Review

Reviewed Work(s): Basti by Intizar Husain, Frances W. Pritchett and Mohammad Umar
Memon
Review by: Nishat Zaidi
Source: Indian Literature , March-April 2008, Vol. 52, No. 2 (244) (March-April 2008), pp.
179-184
Published by: Sahitya Akademi

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24159421

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Mohammad Ali, in Independent India. The irony is that India has attained
freedom from colonial exploiters and yet is bound by communal forces,
which use religion as a marker of differences. Overthrow of a political
regime has not ushered in an era of perfection; an expectation which
is put very apdy by the author when he writes:

they flocked out of their homes as if their only job

after Independence would be to carry small flags and
roam around exulting in the spirit of unrestrained joy,
shouting 'Hindustan Zindabad'

The book is worth reading because it awakens us to the retroactive

dangers that venomous intolerance can unleash. It teaches that there is
no right way to do wrong things. It poses questions that we need to
ask ourselves, it prompts us to understand the correct path and follow
it carefully and fearlessly, because one slip on this path can causé injury
to generations.

Farhat Nasreen

Basti by Intizar Husain, translated from Urdu by Frances W Pritchett

with an Introduction by Mohammad Umar Memon, New Delhi, OUP,
Pp.254, Rs. 345/

Partitions, 1947 and then 1971, led to an assortment of related literature

produced across the Indian subcontinent. While the sundry books produced
from both sides of the fence are resonant with the acute trauma and

pain, Intizar Husain's Basti is a departure as its approach to the subject

is rather reflective. Instead of suffusing the narrative with gory tales of
violence and melodrama capturing meaningless human actions, Basti takes
a dispassionate jab at the events. It explores the myth of creation of
Pakistan from the perspective of an average informed Pakistani who
was once ready to sacrifice everything for the now-failed idea of partition
based on communal difference.

The book begins with an Introduction by eminent scholar M.U.

Memon. In as much as this Introduction puts the novel in perspective
Nis hat Zaidi / 179

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by summarizing the reception of the novel in Urdu critical domain, it
is quite useful. But Memon goes a step further and sets a rather unfortunate
agenda for the novel by attempting to read it. from the perspective of
Shi'ite theology and history—searching for the submissive attitude of the
protagonist Zakir in his Shi'ite origin.

I strongly feel that a truly Shi'ite personality, formed

in the tragic aftermath of Karbala, inherendy transcends
involvements in issues pertaining to profane time, or
articulates them in unmistakably religious terms (xxi),

says Memon. It is, however, an inopportune attempt to influence and

condition the average readers' minds. Memon's inference that Zakir is
"a typical Shi'ite name" itself reeks of an offhand approach. He says
this without any statistical evidence. On the contrary, in the subcontinent,
Zakir is a common Muslim name without any distinction of sects. Prominent
people like Zakir Hussain, the former President of India and Zakir Naik,
a famous Islamist of the day, are a few glaring non-examples. While
the book has overt references to Shi'ite history and worldview, for someone
who goes back to national history and mythic past to make sense of
the present, it is natural to turn to cultural history. Hence, Memon's setting
up of the tone earlier in the book, not only ghettoizes an otherwise
secular novel which deals with issues of far greater importance than that
but this 'Intentional Fallacy' also harms the unbiased readership that the
book genuinely deserves. Husain himself laughs off M.U. Memon's Zakir's
Shi'ite origin theory. (234)
Away from the ideological and theological grounds that critics of
various hues have tried to trace in the book, Basti is a fine commentary
on the failed idea of creation of Pakistan and emergence of a broken
reality—a reality that defines Pakistan even today. What is also remarkable
is the literary richness of the novel. It had to be so, for Intizar Husain
is arguably one of the two most authentic living writers of Urdu prose
(another being Nayyar Masud after the recent demise of Qurratulain
Haider).
Throughout the eleven chapters of the novel, images from the
historical and mythic past keep commingling with 'the present and the
narrative jostles between the two time-frames, thereby foregrounding the
recurrent pattern of history. Zakir, the protagonist, is a history teacher
caught in the midst of a national crisis (the 1971 partition of Pakistan)
that led to an unprecedented violence in Lahore. If 1947 Partition signaled
loss to the Indian side, it also gave birth to a new nation. For Muslim
intellectuals who favored the newly created nation, it was a thoroughly
180 / Indian Uterature : 244

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promising moment, setting off a creative process. However, 1971 partition
of Pakistan questioned its very ideological foundations. Basti deals with
the shattering of the dreamland Pakistan, with the surfacing of Bangladesh.
Husain explains in an interview with Memon:

