KARACHI: The 13th International Urdu Conference began at the Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi on Thursday in an unprecedented hybrid form because of the guidelines provided by the government to stay safe from the hazardous effects of Covid-19.

All three keynote speeches were relayed to the live audience sitting in the council’s main auditorium and at home via video link. The first speech was delivered by eminent critic Dr Gopichand Narang from India. He said the Hindi word sahitya used for literature is a compound word that means society and its progress. This suggests that literature is deeply connected with society. The critic quoted the opening verse from a poem by Iqbal Ashar:

Urdu hai mera naam main Khusrau ki paheli
Main Mir ki hamraz hun Ghalib ki saheli
[Urdu is my name and I’m a riddle coined by Khusrau I’m the secret-keeper of Mir and Ghalib’s friend]

Picking the element of riddle from the poem, Dr Narang said to him Urdu is an enigma. He told attendees that he was born in Balochistan in 1930 and his mother tongue is Seraiki. He lamented that in India efforts had been made in the last few decades to suppress the Urdu language [but in vain]. There are 300 languages spoken in the region and yet from the north to Deccan and from Bangalore to Mysore, Urdu is spoken. In Bollywood and TV serials, 90 per cent of the language [used] is Urdu. The website Rekhta [which contains works of Urdu literature and language] has 30 to 35 crore subscribers. Therefore Urdu is a bit of an enigma to him.

Prof Shamim Hanfi, who also spoke from India through the internet, said a disease [coronavirus] has affected the entire world. Literature, culture and art do not age. It would be unfair to confine the past into a box because it would limit the scope of creative output. Division of literary pursuits is barbaric. Creative people cannot reach the bigger truth if they ignore the times (zamana) that they live in. [However] literature as of now needs to be made comprehensible (qabil-i-fahm) for the reader. Every idea and form of expression has its [suitable] time. And when he reads the works of Afzal Syed, Azra Abbas, Yasmeen Hameed and Zakia Mash’hadi, he feels that their time has come.

Thirteenth Urdu Conference gets under way in city in hybrid form

‘What is the importance of literature?’

Poet Yasmeen Hameed, who was also online from Lahore, in her speech said that she wrote the paper she’s going to read keeping the common reader in mind. Every literary age is recognised by its main literary trend. It doesn’t have a fixed time period. From 1920 to 2020, it’s not a single era. It can be divided into a few periods but not with clear outlines. Certain issues are discussed in every age. The common man often asks the question, ‘what is the importance of literature in society?’

Ms Hameed said to seek the answer to the query she came up with a questionnaire with a set of questions and sent it out randomly to three persons that she had no idea whether they read literature. The first question was: what is literature? The answers that she got included ‘literature reflects life’ and ‘helps in understanding our feelings and relationships’ etc. The second question: what do you expect from literature? The answers included ‘it should play an important role in the progress of society’ and ‘it’s important to create literature for children’ etc. The third question: does our literature influence society? The answers included ‘the kind of literature being created today is responsible for the decline of society’ and ‘it’s not influencing positively’ etc.

Ms Hameed pointed out in none of the answers the element of ‘entertainment’ (tafreeh) was mentioned. It has only to do with islah. The idea took her back to an essay written by the late critic M.H. Askari in which he had highlighted literature’s responsibility or duty. Interestingly, the answers to her questions in terms of expectations from a writer and poet did not differ from those ideas mentioned by the late critic. She argued that of all the things underlined, she feels individual’s freedom (shakshi azadi) is the most important. The modern man is more inclined towards individual’s thoughts (infiradi fikr) and not the collective ones. “It doesn’t mean denying an ideology rather it means its affluence (buhtaat).” A plethora of ideas are easy to understand on a collective level but not at the level of the individual, she added.

Provincial Minister for Culture Syed Sardar Ali Shah, who was the chief guest, said he has always participated in the moot as a writer and not as a minister. The conference ‘connects’ people. He also talked about the importance of giving regional languages the status of national languages.

Distinguished poet Zehra Nigah presided over the ceremony. She said the pandemic is a lethal one and we should pray to God that we remain safe. She recited a couple of her short poems that Ms Nigah said she penned during these trying times. One of them was:

Motor dhoney wali Rani
Gajrey baichney wala Raja
Mangney wala Raj Kumar
Apney ghar mein teenon khali baithey hain
Shehr mein aik waba kiya phooti
In ki qismat phoot gai hai
In ki hukumat toot gai hai

[The car-cleaning Rani
The gajrey selling Raja
And the mendicant Raj Kumar
All three are home, sitting empty-handed
The city is in the grip of a pandemic
And their luck is ruined
Their government is no more]

Earlier, the president of the Arts Council Ahmed Shah delivered the welcome address. He among other things talked about the library that’s being worked on at the council and will be named after Josh Malihabadi.

Dr Huma Mir conducted the opening ceremony.

One of the subsequent sessions on the programme list after the opening session was a tribute to writer and critic Dr Asif Farrukhi who died on June 1 this year.

Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2020