My Sahib

Well . . . I finally managed to meet up and speak with somebody here in Poona who claimed to have known Jinnah`s background through HIS father . . . old Parsi family types . . . showed him a copy of the translation (for which, Sir Writer, thank you . . .) and rapid comments were:-

Manto has been overly sarcastic. Jinnah was brilliant as a thinker and such men do not suffer fools, naturally.

On Jinnah`s Bombay as well as sister`s issues, there was much implied but lots left unsaid, which I do not want to bring up here. Suffice it to say that the feeling of being let down by the moneyed seths of Bombay (apparently of Hindoo and Parsee origins) was what caused Jinnah the most grief.

Sac:

Read your post again dunce.

Is fogie(whatever it means)is the word that cannot be uttered in the presence of fine ladies at chowk?

The one who was mentioned will see himself readily.You are not THAT bad.

Just a skimmer,that`s what you are;a skimmer.

WASSALAAM.

Godot:

There are quite a few places on the internet where you can look into books on Urdu poetry as well as prose.

I do not have the listing with me, but can find out for you - Desistore is one. Depending on where you are, you can check with your local consulate to get more info on that. Houston, Southern Parts of NJ, Certain areas in NY, Washington DC, and Chicago have some good bookstores with a good selection of Urdu Prose and Poetry. CA - I am not very sure of. So, it`s all on your initiative and drive. Good Luck!

Godot:

A fine contribution!

Personally, I am not a fan of reading translations; be it Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi or Farsi. I would rather read the original piece. It`s just that each language has certain expressions and feelings that are native to that language only. For example, some of the expressions of Sanskrit/Hindi are extremely beautiful and unique that it would be a sin to even touch the original thought and translate it. If you hear them from someone who speaks shustaa hindi, it is a pleasure to hear that. But as English is the medium of instruction for our people and many limit themselves to English only; therefore they miss on all the literature and poetical work from our part of the world. That`s a BIG LOSS! An irony!

But once in a blue moon, one does come across ``fine`` work like this piece. It is pretty evident that you`ve spent quite a lot of time to capture all the intricate details from the original piece. Great Work!

I must mention something here that meant a lot to me. It was quite touching to read the emphasis on ``sincerity``; it carried a lot of innocence and purity. In current day and age, many of the attributes identified in your piece may not carry much meaning - it`s kind of: how oudated or how conservative or how naive - but in reality, it has far more beauty/substance in it than anything else. [I want to write more here, but I am having a writer`s block. So excuse my abrupt departure!]

In short, thanks for providing ``a valuable contribution`` on Chowk that was worth investing the time in.

Regards.

re Godot #28:

I usually catch up with my Urdu reading when I am visting Pakistan on my annual pilgrimage. I try and bring some of it back but its a losing battle once I get here. There are way too many other things vying for ones attention. BTW I don`t know if you live close to a major university or not but some universities here have huge collections of classical works in Urdu. Maybe you can get lucky there.

re F_K #24:

I was alluding to the last paragraph of your post #18. If I was mistaken then I take my apologies back.

Why should I feel hollow? A little sad maybe but hollow? Definitely not.

later

-sac

One of the most important works to appear on
CHOWK to date. Thanks ``Godot``.

Ras

Although Islam does not sanction or endorse a caste system - it exists in subcontinental muslims.... The shaikh and sadat are castes or ``baradari`` or tribes depending on how you interpret them.... ``sadaat`` is used to describe Sayyids in Punjab, in UP/Bihar they are known as Sayyids`, in Baluchistan Afghanistan and Bengal ``Mirs`` , in Sindh they are called ``shah`` ....

Re: Urstruly, #23

Thank you, Urstruly.

What wonderful memories your post brought back for me. Yes, when I was a little kid in the late 60s, me with bunch of other kids used to go to someone`s house to watch PTV. Then when we got it, the kids would come to our house to watch it. It was, as Charles Dickens once wrote, the best of times and the worst of times.

Thanks again for kind and encouraging words.

Does anybody on this board here know whether there was any major contact between Jinnah and V K Krishna Menon? So similar, same era . . .

Re: Stuka, #16

Thanks, Stuka. Like you, I also think these translations are important because some very good literary work could be made available to a wider audience because of our common language: English. Yes. I would like to translate Toba Tek Singh. I read this many years ago. All I remember about it is that it was very funny.

Re: Farangi, #18

Thanks for the suggesstion. I`ll look for those, or you can point me to where to find them.

Re: Harpreet, #21

Thank you Harpreet. People like you made my effort of translation worth it. Hopefully, I will introduce you to some excellent Urdu literary work.