There comes a time when a nation completely forgets

its past. So that experience, I mean the experience of
Partition, is unfortunately lost to us and on us. And
the great expectation we had of creating something out
of it at the creative level and of exploiting it,
developing.. .sensibility, that bright expectation has now
faded and gone, (xxx)

In the characters of Afzal, Irfan, Zawar and Salamat, we see the

disillusionment of the young Pakistanis with the unwinding process of
history. Zakir's reaction, however, is different. Being a teacher of history,
he has a more contemplative attitude. Surrounded by the sounds of
sloganeering, shouting and bullets, Zakir withdraws into himself. "The
more the turmoil increases outside, the more I sink into myself."(5) The
memories consist of the "mythic era" (29) of Zakir's life in Rupnagar
and Vyaspur in India, towns which represent a mix of the ideal and
the real, where co-existence of Hindus and Muslims was a way of life
and "from the Black Temple to Karbala, from Karbala to the Fort, from
the Fort to the Ravan Wood" there was an uninterrupted continuity, where
Bhagat ji's tales drawn from Ramayana and Mahabbarata intertwined with
and found an echo in Abba Jan's recounting of the sayings of the Prophet.
In the first three chapters, these two time-frames are interwoven. Speaking
of his use of the past, Intizar Husain explains,

When I am unable to understand some new situation,

I often turn for inspiration to old stories of past or
long-ago events or tales of Sufis."(233)

The protagonist continues to delve into personal history, national

history and the collective unconscious to comprehend the present chaos.
While in Chapter Four, past merges with the present as Zakir's first day
in Pakistan after his migration from India is described, Chapter Five is
focused on chaos and confusion in the city as war becomes imminent
in Pakistan; "Will there be war or not?"(95), is a question that reverberates
through the entire chapter. Chapter Six again attempts to catch up with
the past as Zakir's college friend Surendar's letter arrives from India,
describing Sabirah's (Zakir's childhood love) loneliness and her refusal to

Nishat Zaidi / 181

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part with Zakir's memories. Surendar is a victim of the same melancholy
and angst as being experienced by Zakir. Surendar writes, "My dear friend,
for m e now there's nothing but m elanchoV. Yar, you must have earned
something since you've gone there. Staying here I haven't earned anything.
I've only wasted my life." (Ill)
Partition leads to the loss of the 'other' causing animosity between
the two divided countries. Surendar's letter also refers to this loss of

the other, "When I go there, the town seems to ask, "Where is the other?"
(110). This clearly contrasts with the so called 'revolutionaries' in Pakistan
who refuse any communication with the 'other' as they declare "There
will be no confederation with India. There will be war."(96) "The whole
idea of revenge, as it is played out in the personal and collective histories
is a rejection of the human."(6), writes Jasbir Jain. As Zakir moves from
the spatio-temporal setting of his past memory to his immediate reality,
we see slogans such as "Quit India" being replaced by the slogan "Crush
India." This is reflective of the denial of the "other."
Curfew, sirens, blackouts, caved existences and silenced human voices
are the images which dominate Chapter Seven as it foregrounds the
outbreak of war. Presented in the form of Zakir's war-time diary, these
images, however, are interspersed with mythic stories from Jataka, Arabian
Nights and also the national history of 1857. Thus, in the elephant and
tortoise story, the swampy lake is the result of brothers demanding more
than their share. In Abul Hasan's story from Thousand and One Nights,
heads of the two wisest men are found to be without brains. The 1857
rumours about Persian army coming to rescue the Mughal emperor are
echoed in the 1971 rumour in Pakistan about Chinese Army joining in.
Defeat in 1857 is juxtaposed with the defeat of Pakistani army in 1971.
Chapter Eight traces the impact of the creation of Bangladesh on the
psyche of an average Pakistani. Each citizen feels defeated and humiliated.
This is expressed again through the historical figure of Tantya Tope who
claims that earlier he was fighting for the throne of India, but now he
is fighting for the soul of India. Once again, the use of contrapuntal
time-frames!

