incongruity makes us laugh and we laugh at something that looks incongruous to us. Another group of scholars says a sense of relief is at the base of laughter. When social restrictions or taboos are lifted, we feel a momentary relief and tend to laugh (this also explains the nature of dirty jokes). Well, maybe. But a more apt answer perhaps came from someone who replied in a lighter vein to the question of what humour is: humour is realising the fact that no matter how high the throne one sits on, one sits on one’s bottom.

Jokes aside, humour is serious business. It is often used as a critique of social and political waywardness, a weapon to discipline the unruly. In Urdu literature, too, humour has been targeting social clumsiness, political ineptness and cultural eccentricities right from the beginning. Be it Deccan’s Urdu poetry ridiculing the invading armies of Aurangzeb Alamgir in the 17th century, or Jafar Zatalli’s Urdu prose and poetry spoofing the successors of Aurangzeb; be it Nazeer Ahmed in his novel Ibn-ul-Waqt amusingly pointing fingers at Western civilisation and the sycophants who flattered the British, or Krishan Chander’s satirical fiction underlining economic injustices, most humorists of Urdu have made readers think while making them laugh.

Part nine of the series exploring Pakistani Urdu writing over the past 70 years

But humour is not a genre, it’s a style. It may permeate through a piece of literature, whether in prose or poetry. The means employed to invoke amusement or laughter are countless, but the funny thing about humour is that everybody has their own sense of it; one can laugh at some thought or situation while others stare in disbelief. Secondly, in Urdu, the word mizah (also pronounced mazah), or humour, is often used with tanz [satire] though these two are distinct styles and Western literatures distinguish humorists from satirists.

The history of humour in Urdu sounds like signposting the social, political and cultural phenomenon with a smile, and more often than not it is a disdainful smile. Urdu’s early humour consisted mostly of jest and mockery and the subtleties did not find their way in until after the 1857 war of freedom when English literature began to exert its influence. It was Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib who lifted Urdu humour to a sublime level. His Urdu poetry often has a tongue-in-cheek style. In his Urdu letters, Ghalib laughs at himself and his own miseries. Oudh Punch, a humour magazine launched by Munshi Sajjad Hussain from Luknow in 1877, gave a fillip to Urdu humour although the standard of its humour at times could swing to either extreme of the scale. Akbar Allahabadi, in his poetry, exquisitely used some symbols to satirise the rising British political and cultural influence. His humour was a rueful recognition that Western ways were undermining local values. In fact, Allahabadi was the first to have ever mentioned a clash of the civilisations, something that reverberated in the works of latter-day prose writers and poets of Urdu.

But it was not until the 1920s and 1930s that Urdu humour came into its own. Writers such as Rasheed Ahmed Siddiqui, Mehfooz Ali Badayuni, Azeem Baig Chughtai, Mirza Farhatullah Baig, Sultan Hyder Josh and Shaukat Thanvi made Urdu humour so popular that even those who had never written humour tried their hand at it, though their artificially induced pieces could not interest readers or critics much, as humour demands an inborn disposition to draw amusement from the incongruous or unpleasant or both. It was Patras Bukhari, a natural and born humorist, who truly conquered the hearts and minds of the readers. His Patras ke Mazameen — one of Urdu’s evergreen books, though a slim volume — is still held in high esteem. Some of its pieces were penned in the late 1920s when Bukhari was a student at Lahore’s Government College.

Some Progressive writers, such as Ibrahim Jalees and Krishan Chander, and their contemporaries, such as Thanvi, Kanhaiya Lal Kapoor, Chiragh Hasan Hasrat, Haji Luq Luq, Abdul Majeed Salik, Fikr Taunsvi and Shafeequr Rahman wrote humour before and after Independence. But with the creation of Pakistan the issues and environ changed noticeably and their writings, too, reflected that.

In the early days after Independence, Majeed Lahori — through his newspaper columns and poetry — smiled at the cultural and political atmosphere at Karachi, the then capital of the nascent nation. The fragile political coalitions, uncertain economic situation and social issues were highlighted in his witty style. Lahori’s poetry and prose were replete with references to the prevalent ills and problems, using symbols such as the Muslim League, muhajir, one-unit, allotment, permit, election, etc. Though some critics feel the standard of Lahori’s humour is not very high, he portrayed the problems of the populace through characters commonly found in our society, such as Ramzani, Seth Tyrejee Tubejee and Maulvi Gulsher Khan. Another humorist of note in the early post-Independence era was Khwaja Moinuddin. His plays reflected the political as well as social issues of the day with a wit that was rare in his contemporary dramatists.

