UOM

University of Mianwali.

Department: English

Full Name: Abdullah Hassan Bilal Shah

Submitted To: Sir Mubashir Altaf

Roll No.: BENF17ME120 Semester: 7th(S.S)

[“ONCE I PASSED THROUGH A
POPOLOUS CITY”]
 INTRODUCTION
Mustansar Hussain composed this short story about a youthful Pakistani who fell in love with a French
young lady. He goes to France on visit, however the magnificence of French young lady gets him and he
thinks of it as his first love. His visa reaches a conclusion with time, however he would not like to let her
be. This book has an incredible heart contacting story of sentiment. He composed the comparable short
story and give his perspective about the poem of Walt Whitman“Once I passed through a Populous
City”
“Once I passed through a Populous City”

The story begins with the writer’s confession in which he says that he is covering his face and
is not able to show his face to anyone. He has done something that he cannot show or reveal his
face to anyone.
He has also grown very old and his physique is very weak. He refers to Ernest Hemingway
who used to say that when the thrill of life is finished it is better to commit suicide but writer was
satisfied with his life or we can say he was not so courageous to commit suicide.

He tells many things in his story but his main idea was a secret of himself which was
revealed. Actually the writer reads a poem that was written by Walt Whitman. The experiences
of the writer and Walt Whitman were so much similar that our writer thinks that it was his own
story. Our writer reads the poem that is written by Walt Whitman, a review of that summary is as
below:

The poet starts by recounting the time that he has spent a brief time visiting a populated city.
To be exact,'Passed through' the city. He also gives us a preview of the events he participated in
during his tour' exhibits, architecture, rituals of customs' Therefore, he decided to get a sense of
the area and see what it had to do, like most visitors He saw entertaining displays, puzzled about
the style, and dug into the customs and conventions that were nearby. He was an enthusiastic,
important vacationer, it seems. What's more, he wanted to remember them for potential reference
and recollection when he witnessed these experiences, just the same as a significant portion of us
on a holiday to another place.
Nonetheless, his brain is immovably hooked into one aspect of his visit. In that crowded city,
he had an easy-going friendship with a woman. She had been in love with him. Her love had
prompted him to settle back in town, even more than he had arranged.
 They went together through their days and evenings. All that the writer remembers from his
visit to that city is the time with this woman. All the other material he had forgotten to recall a
long time before. In the following line, he echoes the slant, adding that the lady clung to him
vigorously. Likewise, this line shows that their relationship was likely to be of sexual sort.

Usually, the lady, who is energetically infatuated with the artist, is miserable with their division.
She's close to crying. In her calm, trembling lips, this is mirrored. This may allude to the real
occurrence at the point of breakup. In the other hand, this may allude to the lady's vision he sees
every time he wants to relinquish her memories. He sees her sticking next to him with peace and
calm. That was the story by Walt Whitman

The writer says that when I read the poem it has revealed all of my secrets it has forced me to
hide and lower my face and eyes. It has made me notorious. The writer thought that he is
successful in hiding all of his secrets and his secrets will be buried with him.

The writer has passed from our populous city and there he met with the lady who had fallen in
love with him. All the days and all the nights they have spent with each other. They loved each
other and spent time with each other. Then the writer is very much shocked that how Walt
Whitman was able to know his secrets. He is stunned and shocked with this because he says that
this was between him and a lady and there was no third person who can know this.

The writer says that throughout the poem I felt so much embarrassed I am very much stressful
and worried. When the writer has completed the poem and he sees that I felt that I am naked
before the whole society, but he says that now many years have been passed since then and I am
now very old and if all of my experiences that what I have done in my past and especially in my
young age, when I passed through a populous city that experience is enough to expose me before
the whole society.

Why, because now the writer is leading a normal life among the society. He has grown a
beard , he goes to Mosque regularly five times a day. He weeps and cries before God for his sins
and as Walt Whitman has exposed him in his poem now he feels very much embarrassed.

The writer confesses that there was no woman who was with him, these all were his doubts and
his thoughts. Actually the writer wants to tell the facts about the old age no human who is young
can feel this until he himself grows old the writer has portrait the old age of humans. There was
no real woman he says that every old man imagines about women whom he met in a popular
city.
The writer also says that every old man needs attention and when his own wife and children do
not give importance to him he likes to imagine the women with whom he has spent his time so
that his children and wife become doubtful to him and in this way also give some importance to
that person the writer says that the woman and the populous city were the imagination of the
writer’s mind.
 References

 https://theurduwriters.com/mustansar-hussain-tarar/
 https://beamingnotes.com/2016/10/13/analysis-summary-passd-populous-city/