At Bulleh Shah’s shrine in Kasur, Punjab.
A few months ago I wrote about my experience of reading Bahishti Zevar. My review of the book for Open magazine is here, where I name check Mrs Bennett, Maya Khan and Farhat Hashmi.
On another note, at least one half of my family says giving this book was not a ritual because my great grandmother didn’t believe in the ideas espoused by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi.
Son, you’re going to marry a country they want to kill, one that could be simply Rwandan if it had the chance, the country of a thousand hills, which all of us, nameless and heedless of origin, have built like patient, obstinate fools. Son, we must flee the madness that invents peoples and tribes. It respects neither the country’s sons nor its daughters. It creates demons and spells, lies that become truth and rumours that are claimed as historical fact.
I am currently reading Bahishti Zevar by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, a truly fascinating book.
The preface sets the tone of the book, which – at the time it was written – was meant to educate women in the ways of the world since their lack of knowledge of social context and rules and the world was a hurdle in marital relations and motherhood.
As a guide, the book is meant to educate women in religious and social matters. There is a long, long list of sins and ‘bad habits’, such as…
قبروں پر دھوم دھام سے میلہ کرنا. چراغ جلانا. عورتوں کا وہاں جانا. چادریں ڈالنا. پختہ قبر بنانا
I have been meaning to read Bahishti Zevar for several years now. I believe it was a tradition in my family to give copies of the book to brides-to-be, though I am not aware of when this ended. I haven’t heard of a copy being given in the past two decades.
The section on letter writing outlines how to write to and address family members – save for:
دیور اور جیٹھ سے جہاں تک ہوسکے خط و خطابت نہ رکھو. زیادہ میل جول نہ بڑھاؤ. اگر کبھی ایسی ضرورت آ پڑے تو خیر لکھ دو اور انکو جناب بھی صاحب کرکے لکھ دو.
I’ve resisted the urge to skip ahead and read the more interesting chapters so am going through it rather slowly. I’ll blog more excerpts later on, but here’s a couplet from a poem in the first chapter:
سب سے اچھا پاؤں کا زیور یہ ہے نور بصر
تم رہو ثابت قدم ہر وقت راہ نیک
In the section on letter-writing, there is an example of a letter written by a father to his daughter admonishing her for being ‘influenced’ to not study. (Apologies for the spelling of ba’azi, Google Transliterate didn’t understand the word). I thought this was an interesting point to highlight. The ‘father’s’ reasons – far too long to type out – include that education also boosts one’s social standing.
اس خط سے یہ بھی معلوم ہوا کہ تم کو لکھنے پڑھنے کا کچھ شوق نہیں ہے, اور اس میں بہت کم دل لگاتی ہو. یہ بھی سنا کہ بازی عورتیں تمھارے لکھنے پڑھنے پر یوں کہتی ہیں کہ لڑکیوں کو لکھنے پڑھانے سے کیا فائدہ. ان کو تو سینا پرونا، کھانا پکانا، چکن وغیرہ کاڑھنا سکھانا چاہئے. ان کو پڑھا لکھا کر کیا مردوں کی طرح مولوی بنانا ہے
معلوم ہوتا ہے کہ انہی لوگوں کہ بہکانے سے تمہارا دل اچاٹ ہوگیا. اور تم نے محنت ختم کردی. اے میری بیٹی! تم ان بیواقوف عورتوں کے کہنے پر ہرگز نہ جانا اور یہ سمجھو کہ مجھ سے بڑھ کر کوئی دوسرا تمہارا خیر خوا ہ نہیں ہو سکتا اس لئے میری یہ نصیحت یاد رکھو کہ ان عورتوں کا یہ کہنا بلکل بیوقوفی ہے. کم سے کم اتنا ہر عورت کے لئے ضروری ہے کہ اردو لکھ پڑھ لیا کرے. اس میں بڑے فائدے ہیں. اور لکھنا پڑھنا نہ جاننے میں بڑے بڑے نقصان ہیں.
In the ‘reply’, the ‘daughter’ writes that after receiving her father’s letter, she is now motivated to study. She explains that she has understood the importance of education, especially after witnessing the dilemma of a woman in the neighbourhood, who could not read a letter containing news of an ailing relative.
The daughter, taking on the theme of social standing, mentions how five women in the family are esteemed and recognised at women’s gatherings because they are able to advise and reprimand their peers by using their knowledge.
