LAHORE: Great stories occur to those who can tell them. Ali Akbar Natiq is one such writer who while working now as a mason and now as a milk collector in Pakistan and the Gulf, discovered the writer in himself.

Ali Madeeh Hashmi translated his short stories into English, published them in a series and now the young writer from Okara is a celebrity in India, Pakistan and other parts of the world.

The audience sat in rapt attention at an LLF session on Saturday to listen to Natiq’s journey from being a ‘nobody’ to a famous writer.

His career as a writer began when he ran into Iftikhar Arif in his Academy of Letters office. Arif offered him a job and he accepted it. In the company of books and writers, he began writing and soon his stories were published by Musharraf Farooqui and Asif Farukhi.

“First thing first: a writer is very sensitive and acute observer,” he said explaining his inspiration and subject of his stories.

“Stories keep coming to me when I meet people or travel on a public bus,” he said. Two men talking of their family matters on a bus gave him a complete story. With mostly rural subjects, he said, he highlighted the ugliness of the life only to raise awareness of issues among the public.

Is being a writer financially viable?

“Of course, writers are paid well, but the unfortunate thing is not all writers are paid,” he said. He said popular mediums such as television had commercialised tasawwuf or sufi literature. Publishers also demanded such saleable stuff, which damaged the quality of literature and public taste.

As Ali Madeeh Hashmi, who was moderating the session, narrated his difficulties while translating the Urdu expressions into English, Natiq also shared his troubles when a specific situation had no word in Urdu and he had to borrow words from Punjabi.

An appropriate word for an appropriate situation was a per-requisite for mature writing, he said, as every word was a living object; every word had a complete form, colour and meaning.

Earlier in the day, a large number of fans listened to Zulfikar Ghose at a session titled ‘The Cosmic Dance and Other Poems’.

In one of his poems, recited at the session, Ghose, draws the image of Karachi titled ‘Image in Karachi’.

“On a mosque, just below the minaret:

silhouetted against the declining sun/perched on a loudspeaker that broadcast/a call to prayer, absorbed in looking down/ at what it could consume next: a vulture”.

His poem ‘DIANA’ drew applause from the audience:

“Come join the club, the Nuclear Club,

You’ll be an exclusive member.

If there’s something you want to forget,

We’ll teach you how not to remember”.

The recitation by Ghose’ was followed by a discussion between Shadab Zeest Hashmi with Amra Raza on English ghazal.

Hashmi, who is amongst the pioneers of English ghazal, said the Urdu ghazal was unique because of its melody, rhyme and refrain.

She said American ghazal often lacked several marks despite following the template. He said as Urdu Ghazals had no titles and it was difficult for American poets and readers to accept a poem without title. The subject of beloved, a must part of every Urdu ghazal, also needed to be explained to American poets as well. In Urdu ghazl, she said a beloved could be God, a sweetheart, a friend and even a foe but American poetry lacked such broadness.

At the session, she shared her two ghazals. Here are two last lines of her ghazal:

Remember the broken sky, the terrible storm, animals tumbling in the ark? It was a man of faith who carried them to the other side.

If ever there was a wish, it was this: Zeest, may you belong to the one who knows to cherish you, this side of life and the other side.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2015

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