DOCUMENT RESUME ED 126 51 CS 202 847 AbTHO ola, Carlo, Ed. v ' ,.IT MAHFIL: A.Quarterly of South Asian Literature, Spring-Summer 1971. INSTI sTION Michigan State Univ., Eas sing. Asian Studies , Center. PUB DATE 71 NOTE 170p. ( EDRS PRICE MF-$0.83 Plus Postage-. HC Not A ailablefrom EDRS. DESCRIPTORS *Asian Studies; Literary Criticism; *Literature; Literature Reviews; Non Western Civilization; *Poetry; Prose; TaleS IDENTIFIERS India . ABSTRACT . 7 '-' . This volume contains both literature fromSouth Asia and articles about South Asian literature.The first article consists of an interview with a leading Pakistani poet, N.M. Bashed, who . discusses modern Urdu literature. Otherarticles are: "Five 'Dangerous' Books " - -on censorship ip EastPakistan--by P. Sarkar; "Bdluchi Language and Diterature"and "Pashto Language and Literature" by A. Bausani; "Sindhi Literature"by A. Schimmel; and "Ahmed Ali and 'TwilightAin Delhi' "- -the genesis of a Pakistani novel--by D.D. Anderson. Literary selections,translated into Engl'sh, include nine poems by N.M. Rashed;three-poems by Z. Haider; and ix stories "The Brock" by A. Husain, "The Tade of i a 'Tulsi' Tree, by S. WaliulIah,,fiGhaazi Mard" by G.Abbas, qhe Rain" by A. Al-Aad, "Conspiratois" by E. Sajjad,and "Of Blackened Face" by J. Abroi The volume also contains three literaryreviews by J.P. Gemil$, R. Gerulaitis, and H. Moayyad. (JM) ******************************i***********************************e' * Documents acquiredi p4-2Arc include ,many informal unpublished * * materials not available from other sources."ERIC makes every effort * * to obtain the best 'copy available.- Nevertheless, items.of marginal * * reproducibility are often encountered and, this"affects the quality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductionsERIC makes available * * via the ERIC Documeit ReproductiOn Service(EDRS). EDRS is not * * responsible for the quality of the oriOnaldodument. Reproductions * * supplied by EDRS are the best that,canbe madefrom the briginal. * ************t************************4i******************************* U S DEPARTMENT OF HEAL AN EDUCATION it WELFARE* NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION IA5 BEES PEON° D E XA", AS RE:E',FD P.ROm I.05111r2.0;-"Ziitik.,' pEQ>(% CP jar ^,SORCoN A , PC ,'S 0; ft. it, OP,N,ONS ,.ED DC%-, ,YPEPRE -.46-;.; ,f.' r KeS eOP E ;'," ON PG. Cy cy c) MAHFIL A Quarterly of South Asian Literature t 'Editors:Carlo Coppola Surjit S. Dulai__ C. M. Nairn , Managing Editor: -Dorothy M. Doane Editorial Associates: r Georgia Collins, Nancy Fitch, Donald Nelson, Steven Poulos, Dana Ragsdale, Richard Williams . Subscriptions: The subscription price Is $4.00 per year in the United States and Canada; other countries, $5.00 per year. Subscriptions and communications relating to subscriptions shouldbe addressed to: Mahfil Asian Studies Center Center.fdr International Programs - Michigan State University East Lansing, Michigan 48823 Price: Single issues S 1.25 Double issues $2.50 Manuscripts: All manuscripts and books £1.1 review should be sent to the editors at: Mahfil Box 39, Foster Hall University of Chicago Chicago, Illinois 60637 MAHFIL is published quarterly by the Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University, gast Lansing, Michigan., 9 'I y SILVESTREM TENUI MUSAM MEDITARIS AVENA: Virgil '441, M-AHFIL Volume N./ft Spring - Summer 1971 Numbers 1 and 2 Contents INTERVIEW WITH N. M. RASHED . A-1 NINE POEMS N. M. Rashed 21 FIVE "DANGEROUS" BOOKS Pabitra Sarkar 31 -BALUCHI LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Alessandro Baus'aili 43 PASHTO LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Alessandro Bausani 55 SINDHI LITERATURE Annemarie Schimmel 71 AIMED &LI AND TWILIGHT IN DELHI David D. Anderson 81 THREE POEMS . , Zia Haider 87 THE BROOK Abdullah Husain 93 THE TALE OF A TULSI TREE Syed Waliullah 125 GHAAZI MARD Ghulam Abbas 131 THE RAIN Alauddin Al-Ajad 137 CONSPIRATORS Enver Sajjad 149 OF BLACKENED FACE b Jamal Abro 153 REVIEWS Shahid HOsain, First Voices: Six Poets from Pakistan Uanet Powers Gemill 157 Rolf Italiaander,In der Palnreinschenke Renate Gerulaitis 159 Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Javid-nama Heshmat Moayyad 163 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS 169 Copyright CC; MAHF 1971 PE RAPiST.ON TO PE PRt01)(E Hts COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL SY MICRO FICHEONLY ASm BEEN GRANTED MAHFIL TO CPC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPE PM ,NGI)NDE P AGPFEMENT,,,mtri THE NA ,N51,TlJTEOr [Dor A TPON r I,R iHFR Rf PRODUET,ON OUTSIDE THE FRIG cyst FM REQUIRES Pf PMIS 4 ,ION Or THE COP`ePiGHT ONNOW I yf ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS David D. Anderson of the Department of AmericanTbougbt and Language at Michigan State University is acting as an efor fo Mahfil in the ab4ence of Surjit S. Dulai,,who is in India. Cover: The drawing on the cover is by Enver Sajjad', from his book ista'aare, Mahfil eintery . M. RASHER Leading Pakistani poet speaks out on modern Urdu literature Mahfil: Although your name