Mustansar Hussain Tarrar - Novelist

Excerpts:

No genre can be taken for granted. It is the creative artist who makes something acceptable as a genre. Quratul Ain Hyder’s laundry receipt could be creative. Ghalib’s scribbling of a note to leave a message could belong to literature as well. On the other hand, even a novel from a bad writer does not belong in the sphere of literature.

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Critics who belong to a particular group, such as the Wazir Agha group or the (Ahmed Nadeem) Qasmi group, they only write about the authors from their own groups and bypass the “others” altogether. I feel that a genuine write should just bypass the critic and go directly to the masses.

In Pakistan, people don’t read bad literature, with that I agree. If they are going to purchase a book worth 200 rupees, they want something from it. What is it that they want? Well, there are different classes of readers. That is why you cannot say that every best selling author is a good author. But then again, you can’t say that a best seller cannot be a piece of literature.

The concept of ‘stream of consciousness’ is now outdated, actually. Ainee Aapa (Quratul Ain Haider) made excellent use of that technique in Aag Ka Darya. Trends have moved on since then. Now you have magical realism, which you find in Rushdie, Marquez, Kundera… I think that if you amalgamate the two techniques, then you get something that is found in Raakh. And which is, perhaps, present even in Bahao in its initial form.

I am proud to be a Punjabi, but I do not see myself as “a Punjabi writer.” I am “a writer”. I felt sad when I read that statement. That misunderstanding arose out of liberal usage of certain Punjabi words in the novel. But those words are originally Dravidian, dating back to that period. I did not use them just because they were Punjabi words. I used them because these words were current in the period about which I was writing. In fact, I carried out regular linguistic research in order to create my diction because I felt that the rhythm of speech 3,000 years ago could not have been the same as it is today. Look at how the rhythm of speech spoken by the characters in Prem Chand’s stories seems alien to us now. In the same way, I had to discover the rhythm of speech as it was 3,000 years ago.

In my research I was helped by Fareedkoti Saheb, Arif Waqar and Ali Abbas Jalalpuri. They helped me establish the correct vocabulary. Then there was a Ph.D. thesis from Berkeley University, titled Ancient Tamil Poetry, which dealt with the Tamil Poetry of 2,500 years ago. Now, Tamil and Brahvi are the two languages of the subcontinent which have the maximum number of Dravidian words. I had already written about 150 pages by then, but I had to re-write them because that thesis really gave me the rhythm for my novel.

While we are on the topic, let me add one more thing. It is rather strange that we all refer to the civilization of Moenjodaro as the Indus Valley Civilisation. Mind you, the course of the River Indus spreads from the North to the Arabian Sea. The Indus does not belong to the province of Sindh. It only ends there. The grandeur of the Indus, which inspired the Rig Veda can only be seen in the Punjab or in the mountainous North. When the Rig Veda says, and I have quoted it in my novel, that “Sindhu comes roaring, riding its white chariot,” it is certainly not speaking of Sindh. You will see that the archaeological literature prior to 1947 speaks of the Harrappan Civilisation and not the Indus Valley Civilisation.

I am not against the use of the term Indus Valley, but I would like to point out to all our scholars, cultured individuals and politicians that the civilization we talk about included almost the whole of Pakistan, not just Sindh.

Raakh is a novel which our people still may not be ready to receive. So far I have made only one reading, of an extract, and I had to face a lot of antagonism. Except for two or three people, the audience refused to listen to me. They said that my work defiles Pakistan and it is pornographic and that they were not ready to listen to it. And this was an audience that included some senior critics. I told them, if you are in the habit of reading impotent literature, then it is not my fault.

I wrote Sooraj Kay Sath Sath (in the late ‘80s) and, as you know, the Supreme Court brought out a seven page judgment ordering that the story be altered. I don’t know if there is any other incident in the history of television where the supreme court of a country has passed a judgment to affect the story of a drama serial.

In the fourth episode, I showed my characters working in the city as brick-kiln workers. The brick-kiln owners filed a writ against this and the supreme court of Pakistan decreed that the story should be changed. I wasn’t summoned to court. It was one-sided decision.

Even today, the West patronises certain writers: Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul, and up to a certain extent, (Zulfikar) Ghose, because these are the authors who write things they want to read. Our former colonial masters want to see us imitating their styles, and coming down upon our own peoples as “brown sahibs” – like Imran Khan is doing. Hence, such people get nominated for international prizes. But Yashir Kamal does not. Because he is writing things which do not please the white lords, nor does he please the Turkish government. Tagore was a great personality. I wish I was born in his time and had a chance to study at the Shanti Naketan. I admire his poetry, his plays, his paintings. But certainly there is no comparison between Tagore and Iqbal. Iqbal was a much greater poet than him. But again, he did not suit the West. A mystic like Tagore did.

what about the writer, the actor, the artist, the creative person? What has Pakistan done or them? All right, we have got respect, recognition, fame. But we, the creative artists, are also the readiest target for all sorts of abuse and accusation. In any society, the prostitute is the easiest target for blame. In the Pakistani society, it is the creative artist about whom anybody will stand up and say, “He has patronized obscenity, he has defiled Islam, he has spoken against the country.”

I am not defending anybody, but let me say this. One day a statement gets published in the name of Faraz. Nobody goes to him asks whether he has actually made that statement. Next day, the so-called religious scholars pronounce that he should be stoned to death at Kalma Chowk. Nobody says to these people that “you are inciting others to murder a citizen!” Nobody is arrested.

What has this country done for us? It has not given us any protection. My readers come from various religions: Christians, Sikhs, Qadianis… I was once invited to a seminar on tourism and mountaineering in Rabwah. I went there and the next day, the ulema-e-karam gave statements in the newspaper, saying that Tarrar has turned Qadiani. How do I convince people that I am not a Qadiani? The constitution of Pakistan calls them non-Muslims, so I consider them non-Muslim. But the constitution of Pakistan does not say that they are not Pakistanis, or that you cannot enter Rabwah, you cannot talk to them, they cannot read your books. But as an average writer I have no protection against the wrath of any aggressor.

Pakistan’ is a transient word. Pakistan is 50 years old. But this land is eight or ten thousand years old. Twenty-five years ago, Pakistan meant something different, and what you now call Pakistan was called West Pakistan. What you now call Turkey was once known as Asia Minor. If a writer survives through his writings into the future centuries, then he quite often outlives the name of his country. Homer is still read, but the names he gives the countries in his books are today alien to us. The Arab poets from before the days of Islam, and after it…

If a writer wants to be recognized by his land, then he must have the experience of the society he lives in. This does not mean ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ on every second page. If a writer chooses to represent his country, then he should represent it through the experiences of life as it is lived in that country.