Urdu another attraction for Pashto writers

Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari, a famous Pushtun poet of the 20th century, once started this couplet in Urdu: ‘Laila nazar aata hai, Majnoon nazar aati hai…’ and the people in the mushaira began laughing at his wrong Urdu genders. But then he continued: ‘Duniya ka har naqsha ulta nazar aata hai’ and the audience quieted down pondering over the deeper meaning of Pashtun Baba’s wordplay. This incident shows that Pashto writers and poets have used Urdu as much fluidly as their mother tongue when it came to literature. This history goes back to early 16th century Sufi writer Pir Roshan from South Waziristan, who penned down the first ever Pashto book Khairul Bayan in an embellished prose style. Dr Tariq Rehman, an authority on Pakistani languages, quoting Dr Jameel Jalibi argues that one portion of Khairul Bayan is written in early Urdu script, proving that it was the first ever book to be written in Urdu. This was later followed by great works of the likes of Rahman Baba and Khushhal Khan Khattak in the 17th century and Qasim Ali Khan Afridi in 18th century who wrote a complete Diwan in Urdu. Urdu has been adopted by many masters of languages who are versatile and not limited to one language for their expression. The wider reach of Urdu today becomes added temptation for many Pashto writers to write in Urdu as well. And for Urdu speakers, this is a positive move too because it gives them an insight into the Pashto world. Karachi-based Pashtun fiction writer Tahir Afridi has five Pashto short-story collections to his credit, one of which titled Deedan was published in the late 90s. This short story collection was so well received in Urdu literary circles that it crossed over the border and reached New Delhi. To Afridi’s work, a critic in Delhi remarked that this was the first time he had seen inside the Pashtun psyche and social traditions through the eye of a Pashtun writer in such refined Urdu. But the role of Pashto for Urdu is more than to serve as a window into the Pashtun world. Urdu has also acted as the bridge between literature in other languages and Pashto. Pashto has borrowed many literary/creative genres from English, Arabic and Persian via Urdu. Had there been no bridge of Urdu language, perhaps Pashtun poets and writers would have been deprived of the best thought and imaginative modes of expression. Many literary genres from Persian, Arabic and English languages have also come to Pashto via Urdu, like the ghazal, nazm, qaseeda, rubai, short story, novel etc. So, any literary genre or trend that emerges in Urdu is immediately adopted by Pashtun poets and writers. The azad nazm and Japanese Haiku are some of the recent adoptions. Recently, translation of Urdu works into Pashto has also been taken up on a large scale. Great Urdu poets and fiction writers like Allama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Krashan Chander and Saadat Hassan Manto have been converted into Pushto. Hamdullah Rahi, a young poet from Talash, Dir Lower, launched the translation of Ghalib’s Diwan in 2011 which took him a laborious five years. But the flow is not one-way. Pashto writers have also inspired translations into Urdu. The complete Diwan of Rahman and selected poems of Khushhal Baba have been rendered into Urdu by Professor Taha Khan. And as a result of this two-way flow, Urdu today is being adopted by Pashto writers in a greater frequency than ever. Urdu literature has scaled the heights of success in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa both in substance and style. Today Pashtun poets, fictionist and prose writers are writing on almost every topic and are expressing in all literary genres in Urdu with great ease and comfort. Even young Pashtun Urdu poets and fiction writers are devoting their full time to expression in Urdu. Syed Zubair Shah, a rising short storywriter, who recently published his maiden collection of Urdu short stories, explained: “Even though my mother tongue is Pashto, I want to be read and understood by a large audience. And I find that Urdu diction and expression is fluent and easy and gives one many options for expression as it has a vast treasure of words and phrases.”A certain softness to Urdu expression and its vivid imagery attracts many Pashto writers. “I feel very comfortable expressing myself in Urdu verse. Urdu is rich in imagery so there is much space for competition. And I get the best of both worlds because Urdu critics as well as Pashtun audience like my poetry. I think my contribution has been to add a Pashtun poetic thought to Urdu,” explained Maqbool Aamir, another senior Urdu poet from Bannu. And then Urdu has been a source of inspiration to modernise Pashto literature. With the popularisation of Urdu language and literature, Pashtun poets and writers also did away with the old traditional style by adopting new ideas in their writings. As a result, a large of number of Urdu newspapers and bilingual literary magazines made great progress in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Among them, Qand and Afghan were prominent and even gained popularity in India for their unique expression thus truly allowing Pushto writers to access a much wider audience than they would have in Pashto. “Urdu has made lot of progress during the last few decades,” explained Owais Qarni, a young poet. He added: “I write in Urdu because I feel like I can express myself well in it. I have exhausted Pashto classical poetry reading the writings of Rahman Baba and Khushhal Baba, but there is a sea of ideas and images in Urdu to explore. Urdu is not limited to one society and has helped us to be understood by others.” And in this positive interaction, both Pashtu and Urdu have evolved, and Pushtun people have utilised Urdu in making their identity known widely besides enriching the Urdu literature with their literary-cum-socio-political thought.