The death of Ahmed Nadim Qasimi (1916-2006) draws certain on a chequered career spanning over seven decades. A multi-faceted writer one could do justice to him only if his self-made life is studied with the required dispassionateness.
Born in a religious family whose head was a mystic of substantial following in Angah, Khushab (Punjab) he closely studied the life of his people hooked on fate and made to suffer all sorts of non-sense as if it was an ordained dispensation.
The romantic in young Qasimi turned him into a rebel. His poetry and shortstories depicted the life of rural Punjab the way it was not written before.
Qasimi's 10 collections of short stories and 12 collections of poetry, besides his collections of newspaper columns and stray writings, are a huge contribution by any standard. No other Urdu poet has equally been a high quality prose writer. This rare distinction of having been a towering poet and short-story writer simultaneously is possessed by to him.
His work as a columnist and literary journalist, having edited 'Phool', 'Adab-i-Lateef', 'Savera', 'Nuqoosh' and 'Funoon' (from the sixties till his death), besides Majlis Taraqqui Adab's quarterly 'Saheefa', is a rare honour.
There is hardly any other example of a writer who remained in harness for such a long time - from 1935 till his death. His last column appeared in an Urdu newspaper, on July 6, 2006 only four days before his death. What a hard working writer he was.
It is unfortunate that the last 25-30 years of his life saw some unhappy, rather tragic, episodes in his literary career. I believe that it would have been far better if he had been spared from some meaningless controversies, especially the episode of his retirement from Majlis-i-Taraqqui-i-Adab, followed by his reinstatement after a hue and cry from his friends and followers.
I don't want to discuss the nature of the sharp duels between some members of Qasimi and Wazir Agha's literary groups. Now the acrimony generated by this polemics belongs to history. As one who has been writing this column for more than 40 years I can vouchsafe for the fact that the very thought of this row running its full course is painful to think about. Inspite of the attacks on his 'ideology', Qasimi remained a progressive writer throughout his life. He was the first Secretary General of the Progressive Writers association and had resigned from the Association when this body was declared unlawful along with the Communist Party in 1954. In an interview published a few weeks before his death he reiterated that he had always been a progressive writer and would ever remain one.
Qasimi married his progressivism with his commitment to Pakistan and its cultural heritage. I believe it is an understandable position and all of us should take pride in our cultural heritage.
There is another important contribution of Qasimi he would be remembered for. It is his mentoring of three generations of Urdu writers from his editorship of Phool, Tehzib-Niswan, Adab-i-Lateef, Savera, Nuqoosh, Funoon and Sahifa. Quite a good number of present-day writers owe their emergence on the scene of literary horizon of Urdu to Qasimi. He took special care to encourage young writers. No other writer, except Qasimi, did so much to promote young talent as he did.
Urdu literature, on his death, has lost the last of the galaxy of epoch-making writers who emerged in the 30s and 40s.
In a literary reference, organised by the Academy of Letters, Karachi, Dr Zulfiqar Sayal, Nazeer Channa, Fatima Hasan, Sarshar Siddiqui, this writer, Dr Aslam Farrukhi, Dr Farman Fatehpuri and Jamiluddin Aali paid rich tribute to Qasimi Sahib. All the writers recounted Qasimi's contribution to modern Urdu literature and thought that it to be enduring.
VIKRAM'S 'UNNEESWAN ADHDHAYE':
Nand Kishore Vikram is a well-known Urdu writer from India. His periodical, "Alami Urdu Adab", has been appearing since 1984 and has earned for it a good-reputation for its annual selection of short-stories and reference value. No other journal has been so meticulous in providing brief obituaries of deceased writers during a particular year as Alami Urdu Adab.
Born in Rawalpindi in 1929, he has been associated with daily Qaomi Akhbar and Amrit, Kanpur. He also edited Irteqa and Nai Kahani, Kanpur. He later worked for monthly Aajkal, an Indian government publication since 1964.
He did his Masters in Persian and Urdu from Punjab and Delhi Universities. Besides his novel Yadoon Ke Khandar (1981) and collection of short-stories "Aawara Gard" in 1998, he has translated Quratul Ain Haider's Aag Ka Darya in Hindi and compiled books on Urdu short-story writers such as Prem Chand, Sudarshan, Ali Abbas Hussaini, Manto, Krishan Chandar, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Balwart Singh, Quratul Ain-Haider, Ismat Chughtai, Mumtaz Mufti, Davender Sathiarthi, Hans Raj Rahbar, Ahmed Nadim Qasimi, Ghulam Abbas, Khwaja Ahmed Abbas and Intezar Hussain.
Recently, I had the opportunity of going through his novel "Unniswan Adhdhaye" printed by Publishers and Advertisers F14/21(D) Krishan Nagar, Delhi. Nand Kishore Vikram has written this novel against the backdrop of partition of the sub-continent.
There are quite a number of novels and short stories on this sad and tragic chapter of the sub-continent's history but 'Unneeswan, Adhdhaye', I must admit, stands out taller than many. It is truly a tragic tale, which is outstandingly humanistic. Vikram writes as if he was recording the tragedy, which had made every human being feel small in his or her eyes.
The way hooligans, in their zest for serving their faith, killed their own human spirit is appalling. To kill a human being is the most dehumanising crime one could commit and Vikram develops this theme in a well-constructed story having all the portents of a novel - a complete habitat which has suddenly gone 'mad'.
What has struck me is that nowhere Nand Kishore Vikram has bypassed the aesthetic norms. He doesn't employ any rhetoric and stays clear of any formula-like treatment, which some important writers of Urdu fiction have done.
Maybe the novel has been written when the dust has settled and the third post-partition generation is now ruminating over the tragedy a bit dispassionately. I have been marvelling the splendid work of 'Alami Urdu Adab' in serving as a "Who was Who" in Urdu literature since 1984.