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You breathe in the air filled with their smells, tinged with their colours, intermingled with the breathing of your companion. He is the writer, the guide who has taken a back seat and is trailing behind you in the expeditions he marked out for you with such a delightful innocence of a child who let you have a peep into his kaleidoscope to let you discover the bright, colourful shifting patterns, each a tiny distinct world of its own. These patterns he has not created, for they have existed since millennium but the pleasure of the discovery is entirely his own.
Such is Mohammad Khalid Akhtar, one of the best writer-humorist-satirist Urdu literature has ever produced. Khalid lays bare a world that has always been there, will always be there. 'I have not created these characters,' he says modestly. 'These people are all around you. Have you never met them?' He asks you innocently. 'How strange!' He then mumbles and lights a cigarette, billowing rings of smoke.
Footloose, light and carefree, you see him disappearing in to old quarters and side lanes of Karachi, - Chakiwara, Lea Market, Soldier Bazaar, venturing out to the forsaken villages and dusty towns at the edge of Thar-Diplo, Naukot, Mithi, marvelling at the pink-hued barren hills and the foothills of Balochistan. For Khalid, be it the congested lanes of a big city or the vast expanse of a parched desert, the contours of the universe are vivid and as vivacious and alluring as the creatures that inhabit it. Hence, in Khalid's writings you find the locale of the stories etched out in bold and effortless strokes.
And the characters that fill his world - this very world that you and I inhabit - are ordinary people like us. Odd in some ways, like Dr Gharib Mohammad, (of the story Miqyasul Mohabbat) a quack healing some and fastening death for many. But the writer takes that in his stride. It is an unimportant detail for him. After all, most of us are cheats, and liars and what not. So, move on. This 37-year-old bachelor, eking out money in Lyari, considers himself a scientist and is driven with a passion to invent a barometer to measure love, quantify it in minus or plus. And he wants to invent it for the benefit of people so that they can sift truth from lie. Life would be easy. With this instrument at hand, you won't get into any claptrap.
Or take Chacha Abdul Baqi, one of his many unforgettable characters, who comes up with his endless, innovative, quick money-minting business plans with zero capital. And he does it with such earnestness, with such optimism and with such a passion - weaving dreams of things he would do with the money well-earned -- small pleasures that you and I dream about, like having dinner in a good restaurant, dating a beautiful woman (or man), buying a silk tie (or a string of pearls).
The tapestry Mohammad Khalid Akhtar has woven through his writings is not just dappled with characters who make you laugh at life's absurdities and human frailties, but is etched with shadows of pain and suffering. Like the crazed, beggar woman by the ghaat in Hardwar (India) in his story "Khoya hua ufaq", into whom the narrator and his friend bumped. A victim of circumstances, haunted by her lost love, searching for it in every face, she evokes an image of universal longing, unfulfilled desires that many of us harbour inside us.
And who could forget the immortal story, "Nannha Manjhi" that portrays so powerfully the ephemerality of existence through the tale of the 13-year old navigator. Steering his tiny dugout in the stormy river in Mithankot (Punjab), confident, happy, an embodiment of life and energy and in sync with his environs, the narrator watches him die a young slow death. Khalid has also dealt, as forcefully and as artistically, with the baser, cruel and irrational instincts in human beings that make them murder each other, as in his stories, "Karez" and "Muskurata hua Buddh".
A master craftsman, Khalid's versatility is evident not only in the panoramic range of characters that he has picked up off the streets, the cities and the villages of the subcontinent (mainly from the four provinces of the country), but in genres he has chosen to express himself. Though he has established himself as a short story writer and humorist, he has written a futuristic novel, a humorous novel, a novella, numerous essays, countless parodies, many reviews, sketches, and several travelogues. But whatever genre he has chosen, his writing is always natural, fresh and crisp, effective, sparkling with humour and low-key satire.
A characteristic that distinguishes his work is his candour, his frankness and modesty. He seems to present his writings to his readers with a certain shyness (of a young writer at the beginning of his career) and hesitation whether it would satisfy and satiate his readers. This modesty comes from the vast knowledge of world literature that he has been voraciously reading (in English) since he was a boy of 12 or 13. So much so that he thinks that 'he thinks in English and writes in Urdu' and hence becomes slightly unsure how would his thoughts, thought out in English, would sound in Urdu. Contrary to what he thinks his too much English reading has done to his Urdu writing, I think that his undying passion for world literature has given his writings a depth and a cosmopolitan, global outlook, a universal appeal.
As an avid reader of Mohammad Khalid Akhtar, since my youth, I find his writings flowing naturally and his command over Urdu language flawless. Sometimes he does use English words, and occasionally you come across phrases and proverbs that have their origin in English language but it comes as a peculiarity of his writing. It doesn't obstruct the flow of the rapport that he succeeds in creating instantly with his readers.
A tall, shy, slim man, with a dark complexion, broad forehead, deep-set eyes, aquiline nose, pointed chin, Khalid now looks too frail at the age of eighty. At first glance he seems to be lost in his own world. However, his eyes light up with curiosity and his face breaks into a broad smile as you approach him: he makes you feel at home and treats you as an equal and is interested in listening to your little foibles and your insignificant achievements.
He is as good in dyads as in groups where he often dissolves the gravity of conversation into a rainbow of laughter with his sudden punch lines. I have always found him young at heart, interested in people and places, well informed of global happenings and uptodate on world literature. He is always reading some new writings, apart from his umpteenth readings of world classics.
Over the years, his health has deteriorated. And his spirit was broken to quite an extent at the death of his closest friend, Shafiqur Rahman in 1999. It took him sometime to come out of the gloom and resume his composure. Today, despite his frail health, he still haunts the neighbourhood bookshop to pick up new titles and takes a stroll to buy a pack of cigarettes. He meets his friends once a week or fortnightly, watches art movies with friends, gets glued
to BBC channel for news, talk shows and documentaries, and is eager for an evening out with his friends.
Mohammad Khalid Akhtar: Profile
Born in 1920, in Allahbad Tehsil of the State of Bahawalpur. Studied in Bahawalpur and Lahore. In 1946 he went to England for his post-graduate training in electrical engineering. Worked as an engineer in Karachi in 1940s and the 1950s. Retired from WAPDA in 1980 and made Karachi his permanent abode where he lives with his family. He has two sons and a daughter, all married.
Writings: His short story, "Khoya hua ufaq" written in 1943 and published in Sawaira by Saadat Hasan Manto in 1953. From the 1950s onward, his short stories, essays, reviews, parodies, travelogues were published in journals like Funoon, Sawaira, Adab-i-Latif and Afkaar. In the 90s, Khalid wrote mostly reviews and travelogues. His latest piece of writing, travel notes on Greece, written in late 1999, was published in Tehrir.
Books: Bees sau giyarah (1950 and reprinted in 1999), Chakiwara mein wisaal (1964),Khoya hua ufaq (collection of stories, sketches, satirical essays, 1967), won theAdamjee Literary Award, Alice jehan-i-hairat mein and Aaienay kay paar (1980, Urdu translations of Alice in wonderland and Alice through the looking glass), Do safar (1984, travelogue), Chacha Abdul Baqi (1985, stories), Makateeb-i-Khizr (1989, humorous letters), Yatra (1990, travelogue), Ibn-i-Jubair ka safar (1994, history, travelogue), and Laltain aur doosri kahaniyan (1997, stories and a novella). Collection of his humorist pieces, reviews and pen sketches will be published by City Press, Karachi
Source: Daily Dawn. |
