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Literary Review
TRANSLATION
Window on the world
ZIYA US SALAM
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Hameeda shows rare insight in recounting events as they were.
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My Fellow Traveller: A Translation of Humsafar; Hameeda Akhtar Husain Raipuri, Oxford University Press, Rs. 495.
A COUPLE of years ago Sethu Ramaswamy penned Bride at 10, Mother at 15. And many of us sat back amazed at the tale of a woman who had had formal schooling only until Std. V, and then forgotten about picking up her pen till she lost her husband in old age. The book was published nearly 10 years after the housewife-turned-writer had written it.
Now, it seems history is on a rewind mode. Well, not really, considering that Hameeda Akhtar Husain Raipuri's story was published a decade ago, as she wrote it, that is, three years after her husband had walked into eternal light. But a combination of the critic's ignorance and the translator's diffidence meant that one had to wait for Amina Azfar's English version of the original work in Urdu. Incidentally, like Sethu, Hameeda also needed a catalyst to get rid of the initial inertia.
Spellbinding
The result has been similarly spellbinding as Hameeda, with no literary pretensions to talk of, has been able to give an insight into the world of the haves and happening at a time when studying in vilayat was the ultimate status symbol, when men gathered to talk for hours about ideological ramifications, there was poetry in discussions, and life almost always a step away from literature. If Sethu's catalyst was her daughter busy with her research in Shimla, Hameeda's was Dr. Jamil Jalibi, who is described in the foreword by Mushfiq Khwaja as the one who "had been salvaging writers from moth-eaten scripts all his life, but the question here was of a living woman, in whom Jalbi Sahib's discerning eye could spot an author with style".
Indeed, Hameeda put pen to paper at the age of 72, having spent her life in the shadows, almost always a step behind her husband, Akhtar Husain Raipuri, whom she held up on a pedestal. He was a writer and a critic who had written Gard-e-Rah to critical acclaim. Now, surprisingly, his wife, who often wondered what went on behind closed doors in rooms full of books and clippings, has written an account that complements his; and in many ways shows him in better light than modesty allowed him to do on his own. When she first wrote on the prompting of Jalibi, and support of Fehmida Riyaz, her writing created quite a stir, as the Urdu journal Afkar in Pakistan featured it in a series and got an enthusiastic response from the readers. Indeed, Hameeda shows a rare insight and even rarer fearlessness in recounting the events as they were. Of course, a photographic memory helps, but when she talks of her early days, the time she shared with Uzra Butt, Zohra Segal's sister, and the constant support their father provided for their creative pursuits in the face of social opposition, she is both fearless and frank. She even talks openly of Majaz's sister and her forays to the brother's room to lay hands on a magazine forbidden to them. Together they used to appreciate the writings of one Akhtar, who was eventually to become Hameeda's fellow traveller, a companion.
Written in a conversational style, addressed to Dr. Jalibi, Hameeda peppers her sentences with intricate, and at times, intrusive details. For instance, the otherwise no-nonsense man Maulvi Abdul Haq, known as Baba-e-Urdu, is shown as singing at weddings, playing badminton, a far cry from the man who would not let any resident have a proper lunch at home: it was just a banana with a glass of juice! Of course, there are blanks left about the parting of ways between Raipuri and Haq, and a few questions unanswered. But then Hameeda cannot be accused of deliberate omission; her account flows from her life, her husband's life. It is about real life with no hyperbole, little understatement about how the little girl found her feet in the world of big names, big stakes. The window to the world of others, even figures as notable as Jawaharlal Nehru, is just that: a window, not a passage to walk into another life, and savour every moment as an onlooker.
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