Re: sac, #22

Last time I read Urdu literature was in the year 1973 as an adolescent. I left Pakistan the end of that year. Since then, not only I have read very little Urdu, I don`t speak it much either. Translating Urdu literature is a great opprtunity for me to re-live old Urdu classics

I read long time ago. Thanks for the suggesstions. The only trick for me now is to get them. As of now, I have no collection of short Urdu stories in my little library.

Could somebody provide a link as to the specifics of Manto`s decision to leave Bombay for Pakistan in 1948. I read somehwere that life in Bombay had become intolerable for him as a high profile Muslim. I am curious, was he disappointed by his friends, was he fearful for his life, what exactly were the events that motivated him to leave Bombay.

Knowing very little about Urdu literature myself, I was just curious: who are the major Urdu writers at this time?

Some time back I had read a translation of a short story by Quaturlain (?) Haider, and I really liked it. Is there any possiblity of someone translating a work by her on chowk, or does anyone know of any good translations of her work that are avaliable?

Also some time back I had heard an excellent recording of Mirza Ghalib`s letters, but I have not been able to lay my hands on the same. Can somebody tell me how to get a copy of the same?

Thanks,

narain

Although I am just a Shaikh, I am fortunate that only because of him I was married in a Sadat Family. The girl’s family accepted me because Azad was a servant of Qaid-e-Azam.

What is this Shaikh-Sadat reference all about?

sac:#22

Didn`t you feel kind of hollow when you wrote this post.

I don`t even know the meaning of fogie so how did you guessed that I was offended? Was that your intent? I apologise for my ignorance and am still trying to figure out what rankled you.

``Kis hurf pey too ne gosha e lubb aye jaan e jahaan ghamaaz kiyaa

izhaar e junoon,dil valon ne,ubb ke ba hazaar undaaz kiyaa``

faiz

tr:

Oh which word was it,my beloved,that brought a smile{smirk,for you sac)to your lips.

Those gone crazy in love with you,did try to say it in a thousand ways.

WASSALAAM.

Dear Godot,

It was a very impressive write up. I must congratulate you for successfully striking that delicate balance between the original and the translation and keeping the true soul and spirit of the original language it was written in. It is a very difficult thing to do but you did really well.

I remember seeing several of Azad`s movies when I was a kid. In those days PTV used to show old Pakistani movies in the matinee show on the weekends. We used to live in a very small town in those days and there were very few TV sets. So many other kids, my playmates, and sometime their parents would come to see the movie to our house. Almost every other week they used to show a movie with Azad playing some side role in it. My father would always tell us, whenever, Azad would appear on screen ``Eh Quaid-e-Azam dah driver si, Azad naaN haiga eh aidah (He was Quaid`s driver, his name is Azad``. His words would always get our attention. Even the little kids who used to keep murmuring sitting on the carpet right next to the TV would shut up and look at the screen intently. I always felt envious of Azad whenever father would continue his commentary ``Bilkul young munda si jis waylay Quaid-e-Azam nay ainooh driver rakhia (He was just a young man when Quaid hired him as a driver)``. I always wished in my heart if I could trade places with Azad and drove Quaid`s white Packard. Sometimes I wondered if my father was also envious of Azad like me. I would squint and try to read my fathers face-but he always kept on puffing his cigarette and pretended that he wasn’t looking.

re moidalam #15:

Enjoyed your ``ganjay farishtay`` explanation. Was always puzzled myself.

Godot:

Yes more translations would be great. Ismat maybe somewhat less contemporary for most readers here but Krishan Chandr is a great idea.

re F_K #14:

I don`t buy your explanation. Your posts betray a sense of misplaced sense of superiority over others which you attribute to your `knowledge`(revealed divinely or unearthed by yourself) as opposed to an accident of history. Think about it. You may have been Jay and Jay you.............

As for your advice as to what I should read, I appreciate the suggestions. I`ve read Mushafee, Inshaa and Nazir Akbarabadi and enjoyed them thoroughly(although I must admit that Mushafee is extremely difficult to understand). I don`t expect my kids(whenever they arrive!!) to do the same. The path to self-discovery for them will have to go through other vistas.

I am sorry that you took exception to my calling you a fogie. Unlike others I translate the word as someone belonging to the ``shurafaa``. To me it exemplifies the generation that has destroyed my homeland with its misplaced emphasis on decorum and tradition.

You mentioned Chaucer in your reply somewhat derisively(I guess for his anti-Muslim bias). Chaucer`s best known work is Canterbury tales which belongs to a genre called ``frame story``. They are short stories linked together to form one big story. The funny thing is that ``frame stories`` are an Arabic/Muslim invention!! ``A Thousand and One Nights`` is a good example. Couldn`t help but let out a chuckle there............

later

-sac