DAWN - Features; August 28, 2007
Why did Aini Aapa leave Pakistan?
Born in 1927 in Aligarh to a family that was highly educated even by today’s standards, Qurrat-ul-Ain Hyder was the daughter of Sajjad Hyder Yildirim and Nazr Sajjad, prominent names in early Urdu fiction. She shot to imminence when, at the age of nineteen, she published her first book Siataaron Se Aage, a collection of short stories. She went on to write many more and with every new book rode the crest of an ever higher wave of fame. But the ripples made by Aag Ka Darya, the novel considered to be her greatest work, never really ceased to hit the shores. Written and completed in Karachi in 1957and published two years later, even today Aag Ka Darya invokes long debates as to whether or not it is Urdu’s greatest novel and as it is, why a close second is nowhere in sight.
Equipped with modern education and hugely extensive reading, Aini Aapa created a masterpiece that gives a panoramic view of Indian history and civilisation from the time of Buddha to Independence. The reader feels that time is the ultimate winner, creating and nurturing great revolutions and ultimately killing them. Any change, any chaos – no matter how great – is soon forgotten and the world moves on.
The stream of consciousness technique, first used in Urdu probably by the progressive writers, was developed into perfection by her. Critics draw similarities between her and Virginia Woolfe.
With a firm grip on language, a perfect eye for details and a vivid imagination, she creates an atmosphere that makes readers feel as though they are eye-witnesses to unfolding events. Her art lies essentially in capturing, immortalising and sharing with readers the experiences, atmospheres and feelings she went through. This gave rise to the belief that an aura of nostalgia engulfs the entire body of her works but then, this is what her craft is all about: recording memories from time immemorial.
Since much has been written about Aini Aapa since her demise and writings paying her tribute will keep pouring in for quite some time, the purpose of this column, apart from paying homage, is to evaluate the oft-asked but hitherto unanswered question: Why did she leave Pakistan?
She migrated to Pakistan after Independence and did creative work here. Though she did not live here as an aristocratic, as she had once done, she carved out a niche for herself in a nascent country and earned respect and repute in the higher echelons of power.
Her relatives in India were amazed to see photographs of her in the newspapers with the then president of Pakistan, General Ayub Khan, welcoming him in January 1959 when he came to inaugurate the founding session of the Pakistan Writers’ Guild in Karachi.
Despite all this, in 1961 she, along with her mother, went to London and from there to India, accepting Indian citizenship and settling there. Why?Well, there has always been great speculation about her decision to leave Pakistan and settle in India for good.
There are several theories but perhaps no one knows for sure what made her change her mind.
Rumour has it that she was sick and tired of the attention she was receiving from male colleagues: many had proposed her, including those who became big names in Pakistan and some of whom are still alive today (naming them is a dangerous game and, therefore, should be postponed for a further few years). But an educated and brave person such as her would have been able to handle such Romeos, and this does not seem to be a good enough reason.
Another theory is that she left Pakistan because of the mala fide campaign launched against her after the publication of Aag ka Darya. Her opponents claimed that she was anti-Pakistan, a Hindu, a Buddhist, pro-Israel and what not. Apart from other factors, this campaign may well have been a result of professional jealousy since as a writer, Aini Aapa was envied by many.
Last-minute editing in Aag Ka Darya by the author herself left many gaps in the calligraphic script of the book and it was printed with those large gaps and blanks in the pages which, as described by Aini Aapa in her autobiographical novel Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai, gave rise to the myth that it was censured by the martial law authorities — which it was not.
In India, there was a very common misconception that the book was banned in Pakistan. Another rumour rife in India was that the author was persecuted in Pakistan (which she was not) and her life was made so miserable that the poor soul had to flee to India. But Aini Aapa dismissed all these rumours and misconceptions by calling them “nonsense” in Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai (volume 2, page 311).
Now remains the last and only viable reason: a huge amount of money, several hundred thousand rupees – a fortune in those days, I must say – was waiting in India for her and her mother. The money was a kind of inheritance from her father Syed Sajjad Hyder Yildirim’s insurance and shares of companies listed in the stock exchange. After reaching London, she contacted higher-ups in India. With a nationalistic person like Nehru at the helm of affairs, she was told that the only way she could get that money was to migrate to India and adopt Indian nationality.
In Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai, Aini Aapa has mentioned that once Ab-ul-Kalam Azad offered that she could come back and settle whenever she felt like it. She took the plunge but a bit later, after Azad had died.
Well, whatever the reason may be, it was a great loss to Pakistan. But writers are citizens of every country, a communal treasure of the world, shared by everyone. So Aini Aapa belongs as much to Pakistan as to any other country.
—drraufparekh@yahoo.com