LAHORE: Urdu novelist and travel writer Mustansar Hussain Tarar says he was ashamed of himself to take the seat, which was occupied by Javed Akhtar in the Alhamra Art Centre some days back. He said it made me uncomfortable for what he said from the stage but added that he did not consider him worthy of importance.

“I wish I was there (when Javed Akhtar) gave the statement. I know Javed very well. But this is no place to discuss it. When asked (to comment on Javed Akhtar’s statement), I told the Voice of America I don’t consider him that important to give a reply to him,” Mustansar.

He was referring to a recent controversy that started after a comment made by Akhtar during the Faiz Festival held last week at Alhamra. The session with Mustansar was moderated by Osama Siddique and H.M. Naqvi.

Tarar said every year at the time of announcement of the Nobel Prize for literature, he would read some work of the winner to judge himself.

“Out of 10 laureates, six or seven are out of my reach, one is just like me and I am better than at least two or three. For the Nobel Prize, you need a system and a group and they are just like us where recommendations and references also work.

“It’s off the record. I was nominated for the Nobel Prize but I know I won’t get it. For the Nobel Prize, they also see how much you are against your own society and I can’t do it.”

However, just a bit earlier, Mustansar himself had pointed out that Pakistan society had been radicalised so much that a writer could be lynched for his writing.

The Urdu novelist thinks Pakistani society has been radicalised to the level of madness

“Pakistan was once a golden and beautiful country of the world. There was a time when the government would react to writings and I was banned for one-and-a-half years at the PTV, which was my only profession but the people used to appreciate us. The tables have turned now. The rulers don’t care what you write against them but the society has got so radicalised that it takes on the writer, which is much more dangerous.”

Narrating an incident, Mustansar said his book, Niklay Teri Talash Mein, had sketches of Sadequain, but some years back, the publisher said the sketches could not be published now.

“I told him the sketches had been published for 40 years. He replied that things had changed.”

Expressing more concerns about the situation, Mustansar said, “We have become so much radicalised as a nation that we have gone mad. A creative writer has to maneuver to save himself”. He rejected the concept that suppressed societies produced great literature.

“We have lost respect in the comity of nations whether we like it or not. There are only hollow slogans of Pakistan Zindabad and that it would survive till eternity. It does not happen this way. I don’t want to be assassinated at this age”.

He said everything changes after 50 years, including language as well as religion, adding that it was not the same religion 50 years back. “All of sudden Khuda Hafiz turned into Allah Hafiz”.

“None of my novels is without water. Bahao is the story of drying of Sarasvati River and I wrote it when nobody had heard of climate change. The Ravi has dried and the Indus water is not fit for human consumption.”

It’s writer’s responsibility to predict what’s about to come although the society could lynch him, he declared.

When asked about creating a new language for Bahao, he said he needed to coin the language of the time of characters and Brahvi and Tamil had the maximum number of Dravidian words than any other language.

“I had a PhD thesis from the Barkley University on ancient Tamil poetry and I got some words from it, some others I got from Ali Abbas Jalalpuri besides the Punjabi words, having Dravidian origins.” He said that creative writers created their own grammar.

To the question how he could create women characters so perfectly, he said all great writers who were men had women inside them while the great women writers like Quratulain Hyder and Bano Qudsia had strong men inside them.

To the question why do writers write, Tarar said the people with creative urge whether masons, dancers or fiction writers had a desire to create something like the ultimate Creator and get close to Him.

He said there was no writer in his family and in his formative years he just wanted to roam around and read.

“If I was not a writer, I would have been a reader. I am not a planned writer”.

Remembering how he started writing, he said in 1958, there was a youth festival in the Soviet Union. I was there in England and I became a part of the British delegation to attend the youth festival. When I went back, Majeed Nizami asked me to write about the experience, which was published in Qandeel. In 1968, I had some experiences which I shared in the travelogue, Niklay Teri Talash Mein, and Sang-i-Meel published it. A deluxe edition was published on the 52 years anniversary of the publication of the book.

Mustansar talked about death and the heart disease he went through recently after which a pacemaker was installed in his body.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2023