An Omnibus Of Contemporary Urdu Writing
Tarun K Saint
IN SEARCH OF BUTTERFLIES by Saeed Naqvi Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2018, 232 pp., 1050
September 2018, volume 42, No 9

Saeed Naqvi in the editor’s Preface states that his belief is that Urdu has served as a link language for many centuries, and that writers of Urdu literature should be better known for the common thread of humanity discernible in their stories. Perhaps for the sake of retaining the focus on the Urdu language and literature, the editor skirts the vexed history of language politics (especially with reference to the Hindi-Urdu controversies leading up to the Partition and beyond). Nonetheless, the editor has brought together, in an unobtrusive way, writing from both sides of the Radcliffe Line, primarily from the current moment. As Naqvi regrets in the preface, well-known Urdu author Intizar Husain passed away as the volume was being prepared; otherwise these writers belong to the contemporary period, rather than the generation of Manto, Ismat, Krishan Chander, Bedi and others who had seen an undivided Urdu literary sphere face the challenge of Partition in 1947. Despite steering clear of the minefield of history (especially that of Partition and its afterlife in the subcontinent), Naqvi seems to implicitly negotiate with Manto’s concern whether Urdu literature would be divided along with the land. His decision to include writings from both India and Pakistan opens up interesting parallels and divergences.

Among the authors included are well-known figures from Pakistan like Intizar Husain, Manzar Hasan, Zaheda Hina, Asif Aslam Farrukhi, and from India, Syed Mohammad Ashraf and Zakia Mashhadi feature. There are two stories by Intizar Husain in this volume, ‘The Great Mix-up’ and ‘A Cage in Waiting’. The first story belongs to the strand of Husain’s work drawing on subcontinental mythology. This parable is about the mix-up that occurs when Madan the Beautiful asks the goddess before whose statue the decapitated bodies of her brother and husband lie to restore them to life. In her hurry to see them brought back to life after the goddess grants her this wish, she fixes the wrong heads to the wrong bodies. As a result there is a unique dilemma to be faced, since Madan can tell that the hands of Dhawal, her husband are not his own. The ambiguities of complex emotions precipitated by this switch are delineated with precision, as Husain maps the contours of thwarted desire and the eventual restoration of a degree of mutuality.

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