Cha Balochi-o-Hey Dgy Zubanan Dàr Chētàgeen Dèhi-i-Kessa
Selected Folktales and Folklore from Balochi and Other Languages
Compiled by Ghulam Farooq Baloch
The Centre for Research and Literature (Turbat)
ISBN: 978-969-23713-2-2
264pp.

In the days of yore, in traditional Baloch folk culture, storytelling was one of the key sources of entertainment. It would not be uncommon to find Baloch people gathered around kerosene lamps sharing their stories, ballads and legends.

Ghulam Farooq Baloch, an eloquent translator and essayist, has now compiled old fables and stories into book form. His collection is a mix of not just Baloch folklore but also other popular tales from different cultures. As far as the Baloch stories are concerned, they are still being told orally, which the author has recorded in prose. These are stories intricately woven into the warp and weft of Baloch culture. Baloch folk literature reflects intense moral, psychological and spiritual lessons.

The book, broken into four parts, also includes some insightful essays by the author, featuring the historic importance of folklore. In his essays, the author also writes about the acclaimed British writer Mansel Longworth Dames (1850-1922) and his remarkable literary contributions to the Baloch literary landscape. Longworth Dames was an Irish-Indian civil service officer, who served as deputy commissioner in districts bordering the then British Balochistan. His interests towards Baloch folk literature goaded him on to becoming an important compiler and translator of many Baloch stories into English.

‘Samri-i-Duzzag’ [The Abduction of Samri], which he translated from Balochi into English, was published in a British monthly magazine in 1893. Longworth Dames also authored great literary masterpieces. His books include Popular Poetry of the Baloches, which was published in 1907 and was about epic stories and ballads, and A Text Book of the Balochi Language, which was published in 1922 and garnered great accolades among the Baloch literary sphere.

These tales, translated into English by Longworth Dames have characters candidly reflecting emotion, longing, love and moral teachings.

A collection of orally transmitted Baloch folktales, fables and riddles, essays about folklore, and stories from around the world provides sheer variety of reading in one compilation

Ghulam Farooq has also briefly mentioned another book, the Balochi Language of Turkmenistan: A Corpus-based Grammatical Description, written by Serge Axenov and published in 2006. Axenov has also compiled popular Baloch stories, which were originally orally transferred among the Baloch population living in Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Iran and some other Central Asian countries.

Ghulam Farooq’s own collection contains 17 mostly Balochi folktales in the first part of this book. The tale ‘Balli-o-Pesho-i-Kessa’ [Grandmother and Her Cat with a Half-cut Tail] is an endearing Balochi bedtime story for children. ‘Chaath-i-Fugul’ [The Frog of the Well] is a widely shared traditional Baloch oral folktale. The story explains that the frog in the well is always content with its limited surroundings as it is ignorant of the outer world. This precisely depicts people who close themselves off to innovative ideas and inevitably lag behind in the world of learning.

The other Balochi story in this collection, ‘Korchath-i-Jin’ [Ghost in a Dried Well], warns of domestic disputes and nuisances when clumped together in a house or specific area. Such unnecessary quarrels or violent behaviours cause inconvenience not only to humans in the surroundings but also annoy and become intolerable to the ghosts and spirits living in that particular place.

In the second part of the book, the author has put together a magnificent collection of Balochi riddles, based on Balochi proverbs. ‘Waptagèen Mard-i-Meesh Nar Karith’ [The Sleeping Man’s Sheep Gives Birth to a Lamb] points out that when there is no escape from hard work, one should painstakingly work twice as hard rather than sit indolently.

Another riddle, as described by Ghulam Farooq in his book, is ‘Peerina Chadir-i-Lamba Bandh’ [Enfold Old Men in a Shawl], which carries a moral meaning about an aged and old man always proving helpful with his wise advice in times of turbulence and hardship.

In the third part of the book, the author has selected tales of wisdom from Khalil Gibran and Sheikh Saadi, which he has meticulously translated and compiled. Khalil Gibran’s popular tales that the author has preferred to compile in his book include ‘Said A Blade of Grass’, ‘The Wise King’, ‘The Two Learned Men’ and many others.

From Sheikh Saadi’s tales, the author’s selection deserves utmost admiration. Saadi’s story ‘The Man Without Legs’, offers a moral story to be happy with whatever you have, as it’s certainly better to be without shoes than legs. The story of ‘Hatim Tai’ which the author has precisely translated into Balochi, depicts Hatim as a moral hero. Without superhuman strength, the protagonist presents himself to his fellow humans and other creatures of God for help. Another of Saadi’s stories, ‘Value of A Dress’, shows that mere attire makes no difference unless you also possess good character.

In the fourth part of the book, the author has picked 25 stories from different languages and cultures of world literature. In Arabic tales, a popular character such as ‘Joha’ is known for his hilarious or strange ways. This Arabic character is also relevant to many other characters in Baloch folktales.

Baloch folk literature is rarely accessed by anyone who doesn’t know the language. Fiction prose-writing culture and the prose genre in general in the Baloch literary sphere is still comparatively novel. Although Baloch oral literature comprises folklore, ballads, legends etc, Ghulam Farooq writes that, with the passage of time, most of these orally transferred Baloch legends are vanishing. They certainly needed to be written in order to preserve them for future generations.

Another Baloch intellectual and former bureaucrat, Jan Muhammad Dashti, has also compiled and edited 112 famous Balochi fables and stories in his book Badsh-Huda-Wandh-Wath-En translated as ‘God Is the Sovereign King Himself’, which was published by Balochi Academy, Quetta in 2015.

At a time when millions gather before the pulpits of Instagram, Facebook and Youtube, stories are still things that we need most in this hectic world. We yearn for remarkable stories that bring us respite from the drudgery of our lives. It is quite usual in the rural areas of Balochistan, even today, for Baloch mothers to put their children to sleep by telling them stories. The sheer variety of stories in this compilation by Ghulam Farooq Baloch give this book its unique quality.

The reviewer is a writer, researcher and literary critic. He can be reached at masoodhameed916@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, August 11th, 2024