Foreword of Aag ka Dariya

Translated by Mohammad Gill


There is such a well-established chain of rumors and fictional spin stories about this novel that any refutation of them is simply beyond me. Recently, Qudrat-ullah-Shahab’s Shahab Namah was published. He writes at one place in it, “One morning Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider came to me soon after the imposition of the Martial Law with a saddened face, anguished eyes and disheveled hair. Aini said instantly, ‘What will happen now? So now, even barking is disallowed, she inquired in a painful voice. Her eyes were suffused with tears and she tried to smile to hide her tears. Then with a cold sigh, she said rather indifferently, oh brother! Who wants to bark everyday; but freedom of barking is indeed a blessing’. I am inclined to believe that the mere thought of censorship gave her a mental shock. It is not surprising that the reaction to this shock may have turned her pen toward Aag ka Dariya”. I have not reproduced the whole excerpt for fear of its length. Shahab was an extremely good person and a gentleman. I cannot accuse him of fabrication but most assuredly, his memory did let him down because whole of this dramatic scenario is indeed fictional. Firstly, I do not heave cold sighs with teary eyes and disheveled hair. Secondly, I had started Aag ka Dariya in 1956 and had finished the script in 1957. The Martial Law was clamped in October 1958. At that time, the script was in Lahore and Maktabah-e-Jadid had published it in 1959. On the last page of the first edition, the year of publication was printed. Therefore, the mental shock of the Martial Law had not turned my pen toward Aag ka Dariya.

Shahab wrote further in his book that after a few weeks, Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider, Jamil-uddin-Aali, Ghulam Abbas, Ibn-el-Hassan, Ibn-e-Saeed, and Abbas Ahmad Abbasi went to see him in his office regarding the founding of the Writers’ Guild. Shahab’s memory gave him a slip here too. In fact, all the above mentioned people had come to my office and asked me to participate in the proposed meeting. (I have described this incident in the second volume of ‘Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Haiy’, which was published in 1979).

Noon Meem Rashad reviewed, on radio, the novel (Aag..) after its publication (the review was published in Aahang, Karachi). I reproduce a few excerpts here:

I want to discuss only one book in this transmission and that book is Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider’s novel Aag ka Dariya, which was published only a couple of weeks ago. The only reason that I can give for discussing only one book today is that this novel will carve out an important place for itself in the history of Urdu Novel. There is no doubt that the experiment with ‘time’ that Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider has performed is very important from the technique viewpoint. She has personified herself in the role of Talat. Talat does not emerge in the novel as prominently as the other characters do, to compel the reader to consider her as an essential character in the story. In spite of its vast canvass, the novel presents a story pertaining to a limited segment of the Indian populace. This is a tragic story of the U.P. Muslims who were thrown into it by the partition of India. Although Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider has very cleverly analyzed the Indian Muslim’s tangled plight and her technique is unmistakably good, however it appears as if the novel is published in expired time.

Another long essay was written by Dr. Mohammad Ahsan Farooqi and was published in Saaqi in April 1960. He wrote, “..now my dream has also shattered. I am deliberating on her subject like her. Young lady! What a breadth of mind? And what a mature perception? She surpasses Virginia Wolf”, etc. etc. The whole essay is worth reading because the ’deceased’ had severely criticized this young lady in his essays after reading Siraj Rizvi’s adverse critical review of Aag ka Dariya, the same month in Jang. And he had written a novel also in response to Aag ka Dariya, which he had called Sangam. I have given its detail in Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Haiy.

Siraj Rizvi was somebody about whom it is said (I don’t know how true it is) that he tried once to gain favors in a personal matter from a Brigadier who was appointed at that time as a sort of ‘Literary Overseer’ under the Martial Law. Siraj Rizvi had published a long and very improper essay against my novel, which was published in the daily Jang, Karachi (in which he had also revealed that the author was the real niece of the Indian Communist Dr. Rasheed Jahan). An English translation of this article was published in an English daily, the same day.