The leading Pakistani humorists who left their mark are Justice M.R. Kayani, Shafeequr Rahman, Colonel Muhammad Khan, Muhammad Khalid Akhtar and, of course, the inimitable Ibn-i-Insha and the living legend Mushtaq Ahmad Yousufi. Muhammad Khan appeared on the literary scene with a bang in 1966 when his first book Bajang Aamad was published. Surprisingly mature for a debutant, the book established him as a literary celebrity almost overnight. Khalid Akhtar, with his apparently subdued humour, reminds one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s descriptive style. Aside from Khoya Huwa Ufaq (1968), an award-winning satirical work, Akhtar is remembered for his two novels Bees Sau Gyara (1950), a fantasy inspired by George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Chakiwara Mein Visaal (1965), a melancholy satire describing Karachi’s slum of Chakiwara, situated in Lyari, with its unusual characters. Aside from Ibn-i-Insha’s newspaper columns and his travelogues, peppered with wit, his Urdu ki Aakhri Kitab (1971) was a hilarious parody of our stereotyped textbooks.

Though Yousufi’s latest book Sham-i-Shair-i-Yaran (2014) disappointed many of his fans, he is undoubtedly one of the greatest humorists of Urdu and it is unlikely that in the near future someone would be able to surpass the standard set by him. His Chiraagh Talay (1961) established him as a humorist who knew how to use repartee and pun. His other works, Khakam Badahan (1970), Zarguzasht (1976) and Aab-i-Gum (1990) only reaffirmed his status as a great wit and a master prose writer of Urdu. What makes Yousufi remarkable is not only his wordplay and repartee, but his refraining from traditional ways of invoking mirth, such as situational comedy or slapstick. His one-liners are often quoted in Urdu’s literary works. Yousufi’s humour is more of a reflective kind; comments that often sound paradoxical, but are, in fact, epigrammatic.

Other humorists who merit a mention include Zamir Jafri, Amjad Hussain, Ata-ul-Haq Qasmi, Mushfiq Khwaja, Nasrullah Khan, A. Hameed, Mashkoor Hussain Yaad, Siddiq Salik, Mukhtar Zaman, Irshad Ahmed Khan, Salma Yasmeen Najmi, Qamar Ali Abbasi, Ashfaq Hussain, Dr Muhammad Mohsin, S.M. Moin Qureshi, Zakir Ali Khan, Azher Hasan Siddiqi, Tahir Masood, Muhammad Hamza Farooqi, Anjum Ansar, Tanveer Kazmi, Rifat Humayun, Anwer Ahmed Alvi, Musarrat Laghari, S.M. Shahid, Aitbar Sajid, Gul-i-Naukhez Akhter, Waheed-ur-Rahman Khan, Ashfaq Ahmed Virk, Hussain Ahmed Sherazi and many more.

Some writers who have a witty soul but do not regularly write humour include Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Razia Fasih Ahmad, Amjad Islam Amjad and Zafar Iqbal (poet and columnist). Younis Butt is a humorist with great potential, but copying Mushtaq Ahmad Yousufi (some of his sentences must be put into inverted commas as they are taken from Yousufi almost verbatim) tarnished his image. Secondly, writing on a commercial basis and churning out books as fast-moving consumer goods is never helpful for the writer or the literature, but Butt has “produced” some 30 books in as many years. Lastly, wordplay and puns are indeed attractive, but they are just like fireworks that shine brightly in the darkness — once they go out the sense of darkness deepens. But Butt thinks it is the only means of creating humour.

In recent times, the standard of humour seems to have suffered from a tangible lapse because of commercialism, obscenity and offensive humour. Humour mushairas and TV comedy shows have also contributed a lot to the falling standards of humour.

The writer is a former chief editor of the Urdu Dictionary Board and now teaches Urdu at the University of Karachi

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, June 25th, 2017