THIS ABOVE ALL
In the words of nani
Khushwant Singh

The joint family has spawned words in Indian languages which do not exist in any other languages of the world. They do not distinguish between maternal and paternal grandparents, between different kinds of uncles and aunts, brothers’ wives, nephews and nieces and grandchildren. We have a whole clutch of them: dada-dadi, nana-nani, chacha-chachi, mama-mami, bua-phuphar, phuphee, jeth-jethani, dewar-dewrani, bhatija-bhatiji, dohta-dohtri. And so on.

I kept going over this plethora of relations while watching the most famous nani of our times and her sister and their brother’s daughter, enacting Ek Thee Nani at Le Meridien. The hotel’s proprietor Charanjit Singh, was so enamoured of the play that she invited the entire cast and the playwright Shahid Nadeem to fly over from Lahore and re-enact it in her hotel. She had the cream of Delhi society to see what strides Pakistani drama has taken in recent years. The drama group Ajoka was set up in 1983 (Zia-ul-Haq’s time) to propagate democracy and question Mullah’s fatwas on what Muslims may or may not do.

Ek Thee Nani is based on the lives of two sisters Zohra and Uzra. They are Shia Pathans, born in western Uttar Pradesh. Defying orthodox tradition, both girls joined Prithvi Theatres, in Bombay and then went on to dance with Udya Shankar’s troupe. Zohra married a Hindu and stayed on in India. Uzra married a Kashmiri Muslim and migrated to Lahore. Zohra continued to act and dance. Uzra was forbidden to do so and accepted restrictive norms of behaviour for women in the Mullah-ridden Pakistan. The two sisters did not see each other for 25 years till Zohra went over to Lahore to stay with Uzra.

The quarter of a century had created a huge gulf between their outlooks. Uzra was bringing up her daughter Sabeena (played by her brother’s daughter Samiya Mumtaz, a girl of angelic beauty and talent) in strict conformity with Pakistani norms of behaviour. She was tutored at home by a masterji who taught her that the foundations of Pakistan were laid by the Arab invader Mohammed bin Qasim in the 8th century; that Pakistan was the greatest country in the world; Allama Iqbal’s Saarey Jahaan Say Accha Hindustan Hamara was in fact Saarey Jahaan Say Accha Pakistan Hamara. When questioned by the visiting nani (Zohra) who sat through the lessons, masterji admitted he did not believe in any of this, but such answers would fetch the girl better marks in her exams. He also admitted that he taught music but did not dare to even suggest doing so to Sabeena for fear of her mother. As for dancing, tauba! tauba! Surreptitiously Zohra introduced singing and dancing in Sabeena’s curriculum. There is soulful rendering of Nadiya dheerey baho (little river flow gently), when Uzra and relatives chance upon a singing and dancing lesson, hell breaks loose. Ultimately Uzra’s past catches up with her and she succumbs to music and dance and the three women Zohra (93), Uzra (88) and Sabeena (in her teens) end up singing and dancing.

The play directed by Nadeem is at once tragic and comic, light-hearted and loaded with a message of goodwill between Pakistan and India. It takes many digs at the pervading Mullah conceptions of society; I wondered how audiences in Karachi or Lahore reacted to it. I found it hilarious and moving. People who can laugh at themselves are zindabad for ever.

I am astonished at the sudden upsurge of interest in India on the life and works of Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib (1796-1869). I have a few manuscripts of translations into English, including those by Professors Badri Raina and Kuldip Salil, both of whom have appeared in my columns. Their translations have yet to be published. A few weeks ago, I received two beautifully produced books on the poet, one by the filmmaker Gulzar: Mirza Ghalib: A Biographical Scenario (Rupa) and another Kaaba-e-Hindustani (Chiragh-e-Dair), rendered into English and Hindi verse by Purushottam Nijhaawan (English editorial). The first thing that struck me is that this outburst of enthusiasm for Ghalib is limited to people schooled in Urdu during British Raj, not one of them is a post-Independence product when Hindi replaced Urdu as the people’s language in northern India. The linguistic scenario is not likely to change. If we mean to keep alive our heritage of Urdu literature, it will have to be in Urdu written in the Devnagari script appended with meanings of difficult words; or translated into English. But, and this is a big BUT in capital letters, the English translation must capture something of the musical overtones of the original.

Gulzar’s biography reads more like a script written for a film than a true life story of the poet. He creates scenes out of his imagination, twists facts to suit his purpose and his English is flawed, his translations frequently off the mark. His publishers paid more attention to packaging their product than having editors or proof readers to check the quality of its contents. The book is a good present for people who do not know Ghalib but are happy to have Gulzar’s book on their tables for their friends to admire.

Nijhaawan’s book is as well-produced as Gulzar’s. In addition, he has translated a less-known Chiragh-e-dair (Light of the temple), Ghalib’s ecstatic account of his visit to Varanasi where he was enamoured of everything he saw, the worship of the Ganga, temple rituals, women bathing nude in the sacred river. The author should have had the confidence to omit eulogies paid to him earlier by non-descript people like me.

Courtesy: Kuldip Salil, Delhi