One of our ‘cultural characteristics’ is that when one wants to counter a female, rumors are broadcast against her as a first step. Maulana Raazaq-el-Khairi, editor of Asmat, wrote, “When she wrote the novel Aag ka Dariya, a circle of people highly appreciated it, while many other jealous people were inflamed and they started talking about it worthlessly. Extremely vulgar things were attributed to this young lady. Muslims are anyhow expert at making a mountain of a molehill, a crow out of a wing, and distorting mayl (filth) into a bayl (ox). Even if a molehill, a wing, and a mayl do not exist, they still don’t let go. (Monthly Asmat, Karachi, December 6, 1967)”.

Jamil-uddin-Aali sent notice to Siraj Rizvi from the Writers’ Guild. He immediately tendered an unconditional apology, which was published on May 8, 1960, in Jang. After this, he vanished from the scene and the matter was forgotten. The truth is that this novel (Aag..) was not banned even for a day in Pakistan and nor was the author entangled in any official quandary.

The rumor of the censorship probably gained currency because during proof reading, I had deleted several sentences and paragraphs, which is quite a normal practice in proof reading. In one chapter, I had written only “India, 1947”; it was stupidly inferred that the remaining text had been censored.

I was so bored with this tedium that when I learned that Maulvi Abdul Haq had considered Aag ka Dariya as the only deserving book for Adam Ji award, I got myself included in the judges’ committee with the result that the award was given to Shaukat Siddiqi’s ‘Khuda ki Basti’. Many people remarked on my naiveté saying that the authors usually engage themselves in all kinds of untoward practices to get consideration for award and you etc., etc.

I was attached to the Ministry of Advertising, Films and Publications, Information, and Relays. I went to East Pakistan for making a documentary film (see for the details, Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Haiy, Vol. 2, p. 279). On my return, I wrote the script of the first cartoon film of Pakistan, Decimal Coins, for the same department. Afterwards, I took my mother to London for treatment. At that time, many Urdu writers had settled in the west. This process is still continuing. Abul Kalam Azad was a dear friend of my late father. He had prompted me a few years ago suggesting as to why did I not consider returning to India? My return to India, instead of permanently settling in Britain, had nothing to do with Aag ka Dariya.

I read Orlando and Sidhratha after writing my novel (Aag..). I had never read Pardah Majaz. To divide a long story into a few time periods and present it through some characters is not such a novel idea for which one needs to read other similar books. Due to reappearance of the same characters time and again in the story, it was also presumed that the novel was about reincarnation (awagon). Dear readers, this novel is not about reincarnation.

I had crafted the name of Gautam Neelamber myself. After my return to India, I discovered that a philosopher of the same name had lived in ancient India. This was just a coincidence.

The set up of the last period of the novel is nearly the same as of my other novels. Gulfashan, Lucknow and Khiaban, Dehra Doon are the same as no. 21 Faizabad Road and Ashiana, Dehra Doon. While writing Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Haiy, it occurred to me again and again that I had already written about these two houses in Aag ka Dariya. Therefore I had to delete them at all places. Qadeer including his wife had appeared in Aag ka Dariya with their real names, so I changed his name to Nazir in Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Haiy, Vol.1. Ghasiari Mandi (Grass Market) and the Private School of Beru Road appear both in Aag ka Dariya and Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Haiy, Vol. 1. (Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Haiy was published in Aaj Kal, Delhi, in installments before the publication of the American novel, The Roots). It was also publicized that this biographical novel was published in imitation of the American novel.

Noon Meem Rashad’s view that Aag ka Dariya was published in the expired time did not come true because during the last thirty years, the most saleable book in Pakistan after Iqbal and Faiz is Aag ka Dariya. Numerous unauthorized editions of this book have been published and the irony is that the front pages of these editions invariably bear the statement ‘rights of publication are protected in favor of the author’. And also that the author’s permission has been secured for publishing this edition. Two years back, when I stated in a publishers’ seminar sponsored by the Frankfurt International Book Fair, that this book (Aag..) deserved to be included in the Guinness Book of Records because from the very first day until now, its publishers had earned one hundred percent profit, nobody believed me. The edition that was published overnight in Jullundur, India, in 1961 contained the word Sehgal instead of Hegel, an oversight due to haste.

I believe so much of author’s plea should be sufficient.

Qurrat-ul-Ain Haider New Delhi, December 21, 1988