The tropes of violence, loss of lives and trauma, are always

inextricably associated with Partition. Chapter Nine focuses on the fate
of those who chose East Pakistan in 1947, but in 1971 barely managed
to escape the violence-stricken Bangladesh and survive, "...others who
emerged from the land of disaster set out for Nepal and contrived to
come from there to here. Others left through Burma and endured hardship
and pain on their way back. Many returned after suffering imprisonment
in India."(170)

182 I Indian Literature : 244

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 Partition throughout the novel is referred to as the loss of a brother
or fight and split between brothers, e.g. repeated reference to the story
of Cain and Abel, reference to the fight between the brothers in the
story of elephant and tortoise etc. In Chapter Ten, Khwaja Sahib again
alludes to the same metaphor, "...are people in their senses nowadays?
They've lost half the country, and haven't come to their senses. He's lost
only a brother."(181) Zakir's father's death symbolically marks the end
of the hope with which Muslim intellectuals had started off in 1947.
Chapter Eleven finally brings together all these images from Zakir's present,
historical past and mythic past in a fine symphony as it traces Zakir's
psychic state in the post-Bangladesh partition scenario in a dreamlike surreal
manner. Here again, one finds it difficult to reconcile to Memon's view
that this chapter is redundant. In fact, the novel achieves its unity of
structure only after this collage of fractured images where wisdom from
all directions seems to echo the same truth proving the futility of the
very human desire to create anything new.
Pritchett, an authentic translator of Urdu into English deserves praise
for this rather difficult and challenging academic work. But expectedly,
the various nuances of Urdu language and Husain's mastery do come
under a lot of pressure in the process. The debate, whether a translation
should be faithful to the Source Language (SL) or adhere to the demands
of the Target Language, is not new in the domain of translation praxis
and theory. Pritchett's translation of Basti, one of the most accomplished
works produced in Urdu in the twentieth century, stands out as an example
of doing the former by often neglecting the demands of the target language.
Although Pritchett claims in her introduction that "I have tried to make
the translation convenient both to the readers who know a great deal
about South Asia...My goal has not been to make characters sound like
Americans. I want a careful balance: sentences that are within the range
of Standard English, but a rhythm that retains the flow of Urdu" (xxxv
vi), she often ends up doing the opposite. Notwithstanding the erudition
and the scholarship of Pritchett, what emerges from this translation is
that in her over-enthusiasm to make her translation faithful to the source
language and text, she has often lost the balance to retain the spirit of
both target and source languages. One finds it difficult to explain the
ungrammaticality of sentences such as "In those lanes were so many houses
that had no need for woven grass screens."(35), or "Since Bi Amma's
passing he now asked Ammi everything." The criterion for retaining the
indigenous words also does not seem to be consistent. While some words
of endearment such as Khala Jan, Ammi, Abba Jan, Mian, Yar, Ai etc.
have been retained, Sharifan Bua has been translated as "Auntie Sharifan"
(25), lbetd as 'son' or 'Mian' as 'Sir' (180). Culture-specific words such
Nishat Zaidi / 183

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as rod, tawa have been very oddly translated as bread and pan. Translations
such as 'burning ground' (31) for 'marghat or 'hourglass shape drum'
for cdamrü "Bi Amma had been called home by God" (26) for "Bi
Amma Allah ko pyari ho chuki theen" or "Oh go on" (30) for "Chal chat\
"Coming and going" (44) for "Aatey jaatejj" do not seem to work well
in English as they may not make any sense to an Anglophone audience.
Despite these issues of fidelity and postcoloniality, one must ac
knowledge that translation of a much-nuanced writer of Urdu like Intizar
Husain into English is not easy as he uses different dialects for people
belonging to different classes. A few samples of the original may be
of interest to the Hindi/Urdu knowing readers:

"Moko to bhaiyya chudail ne pakad liyo"

—Sharifan Bua, the maid
"...kya kya ^amana aya aur gu^ar gaya..."
—Abba Jaan
"Ai hai Batul ne to men tilli ukhaad ke rakh di'
—Ammi Jaan

Considering all this, Frances W Pritchett deserves appreciation for un

dertaking this intricate task. What is also praiseworthy is the fact that
she has retained the original title and not attempted to translate it. The
extensive glossary at the end of the book will also be useful for the
non-Urdu/Hindi audience. The Introduction by M U Memon, Translator's
Introduction and author's Interview with Asif Farrukhi, makes it indeed
very useful, even though, as mentioned earlier, the sequence may be argued.
The translation, as Pritchett tells us, was first published in 1995. Oxford
University Press must also be congratulated for bringing out this new
edition as the novel Basti is one of the most significant novels in the
genre of Partition literature. Given the spurt of interest shown by scholars
of English in this subject where writers like Gyanendra Pandey, Alok
Bhalla and Jasbir Jain, Urvashi Butalia have come with excellent books
on the subject in recent times, one must acknowledge that this is a very
timely publication.

Reference

1. Jain, Jasbir, 2007. "Introduction: Creativity and Narratibility." In Jasbir Jain

ed. Reading Partition/Living Partition, Jaipur: Rawat Publications.

Nishat Zaidi
184 / Indian Literature : 244

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