Love is a country with its own climate”

– Taufiq Rafat
When Socrates was asked where he was from, he replied, “I’m from the world.”
Art transcends borders and limitations of cultural and geographic bounds. The
message of the effective writer is so profound that regardless of where he
hails from, it echoes with the reader no matter where he reads it. Writers from
the diaspora or local Anglophone writers both have known and seen the
Western culture from a close quarter. They are hence poised, if not better then
equally well, to write about their experiences. Somehow, the writers I have
taken upon in this essay — Taufiq Rafat, Kaleem Omer and Shoaib bin Hassan
– provide a partial closure to the conundrum of expatriate Pakistani authors.
The current misconception facing upcoming Pakistani novelists is precisely the
ignorance of the concept, ‘from particular to universal’. The reverse is being
practised instead, ‘from universal that comes to nothing’. Only when we begin
to talk about the local culture and character can we provide the projection to
our culture and writing which can appeal to the masses abroad. With more
and more carbon copies of the Western writing and their ethos, there is little
promise that our literature holds for the future
. Exposure to Western literature has taught us the language of the West but
what we fail to recognise is we have forgotten the true indigenous language
of our country. What is the language that the current Anglophone literature
fails to encapsulate? It is the Pakistani idiom. Through this instrument, the
language of English no longer remains that of the coloniser. It switches
connotation and it is a remarkable way of owning the language.
The idea was introduced by Taufiq Rafat, who was considered Ezra Pound of
Pakistan. Born in 1928 and educated at Aligarh and Lahore, he was a towering
Pakistani poet and author. He was the one who initially propagated the
concept of our native identity that must reflect in the works of Pakistani
authors. It does not mean that writers start employing Urdu vocabulary to
further the idea of Pakistani-ness in their writing, instead, it is the process of
translation and reflection of Pakistani culture, religion, heritage, nature, society
and ethos at large into the English canon. The weather, flora and fauna, sights
and smells and people are all so local, so indigenous to our heritage and
country that writers have given it all a new perspective while writing about it. A
new freshness and a new start. Taufiq Rafat wrote poetry collections
called The Arrival of Monsoon, Half Moon and Foothold  which was a drama –
they all are reminiscent of a beautifully well-crafted Pakistani idiom that
introduces the country like no one could imagine possible. Inherent to India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh and a few other countries, the monsoon season holds
such a spell over the writers that the West reads it and cannot help but be
transported to the sights and sounds of the season. The summer season and
monsoon weather happens to be a consistent phenomenon of Pakistani
writers where they talk effusively about rain. Taufiq Rafat writes in Arrival of
the Monsoon:
Alive, Alive, everything is alive- again./ Savour the rain’s coolness on lips and
eyes.”
The time of rain remains the most soul-inspiring and creativity-boosting of all
the seasons.
In one of his poems, Children Understand Him, another one of our cultural
treasures is wonderfully cherished.  A grandfather is brought out as an image
of reliance and trust for his grandchildren. Exactly how it ideally is in our
culture where three generations reside together and flourish seeing one
another grow. The modern world has taken away even this cultural privilege
from us with receding levels of tolerance, integrity and patience. He writes,
“they understand him./ From man-roar, and friendly/ punches to the chest,/
and damp kisses on scrubbed cheeks,/ they sail to the harbour of his knees.”
In his drama, Foothold, Rafat explores the spiritual journey of Saleem and his
two disciples. The story begins at a busy railway station which symbolises life
and the transitory nature of this world. Further, into the story, it is an
existentialist portrayal of Saleem’s life and his two friends, Mustafa and Ali.
Themes of bathos, suicide, extremism in society and eventually gaining a
foothold through the chaos are recurring themes. Stationmaster’s words ring
true,
“Mobs are easier to understand than individuals; generalities simpler to
define.”
Rafat shows the complexity of humankind and how much effort it takes to
understand each individual and take them on their own merit instead of using
sweeping generalisations. Local setting and idioms are used to convey
universal lessons. At one of the places the idiom used is “I scratched the dust
of the courts… in search for the bone of justice.” This is a direct translation
from Urdu and also the social dilemma of justice delayed to the needy and
underprivileged in our country. It is an attempt at battling the corrupt social
legacy left by the coloniser by using his own language and beating him at it.
Exposure to Western literature has taught us the language of the West but what we fail
to recognise is we have forgotten the true indigenous language of our country. What is
the language that the current Anglophone literature fails to encapsulate? It is the
Pakistani idiom.

Pakistani literature in English daims to have its own idiom reflecting Pakistani culture, society and
mannerisms. It also has its own system of symbols, reflecting its "Pakistaniness". Such a system, in
terms of a local idiom, imagery and symbolism, has emerged more visibly in Pakistani poetry than in
fiction, and no other Pakistani poet has contributed more, in shaping a distinct Pakistani idiom, than
Taufiq Rafat.

Long before the flowering of Pakistani fiction in English that we witness now, it was due to the poetic
contributions of some fine poets of Pakistan that registered Pakistan's presence on the literary map
of the world. Whereas India, Australia and some African countries have produced fiction of high
standard, Pakistani poets like Daud Kamal, Taufiq Rafat, Alamgir Hashmi and others have
established an excellent English verse tradition. In this regard, Taufiq Rafat (1927-1998), one of the
major Pakistani poets writing in English, has a unique role and place - not only for developing a
particularly "Pakistani idiom" in English, as conceded by Tariq Rehman (1991), Muneeza Shamsie
(1997) and others, but also for his depiction of intensely "Pakistani" and "Asian" scenes of everyday
life as lived by millions in the Subcontinent.