Lucknow: Culture, History 1

Revision as of 14:17, 3 November 2013

Lucknow: Culture, History 1

Guzashta Lucknow: Hindustan Mein Mashriqi Tamaddun Ka Akhri Namona By Abdul Haleem Sharar Reprinted by and available with Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore. 25, Shahrah-e-Pakistan (Lower Mall). PO Box 997, Lahore Tel: 042-7220100; 7228143 Fax: 042-7245101 Email: smp@sang-e-meel.com ISBN 969-35-1827-6 528pp. Rs999

WHILE the celebrated nostalgia of those hailing from Dilli has over the years given birth to a whole lot of mesmerising accounts of what it was like in the days of yore, it is somewhat disappointing that not much of matching worth has come out from their counterparts hailing from Lucknow, even though the two happened to represent parallel cultures. In fact, there was a rivalry of sorts that marked the existence of the two.

The accounts generated by the likes of Mirza Farhatullah Beg, Shahid Ahmed Dehlavi, Ashraf Subohi, Hairat Dehlavi, Mulla Wahidi and not to forget our own Intizar Hussain, have ensured permanence to the life that revolved around the Lal Qila, the Chandni Chowk, the Jama Masjid and, indeed, the steps of the Masjid.

When it comes to Lucknow, the elegiac stuff is very much there, but is no match to what has been produced about Dilli. Masood Hussain, Nayyer Masood, Jaffer Hussain, Masood Rizvi, even Josh Malihabadi; they have all written about Lucknow and what it meant to be in the metropolis at the time, but it is mostly about the ruling nawabs and the elite. There is, for instance, no one to rival Ghummi Kababi, Mullan Na’ee, Baqar Ali Dastaan-go, Mirza Chapati and so many others who gave Dilli its distinctive aura.

In this backdrop, the effort of the publishers to once again make available Abdul Haleem Sharar’s Guzashta Lucknow is a laudable effort; laudable because, one, it is unarguably the most acknowledged work of literary and historical value on the subject, and, two, it was not available to the layreader for a very long time.

Just about the time when the West was making multi-layered inventions with one discovery leading to the other, the cultured people of Lucknow were inventing even newer ways to cook the traditional ‘pula’o’

Since Sharar had first written the text in his own periodical Dil-Gudaz, it was only to be expected that the compilation had a sort of disjointed look. The current volume has taken care of the technical flaw by giving the text a new and a more logical sequence. But this has been done without any kind of editing which means the linguistic puritanism of Sharar has remained unaffected. In its present form, the reader gets the best of both worlds, while the erudite preface and foreword as well as the glossary and published write-ups form the past about Sharar and his work come as a bonus.

Sharar’s account, remarkable though it is, remains marred by the same elitist malaise that has been the hallmark of his predecessors as well as of those who came after him. It is quite evident that the fault lies not as much with those who wrote about it as with the culture itself.

The wave of scientific inventions and the rise of rational thinking in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries that together formed the shape and contours of the modern world were phenomena restricted to the western existence. The East, all this time, was on the wrong side of the pendulum swing. It shut down on itself the doors of progress, and preferred to take refuge in a sort of narcissistic cocoon. The culmination of this psychologically flawed process was the culture of 19th-century Lucknow.

The tale, as narrated by Sharar, makes for interesting and engrossed reading — very interesting and deeply engrossed, indeed. But somewhere down the line one begins to realise why the British had such a facile walkover in Oudh. Frankly speaking, the vignettes of a decadent culture that Sharar draws in this high-profile volume give way to more nausea than nostalgia.

Just about the time when the West was making multi-layered inventions with one discovery leading to the other, the cultured people of Lucknow were inventing even newer ways to cook the traditional “pula’o” — Gulzar Pula’o, Noor Pula’o, Koko Pula’o, Motee Pula’o, Chambeli Pula’o and so on and so forth. There is, of course, nothing wrong with the ability to cook rice in several mouth-watering ways, but if that happens to be the sole purpose of one’s life — of an entire culture’s life as was the case with Lucknow — then society has to bear the consequences.

Guzashta Lucknow brings to fore the showman spirit that was the key characteristic of that culture and pervaded all fields of life, from attire to cuisine, and from social values to religion. It was a culture that had a touch of Don Quixote about it. In fact, it is so quixotic that Sharar’s account is to be read to be

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Dagar Sey Hat Kar By Saeeda Bano Ahmad Reprinted by Darul Nawadir, Alhamd Market, Ghazni Street, Urdu Bazar Lahore; and available with, Fazlee Book Supermarket, Urdu Bazar, Karachi Tel: 021-2212991-2629724 288pp. Rs180

THE book picks up the strand of life in Lucknow almost at the point that marks the end of Sharar’s account. It is basically an autobiography of a remarkable woman who dared to be different and broke free of the shackles that happened to be the hallmark of that decadent lifestyle.

Bound with a narration that is lucid to the core and flows without much of an effort, the tale of Saeeda Bano takes the reader to Lucknow, Bhopal and finally to Delhi where she settled down far away from all her relations, taking up broadcasting as a full-time profession which, in time, turned into a life-time passion.

Read together with Sharar’s account, the reader would be able to have a feel of what it was like in the days of yore and what cost one had to pay for having a mind of one’s own. The account is also refreshing in the sense that though it is the life-story of a truly courageous woman who broke many a barrier, it has none of the off-putting feminist overtones that work hard to repel readers. This is perhaps one major reason why the account is able to generate respect and admiration in the hearts of the readers for Saeeda Bano. Feminists of the in-your-face variety would do well to learn a vital lesson.