مغرب کے بعد بیچاری میرے پاس آئیں تو میں نے حال سنایا. تب ان کا جی ٹھکانے ہوا تب سے میرے جی کو یہ بات لگی کہ بیشک پڑھنے لکھنے کا ہنر بھی بڑی دولت ہے. اور اس کے نہ جاننے سے بعضے وقت بڑی مصیبت پڑتی ہے اور یہ بھی میں دیکھتی ہوں کہ ہماری برادری میں پانچ بیبیاں خوب پڑھی لکھی ہیں وہ جہاں جاتی ہیں ان کی بڑی عزت ہوتی ہے. جو بات خلاف شرع کسی سے ہوجاتی ہے یا بیاہ شادی میں کوئی بری رسم ہوتی ہے تو اس کو ٹوکتی ہیں. منا کرتی ہیں. خوب سمجھا کر نصیحت کرتی ہیں. اور سب بیبیاں چپکی ہوکر کان لگا کر سنتی ہیں. جو کوئی بات پوچھنا ہوتی ہے ان سے ہی پوچھتی ہیں. بیبیوں میں سب سے پہلے وہی پوچھی جاتی ہیں. ساری بیبیاں ان کی تعریف کرتی رہتی ہیں.
The ‘shame’ of being ‘uneducated’, at least from the tone, is not just about knowing the basics, but also about how you use that education.
Would the modern-day version of Bahishti Zevar, today, be the interpretations being taught by the likes of Farhat Hashmi, Umme Hassan or city-based institutes such as Markaz Fahm-e-Deen? Has this tome been replaced by their teachings, and its ‘definitive’ status by how the former two are recognised in society? [There is a strong sense among the madaris that Umme Hassan and Maulana Abdul Aziz are now recognised as an institution onto themselves]
As a side note, artist Naiza Khan interpreted Bahishti Zevar in works of metal – such as a chastity belt – for an exhibit a few years ago. If any one knows of any other recent interpretations of the book, do let me know.
I am speechless.
The Last Word blog on the adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is being directed by Mira Nair:
Day Two of the auditions for The Reluctant Fundamentalist continue in Lahore. So far Samina Peerzada, Ali Zafar, Adnan Malik, Ayesha Khan, Khalid Malik, Adeel Hussain and Fawad khan have been seen heading in the direction of Gulberg….. enough said.
But then, someone else had the best idea of all time.
Remember the ’90s? Remember Spiceworld? Remember the return of platform shoes? Oh, say it isn’t so…
The creator of global hit Mamma Mia! is teaming up with media tycoon Simon Fuller to bring a Spice Girls musical to life, she announced today.
Judy Craymer, who is reckoned to be worth £75 million from her film and stage hit based on Abba songs, will bring her magic touch to the show, which is tentatively titled Viva Forever.
A Spice Girls musical has been rumoured for a number of months after the band met up to discuss the project, but has only now finally been confirmed.…The musical is being billed as a production which will “harness the distinct personality of The Spice Girls to create a musical that celebrates the energy and excitement of the biggest girl-band of all time”.
Definitely a must-read via The New Yorker – on creative writing and the history of workshops aiming to teach it. It makes for an interesting debate of whether it can be taught or workshops just provide a great environment to cultivate ideas. Some excerpts:
The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop is the most renowned creative-writing program in the world. Sixteen Pulitzer Prize winners and three recent Poet Laureates are graduates of the program. But the school’s official position is that the school had nothing to do with it. “The fact that the Workshop can claim as alumni nationally and internationally prominent poets, novelists, and short story writers is, we believe, more the result of what they brought here than of what they gained from us,” the Iowa Web site explains. Iowa merely admits people who are really good at writing; it puts them up for two years; and then, like the Wizard of Oz, it gives them a diploma. “We continue to look for the most promising talent in the country,” the school says, “in our conviction that writing cannot be taught but that writers can be encouraged.”
The creative-writing program is an American invention, and it has recently become an American export. The British were at first contemptuous of the idea of creative-writing courses; they regarded them, as the critic and novelist Malcolm Bradbury once put it, as being “like the hamburger—a vulgar hybrid which, as everyone once knew, no sensible person would ever eat.” The first British master’s-degree program in creative writing opened in 1970. Bradbury and Angus Wilson set it up. (Bradbury taught Ian McEwan.) The first undergraduate degree program was not instituted until 1991. But the vulgar hybrid has spread. McGurl reports that there are now writing programs in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, and the Philippines.
Still, the rise of creative-writing programs does not explain everything about postwar fiction, and there are some obvious limitations to McGurl’s argument, which he tends to acknowledge in the abstract but to ignore in the particular analysis. Plenty of postwar writers, from J. D. Salinger and Vladimir Nabokov to Thomas Pynchon, had little or nothing to do with writing programs. (Nabokov taught a course on the novel at Cornell, in which Pynchon was a student, but he never taught creative writing. Harvard once considered hiring Nabokov to teach literature; Roman Jakobson, then a professor of linguistics there, is supposed to have asked whether the university was also prepared to hire an elephant to teach zoology.)
