ELAHI MOHR TEY DOOJIAN KAHANIAN by Afzal Ahsan Randhawa; pp 128; Price Rs200 (pb); Publishers, Suchet Kitab Ghar, 11, Sharaf Mansion, Chowk Ganga Ram, Book Street No. 1, Lahore. E-mail: suchet2001@yahoo.com <mailto:suchet2001@yahoo.com> Afzal Ahsan Randhawa needs no introduction at the stage when he has contributed four novels, four collections of short stories, six collections of poetry, one collection of TV and radio dramas and three translated versions of an African novel, one collection of African poetry and one translation of interviews of world-famed political leaders and heads of state….all in Punjabi plus one collection of Urdu poetry.

Being a rural child, Afzal lived in the jungle of the Punjabi sounds but he was taught through Urdu which has different voices and sounds. The then generation was so much under the influence of Urdu language, literature and culture that almost all of them started their literary career in Urdu poetry or prose writing. He belongs to the same land which produced Faiz Ahmad Faiz…i.e. Narowal district. Faiz was convinced that one should write in his mother tongue and child should be imparted early education in his mother tongue but Faiz had written some pieces in Punjabi much late in the evening of his life. Randhawa was the editor of the magazine of the Mission High School of Narowal which was obviously in Urdu and perhaps English.

While in the Law College, he was also the editor of college magazine Al-Meezan all that indicate that he like his other contemporaries started writing in Urdu but he very fastly moved to adopt Punjabi as his medium of expression for which he was compensated with Pakistan Writers Guild Award on his novelette, Deeva tey Darya in 1961-62. He again won the same award 20 years after his Punjabi novel Doaba in 1981-82. The book under review is the collection of Randhawa’s five short stories written in last two decades, the latest out of those is Elahi Mohr which is a legend like a sacred asset of the Muslim Randhawa Jats who provided a piece of land to Sikh guru Baba Nanak and his two companions Bhai Bahla and Bhai Mardana who, according to the narrator came to this place, witnessed the honesty of two Randhawa cultivator brothers. Both of them were so much impressed by Baba Nanak that they offered him to settle on the west bank of the river Ravi…Nanak actually belonged to Rai Bhoi (now Nankana Sahib) situated on west bank of the same river.

The narrator of the story, obviously Randhawa, admits that the story was a secret and sacred asset of the community which he now is handing over to the public and that perhaps under the influence of a young novelist, Nadeem Aslam, who in his novel The Wasted Vigil says: “In a place here not many can read or write, each person is fragile repository of a song and ceremonies, tale and history, and if he vanishes without passing it on, it is like the wing of a library burning down.

“…….So Randhawa has passed a legendry story and four other stories, including Deva Singh Vali, Phul Akk da, Bandey Khanian and Rava, are also reflections of that the rural Punjab which is fastly disappearing and which was once fully reflected in stories like Heer Ranjha, Mirza Sahiban, Sohni Manhiwal, Raja Rasalu and Dhol Shams. There are three women who emerged as the typical Punjabi woman who is out to take revenge from the oppressors and then is the story of a young calf, left in jungle was about to become the victim of the beast but saved by a opium-addict cultivator. This happened in 1943 and the cultivator who had also his own novel life narrates the story to the writer in 2003.

Randhawa has followed the advice of Nadeem Aslam before Aslam was born and whatever he heard and witnessed passed it on and saved some of the books from burning.

* * * * * *

HIRAKH by Rai Muhammad Khan Nasir; pp 144; Price Rs200 (hb); Publishers, Sanjh publications, Book Street, 46/2, Mozang Road, Lahore. E-mail: sanjhpk@yahoo.com <mailto:sanjhpk@yahoo.com>

Nasir belongs to that class which is duty-bound to send its children to Aitchison or Chiefs College or Lawrence because that is the proud path to great success. He remained in the same college and was also close to another student Shahnawaz Bhutto by name. Now Nasir can repeat a Persian proverbial verse:

(Majnun and I were in the same school of love but he went to wilderness while I am facing insult in streets and bazaars) Rai Nasir has dedicated this first collection of poetry to “the great culture which we have lost or the people are deliberately losing it”.

What Nasir has lost and what the society is deliberately loosing includes one most respected and spiritual aspect and that he narrates in a poem Waiting.

That is the most important aspect of our existence but unfortunately the confusion prevailed after the sacrifice of Karbala after so many centuries prevail still causes crisis within the crisis. Perhaps Nasir thinks that the crisis started with the fight between the two sons of Adam and that still continues, and he delineates it in the following two lines:

How a man can have two shadows?...he must have eaten up (killed) another main!

Go this may be called the cause of the ills of society or the system based on vested interests and profit-orientation in general terms called capitalism the system which was outrigtly rejected by the founder of this country who never wanted to review their traditions left by Muslim rulers particularly by Aurangzeb, rather he was following the saying of Zebunnisa, daughter of Aurangzeb who while reciting Quran verses changed the word Rabul Aalameen into Rabul Muslameen.

On Aurangzeb’s questioning she had said, Allah was Rabul Aalameen in Quran but you have made Him Rabul Muslameen. (Ref: Bagh-i-Auliae Hind). — STM