FUN TAY FUNKAR by Dr. Syed Akhtar Husain Akhtar; pp 160; Price Rs120 (pb); Publishers Lehran Adabi Board, 7/57, Sodiwal Colony, Multan Road, Lahore.

The other day an article on Syed Akhtar Husain by Salman Saeed was included in one of the recent issues of the monthly Trinjan which reminds one that many of the our pioneers of the Punjabi movement have either remained unsung or their activities were not properly recorded and due tributes were not paid to them.

Akhtar Husain is certainly one of them. But, so far the matter of remembering other colleagues is concerned, he duly remembered their services and the book under review is the first volume of those articles he had written during his very long association with the Punjabi movement. He first started publication of a monthly magazine, Lehran, with the active cooperation and patronage of the late Dr. Faqir Muhammad Faqir, the editor and publisher of the first ever Punjabi magazine brought out after creation of Pakistan. The Lehran was first published some 46 years before and continues its publication quite regularly. It was first published from Rabbani Road, Purani Anarkali from a tuition centre, Punjabi College where Punjabi language and literature was taught to private students of Punjab, Punjabi Alam and Punjabi Fazil while the classes of such examinations in Urdu, Persian and Arabic were regularly held at the Oriental College. That is a permanent feature of Punjab government’s mal-treatment to the language of the province. This is the language about which the Sindh Democratic Forum said (on Jan 29): “There are many dialects of Punjabi language spoken in different areas of Punjab but its language will always be called Punjabi, encompassing all dialects”(Dawn P-4 Col 3 on Jan 30, 2011).

Dr. Akhtar Husain’s articles included in the book are about the persons, their literary contribution and their activities for the promotion of the language. Dr. Faqir, in the author’s view was the greatest source of inspiration for carrying on the publication of the magazine which now is the most senior Punjabi magazine. Next comes Muhammad Asaf Khan, a prominent research scholar whose contribution to the language in the field of research and editing is laudable.

Asaf Khan had edited the texts of the four major Punjabi poets including Baba Farid Ganjshakar, Shah Husain, Bulleh Shah and Khawaja Farid. Another forgotten poet was Jogi of Dera Ghazi Khan and he also first time edited and published the text of the story of Heer-Ranjha by Damodar so far the first ever poet who versified the story in Akbar’s period. Asaf’s notes on the Sikhan di Var by Shah Muhammad were perhaps the first effort to expose the conspiracies of the India-based British and their local corroborators against the Punjab state. Akhtar says, “what I could not do in 35 years through monthly Lehran, Asaf has done all just in 25 years”.

Another very young man who came, saw and was about to conquer but withdrew from the stage… is Ilyas Ghumman. A jat from Wazirabad while a student in Karachi Engineering University saw how the Punjabi was rated in the perspectives of the Pakistani languages and how the Punjabi folks were placed in Pakistani cultural scene. That roused his Punjabiat and while his stay in Karachi, he published Punjabi magazine and after his return to Lahore how he published Punjabi magazines, monthly, weeklies and annual. His publishing house produced the most beautiful books by prominent Punjabi writers. He himself contributed short stories for which the great Punjabi writer Amrita Preetam was all praise and she reproduced these stories in her magazine Nagmani.

He arranged protest march in Lahore against the anti-Punjabi attitudes of the Punjab government and he was also kidnapped by intelligence agencies with the late Sibtul Hasan Zaigham.

Both had to face torture for many days. The others whom Akhtar has paid tribute include Dr. Aslam Rana, Ghulam Mustafa Bismil, Prof. Fakhara Shuja, Baba Najmi, Nazeer Kahut, Hafiz Abdul Hameed Sarshar, the blind teacher and scholar of Punjabi who also authored books, and Dr. Naveed Shahzad. One hopes that Akhtar will collect and compile his remaining articles of the same nature and publish it.

*****

Dr. Mian Zafar Maqbool ki Adabi Khidmat by Syedah Saadia Zia; pp 144 Price Rs200 (pb); publishers, Bazm-i-Maula Shah, 41.A, Chohan Road, Krishan Nagar, Lahore.

Mian Zafar Maqbool is a poet, drama writer, essayist, translator, editor and a spiritual healer and one of those writers who keep their all sorts of records up-to-date. In Punjabi, this was the pride claim of Dr. Shahbaz Malik and his pupil and admirer Mian Zafar is not far behind him. He first published collections of written tributes paid to him by contemporary writers plus his own biographical notes and now this book which is a thesis researched by Saadia Zia for her Masters in Urdu in University of Education in 2009. In her foreword, she claims that the thesis is so exhaustive and well-researched that some friends’ view was that it was quite fit for a Doctorate. This paper got the highest marks, well and good. We can add more marks because now the books has been designed in such a way that we can see the photographs of Mian Sahib from his childhood to retiring age. He was born in 1954 in a learned family of Sufi poets. He has specially edited these books which are the creation of his grandfather and great grandfather. To be brief Zafar has done a lot of literary work and possess a good record of patients treated by him. — STM