I love the Guardian. Today they had a brilliant story on the gifts being given to G20 attendees – and this bit made me wish I could one day be half as witty as this:
What about those world leaders who don’t wear ties – German chancellor Angela Merkel, say, or Nehru-jacket-sporting Indian premier Manmohan Singh? Will they get an alternative gift? “I don’t know,” sighs a long-suffering No 10 spokesman. “I’ll get someone to call you back with that information.” At the time of going to press, no one has.
But the story of the day: they’ve opened up a thread asking people to send in their own rejection letters to famous authors after news broke that T.S.Eliot had rejected George Orwell’s manuscript of Animal Farm. The comments that have ensued are pure literary revenge – and a shoutout to Alex for ripping Coelho apart!
Presenting – the best of the faux rejections:
Dear Gabriele Garcia Marquez
Sorry I couldn’t be bothered to check how to spell your name, but given that I wasted several hours of my life reading your appalling “100 Years of Solititude”, you’ll forgive me for not giving a flying fuck monkey.
I understand that it has now been heralded as a “classic”, the “pinacle” of “magical realism”.
Unfortunately, this is a terrible and undeserved misrepresentation of your silly book, which lacks any kind of narrative or character development.
Indeed, on that last point, do you know what a character is? Yours appear to change every 5 pages, and so it is impossible to form any attachment or interest in them – the result being that your tedious repitition of “firing squads” and “gypsies trading mackaws for beads” become increasingly infuriating and pointless.
I am firmly of the opinion that 90% of the people who say they have read your book gave up before the end, and only 10% of those who say they liked it really meant it. The rest were lying because they thought it was the “intellectual” thing to say.
Now sod off and don’t ever waste my time again.
Dear Miss C Bronte,
I read with great boredom, disdain and growing suicidal inclinations your utterly tedios ‘novel’ Jayne Eyre.
Your protagonist is a pathetic whimp, her lover a buffoon, and his mad wife a piece of over-the-top pantomime.
Your characters are churlish and irritating, and the Christian guilt latent in every page speaks more of your own narrow mind than a normal human being’s experiences.
As for sodding off to China to become a missionary, perhaps this is a path you should pursue rather than write about. You never know, it might help with the TB.
Yours
Paul Sagar
P.S. What a shame you couldn’t emulate your sister, who managed to write something actually worth reading in her Wuthering Heights.
Dear Reality TV Show Contestant Whose Name Everybody Has Already Forgotten,
An autobiography? You’re 21 and the pinnacle of your achievements is sitting on your arse in a house for 10 weeks arguing about being disrespected because somebody put the loo paper on the wrong way. If you want to get published I suggest you shag a minor league footballer and speak to the News of the World.
Dear Mr. Hitler:
I am afraid your book is much too long and the subject matter is unlikely to appeal to a wide audience. I don’t want to go so far as to say it is incoherent, but it would require a good deal of editing and to be honest I haven’t got anybody who would be willing to do it.
You mentioned in Chapter II of your manuscript an early interest in art, namely; drawing and painting. I do think that you are more likely to find satisfaction pursuing a course in that direction. Perhaps, landscapes.
Dear Mr. Rushdie,
I hope you’re better at chutney making than novel writing. After wading through your newest manuscript, I now realise Mr. Khomeini was only trying to do us a favour.
Dear Mr Dickens
it can’t have been both the best of times and the worst of times. Feel free to get back to us when you’re more clear about your take on the period.
Dear Mr. Hardy:
We have found the suggested title of ‘Jude the Obscure’ to be more than apt.
We look forward, without anticipation, to the submission of your next manuscript entitled, ‘Sethwyn the most incredibly effing boring person to ever walk the planet’.
Mr Dickens,
Nice stories, well rounded characters. But why the ridiculous names ?
Yours
Ignatius Pickenpeckensniff
Dear Mr. Coelho,
Having you read your manuscript “The Alchemist” it is quite clear that you have plagiariased all your ideas from other major spiritual & religious texts and are now trying to pass them off as a fresh brand of new age nonsense. Unfortunately, our esteemed publishing house does not publish mind-rotting self-pompous swill. Moreover, it is also quite clear from the manuscript that you’re a very bad writer. Your language is primitive, uninspiring and your narratives are dull. I recommend you put your obvious love of yourself to a better use and start your own cult, I’m sure you would have many followers. Alternatively read Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha for an example of a good fictional work of spirituality.
Sincerely,
Penguin Spiritual Publishers.
If you read one book this year, make it this.
I would write more: but as is the case with books that have been eagerly awaited and previewed and praised to the skies before they come out, it is often hard to find words that haven’t been said before. And its a Sunday and I would rather not use cliches to describe this book, for it is anything but. Just go buy it when it arrives in bookstores sometime next week.