is intimately associatedwith the "new" poetry Of Urdu, you are not considereda "Progressive" poet. How would you describe your poetry, .esBeciallY in contradistincton to the Progressive poetry of the late Thirties and Forties? In,mucof your poetry, you show a definite Western influence.' Which Western ets influenced you most and why? . Rashed: The movement for the "new" poetry withwhich I am associated was in the first instance a step towards the liberationof Urdu poetry from the tyranny of form; and, secondly, itaimed at bringing poetry closerto the realities of modern life. The ghazal, the most common traditional verse form, had served a very goodpurpose-over the centuries, but had largely beconle inert both in form and ontent. It was.on the one hand a prisoner of rhyme andmeter; and, on the other, was hidebound by certain standardized symbols, images and myths, whichcontinued to repeat themselves from poet to poet. In the ghazal, it was always thesame hungering lover talking of his unending sufferingto an ever-indfferent, cruel beloved, and in this seeking his personalcatharsis. The beloved, in turn,was soMe- times a harlot (who could ever talk of hislove to Q noble woman relegated to the harem?),and more oftena male companion in aomosexual relationship; a feudal lord, on whom the poet 'largely depended forhis existence; a spirit- ual leader: or, when the poet soareda little_higher, a male-Godl with the usual Our'anit attributes of the Divine Beini, rangingfrom the Prbfoundest love and kindness ta extreme injustice and nkindpess. A part of the s mbolism of the ghazal;tmlltaround the imaginary "love affairs" o the an.a, or nightingale, and therose, and the moth and the candle, an aroun, the relationship between the saqi,_or thecup-bearer, and the ev r-thirety drunkards, had,over this long peiiod of.time, become an extravagant-Cliche. myths, mostly drawn from stories oft e Quran, which are practically thesame as t ose of the Bible, or from otherr Islamic lore, constantly repeated themselves the Fall Of Adam; the assi"on of Mbses; the iconoclasm of Abraham and his fiance of Nimrod; Christas a super- healer; the Virgin flaryas a paragon of chastity; Joseph's masculine charm and"the illicit of`of Potiphar's wife for him; Mansft Hallaj,who was hanged for decl J.ng h4mself "the Finite Truth"; e of Majnun for Laila, the Arab eauty, the love and sacrifice orFarhad forShirin, the 6 Persian queen; and so on and so forth. These myths and symboS had together lent some semi-ethical texture to the traditional poetry; and the traditional poets, in their discourses about their suffering souls, had also evinced some understanding of the psychology of love and jealousy and its influence on man's spirit'-,alternately subli- mating and corrupting and had developed some kind of humanistic approach . to life, which should rank some of them, such as Ghglib, among the world's great teachers But this complex of myths and symi5711s4 as I have already said, had; already become jarringly repetitive, and had ren.dered Urdu poetry out of tune with the times, as even Hgli, the first "modern u poet had felt, more than half a century ago. Particularly, it no longer help in an interpretation of human equations in the light of modern experience, r in relating poetry to the ne.14y emerging social, political and economic pr lems. The problem of the "new" poet thus was, firstly, to write "as himself,or as an individual rather than a typeLand, secondly, to talk about the suf -ring sobl of mankind as a whclerrather than of a chronically unhappy 1 ver. New sources of knowledge had opened up new themes and new visions of rea ity, and the new poet was obliged to bring his new sensitivity to bear on em. Any other course would have been utterly unrealistic I have talked at some length, about the nature of our traditional pTelty-----9,2 that npu.would understand the nature of the "revolt" of the new poe against it.--This new spirit in Urdu poetry was inevitable, as much a it. was inevitable in the poetry of any other language. It simultaneously threw up three poets, who in their----- different ways sought to interpret modern fe. Miraji made bold experiments witR-Tormbrought the language.of-poetry c oser to everyday speech, and unravelled some Of .the mysteries of the subcons,c'ous in the light of the new psychoanalytical discoveries; Faiz, Using mosof the traditional cliches, symbols and ,myths, even as Iqbgl had dOneevi17 ed anew emotional response to current human problems in line with'theso istAoc- trine; and I,in my small way, 'experimenting with new rhymearr gements, tried .to stress some of the current problems, the foremost a ng them for me being the alien rule, religious dogmatism, moral tekessio s, etc., whii-C11--- ad continuously dwarfed the Asian soul; and to achieve this; I drew upon my personal experience alone, rather than the experience of others or on any ulterior doctrine . ..... Since we thrie began to write, a large numbei'oLpther poets have carried forward the new trends in different measure - some stressing the form, some the diction, some the content.