Arey Larkay!

t - it`s always a pleasure to meet people like Mushfiq Khwaja above. I`m sorry I didnt. I`ve met his siblings in spirit though and always went away with an expanded heart (that sounds weird, but it feels right).

btw, what did you do with all those tapes and things? I`d love to see them some day.

--amrita.

t,

Wish you had a more fleshed out piece. This seems too impoversished an obit for a man of such quiet grandeur. MAy Amina be at peace.

It is humbling in a very peculiar way when we run into real value, and find it oddly at odds with most of the things one immediately connects to value. I have always been moved, yes, but I often feel that such people leave me with a kink in my heart. What is it that allows some to smuggle their dignity, despite an entire life, while so many get into the the business of flaunting their scars to justify boorishness.

HN

just read this...will share with you

Two different teams of the Private Library and Archival Survey Project (PLASP) in Pakistan have now visited some fifty collections in several cities and villages of the country’s three major provinces....

Most prominent among these are the literary archives of Mushfiq Khwaja, a rare document collection that happens to be unique in South Asia both in volume and value. Mushfiq Khwaja, the universally respected veteran scholar of Urdu literature, has now in principle consented to the public exposure of some of his jealously protected literary documents. Haq met him in late September along with Anwar Moazzam who is leading the Urdu Documentation Center in India and who happened to be in Pakistan at the time.

More HERE

am:

the portraits are resting safely in some cubes on a shelf...35mm colour slides...the tapes..about 40-50 of them...signed and dated by them for authenticity...are on another shelf...several kind folks have been after me to translate and edit them...

fik`r e ma`aash, ishq e butaan, yaad e raft`gaaN
dO din ki zindagi may bhala kya karay koi

...reluctantly i agreed to do one...the conversation with ismat chughtai...have transcribed it finally on paper...now have to translate it into english, then edit and add background material...when done you will see them here first...have you met her?...what a remarkable lady...to listen to the tapes you need time and you will have to visit the baithak in TO...how good is your hindi/urdu?

lve,

t

temporal miyaaN, you said:

This was in early eighties. I had just returned from a long and exhausting trip all over India and Pakistan. I had met, photographed and tape recorded interviews with leading Indian and Paksitani Urdu authors and poets.

A write-up about your adventures would be most desirable and interesting...

harish:

he was indeed a man of `quiet grandeur`...very low key and unassuming...who had charted a course in his mind and followed it physically to the best of his ability...one of those rare individual who know the price and value of their object of interest...

heard the sad news past midnight on Geo ( a karachi-dubai based network)...M read my mind...said `you won`t be able to sleep till you write,`...so i searched the net and checked out his books...abiyaat and jadeed takhleeqi adab in four or five volums and the compilation of his columns as khama b`gosh and some other ghalib related magazines...this was around 1 am local time...then i made a decision to leave a proper obituary for others...and wrote from the heart...if it intrigues the reader in you enough to wish that i should have written more about him..then in a sense my work is done...go and find out more about him if you are intrigued....(remember your bombay poems?...i had to make an effort to `understand` some of those references;))

asif mian:

jawabun wohi sha`er paRh liji`aye jO hum nay #4 may dar`j kya hay

rgds

t

Mushfiq Khwaja, our renowned researcher, has done what a Yagana Academy could have achieved if its scholars could have steered themselves clear of all those prejudices which have inhibited a work worth Yagana`s stature.

The complete anthology of Yagana Changezi is a good example of immaculate editing. The kind of good taste which the very presentation of this Kulliat (complete works) exhibits should serve the future researchers of Urdu. Nothing has been left to chance and all of Yagana`s collections of poetry starting from Nishtar-i-Yaas to Ganjina has been presented in a chronological order ensuring that no overlapping of verses occurs so that Yagana could be studied exactly according to the progress of his poetic career. This is the kind of work which only Qazi Abdul Wudood or Masood Husain Rizvi could have undertaken without having the assured success of their mission. Yagana Changezi`s Rebirth

Re: # 4
t - my Hindi is as good as 10 years of schooling could make it. My Urdu is as good as a lifetime of love can help it.

I hereby add my pleas to those of your acquaintance who would like to see the interviews in print. Ismat Chughtai! No, I never met her in person. I look forward to your introduction.

Temporal:

I second Naqshbandi`s suggestion. Take time off poetry and write from memory. I would love to hear of that trip, especially as it would be telescoped by the changes today. That would be Indira`s time in India and Zia`s time in Pakistan.

t: do you have any pieces of mushfiq khwaja`s works (humor, particularly) in electronic form that you could post on chowk? i did not find much on the internet.

also, i agree with naqshbandi for once and with stuka - it would be great if you could write a travelogue of your visit to india in the 1980`s. who knows, one day some future mushfiq khwaja may be saying: ``Aray larkey: meray computer kay filing system maiN ja kar janaab temporal sahib ki daastaan ko print kar kay lao!!``

temporal,that travelogue would be great. Have u seen Mohafiz(In Custody)?

t.

In Balasaheb`s language, history is assessed in what we called as Bakhar.

Two great historians come to my mind.

One, I will would not reveal the name. He wrote book how Haidar Ali (For historically challanged, and I mean every one on chowk, Tipu Sultan`s father), was far better than Shivaji. No local support, alien religion...still could establish a kingdom.

The whole family suffered because of the book. Just like he criti.. Islam or muslim.

Second was S. M. Matey. He wrote a criticial piece on Geeta.

He pointed out ...Two sets of questions was posed by Arjun. Two sets not one. Geeta gives answers for the first set. Never second.

The second set is very obvious. Conseq..of war on woman, child.. and whole depleted ..remaining society. No answer in Geeta.

The guy is dead long back. Family lives. Wonder O wonder. This was the book I had to study for my exam in my school day.

Well you can critisize Geeta, (of cousrse never Koran.. never acceptable) and live.

The books and articles are in language called Marathi. There is a society in city called in Pune where you could get/validate this data.

Yogiraj Patil

am, stuka, tahmed32, rahul:

hope you understand for me words flow
when am passionate about some thought
without passion words incarcerated
remain in some celestial temple
unshakeable, and yes unprintable;)

* * *

la`ooN kahaaN say ab maiN woh jazba e ish`q
woh wariftagi e junoon jisnay saath youN
choRh dya jaisay kabhi oos say shana`saee
thee hee nahiN aur ab tO mudaat guzri hay
woh eh`d e wafa oosko yaad hay na mujhko

la`ooN kahaaN say ab maiN woh jazba e ish`q...

lve and rgds

t

ps: yogiraj...thanks for visiting this board...
pps: tahmed am still looking for links to Mushfiq Khwaja`s articles...will reply later

t,
did you by any chance get to ever meet Faiz Ahmad Faiz?

ras

Ras:

a few times...both here and over there

rgds

t

t - just came across your ilog. Reminded me of this really good documentary on the history of Urdu that was playing on Discovery (India) some time ago. It was hosted by Tom Alter who is incidentally playing Maulana Azad on the Bombay stage to perfection - I dont know if they have any plans to take it on the road but if you can catch it I believe it is well worth it. I missed my chance and I`m still kicking myself over it.

I bet you can find the video somewhere on the net. Lemme see. I think it was called ``The Story of Urdu`` and it gave a short history before moving on to Urdu in the 20th century and how it affected the independence movement and the mini-renaissance that followed.