It was in the 1990s that veteran social worker Sadiqa Salahuddin started working in the villages outside Khairpur Mirs in Sindh. She found a young, enterprising girl dedicated to serving her community in the areas of education, women’s entrepreneurship and health.

The girl belonged to a small town called Kumb. After working in that area for some time, Salahuddin convinced the girl’s mother to allow her daughter to attend a training programme for community workers outside Pakistan.

This girl had never been outside Khairpur, let alone travel abroad. She went first to Karachi and spent some time there. Later, she travelled to Thailand with a group of other women to attend that somewhat advanced training programme. Upon her return, she was asked by Salahuddin that, after having been to Karachi and then visiting some places in Thailand, which place did she like the most. The girl replied: “Madam, all places are fine, but there is no match for Kumb.”

Likewise, I am told by my friends that when poet Ahmad Rahi was breathing his last in Lahore, there was a nurse standing by his bedside. Rahi was muttering something. After he passed away, people asked the nurse about Rahi’s last words. She said: “Baba kehnda si, ‘Mainoo Ambarsar laey chal’ [The old man was saying, ‘Take me to Amritsar’].” In Rahi’s case, the suffering brought upon people as a consequence of Partition was also at play.

There are many who espouse a deep sense of belonging and remain passionate about the cities, towns or villages in which they were either born or have lived for long. But there are only a few who translate that love into a solid commitment to contributing to the physical or intellectual wellbeing of their city and its inhabitants. If they choose to write, they make a wider contribution and reach out to people everywhere.

Mudassir Bashir is among those few. He has enriched Punjabi and Urdu readers with his passion for chronicling and documenting the history, people and places of old and new Lahore — the city for which his heart beats. His other passion is the promotion of Punjabi language and literature.

In a country such as ours, it is even more important that people’s histories are recorded and published

Bashir is a prolific writer. He has written long and short fiction, travelogues, poetry and a series of books on Lahore’s history and culture. He has compiled folk tales and collections of poetry by Maulvi Sirajuddin and Qazi Allahdin Kashish. Some of Bashir’s work in Punjabi’s Persian script has been transliterated into the Gurmukhi script and his fiction has been translated into Urdu and Hindi. A couple of his books on certain aspects of Lahore’s history were also originally written in Urdu.

Once, I asked him: “Mudassir, you are not that old. You write and publish at a very fast pace. Don’t you think it is a good idea to stagger the publication of your works?” He looked into my eyes and said: “Well, we don’t know how much time we all have. I wish to do as much as I can for my city and my language.”

Later, I thought how silly I was to pose that question. Bashir — who is quiet and composed, kind and soft in his demeanour — has a fire burning inside. He wants to put things on record and write as much as humanly possible. His primary commitment is to his city and his language.

In a country such as ours, where it becomes even more important that people’s histories are recorded and published, Bashir has done exactly that with his latest book of 15 interviews, Dharti Te Heeray Laal Jarrti [The Earth Begets Diamonds and Rubies] — an expression taken from the holy book of Sikhism, the Guru Granth Sahib.

In his preface to the book, after quoting from the verses of Shah Hussain, Bashir argues why it is important to interview and write about common people, their lives, struggles, hopes, dreams, misery and happiness.

One reason is that it is conquerors who write the history of the vanquished; the second is that it is the rulers and the powerful whose history is both written and taught.

Ranging from poets, to teachers, to ordinary workers, to cultural icons such as Colonel Nadir Ali, the 15 interviews bring forth not only the lives, but also the ideas, of these women and men.

Bashir writes an introduction to each interview, explains the significance of the person being interviewed and also shares the time, venue and those who accompanied him. He has generously thanked his friends and acquaintances who helped him in the process.

All the interviews are in chaste Punjabi, except for that of Amma Hafeezaan, which is mostly in a particular dialect of Urdu. Hafeezaan is an old woman whose working class family migrated from Agra to Lahore in 1947.

In these interviews — of Master Altaf Hussain, Abdur Rehman Diwana, Abdul Raheem Bhola, Mohammed Din Numberdar, Shahid Shaidai and more — there is a constellation of interesting characters who speak on different aspects of life, on politics, art, culture and habitat.

Bashir begins by asking them about their family histories and then carries on flawlessly to make them unwind their life stories and thoughts. Together, these interviews chronicle the events and happenings in the lives of people over the last 75 years in Lahore in particular, and Punjab in general.

There is also a reflection on how life has transformed over these years and how the dreams of those who wished for Pakistan to be a prosperous and pro-people country were continuously shattered. At the same time, there is an innate desire among many to see a society where art, literature, music and culture occupy the place they deserve, to combat growing extremism and intolerance.

However, Bashir does not give in to the temptation of putting his own words in anyone’s mouth. It comes out clearly that he has been honest in his treatment of the text. Dharti Te Heeray Laal Jarrti captures people’s history in a compelling way.

The columnist is a poet and essayist. He has recently edited Pakistan Here and Now: Insights into Society, Culture, Identity and Diaspora. His latest collection of verse is Hairaan Sar-i-Bazaar

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 9th, 2022