Sabeen Mahmud
20.06.1974 - 24.04.2015
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Saturday, January 5, 2019
Lutfullah Khan Sahab
LS was a great collector of records, mushaerahs, and also of many things that he taped himself, specially musicians and poets. Once I asked him why he had never taped Ustad Munshi Raziuddin and he said “He pronounces his Qaaf so badly, like vomit, that I never taped him”.
LS was, as many may know, also a great photographer. His photographs were kept in a series of cupboards that he had made. I once met him on a plane to Lahore where he was going to shoot a flower which only blossomed once a year. He was going to wait near it and snap it a the peak of its bloom.
I used to visit him often at his house near Gul-e-Rana Club. I loved listening to the brilliant collection he had built … and adored the detailed catalogues that he maintained. There was also a Light Arrangement that was mounted on the wall. It was most amazing to watch the lights play around on it in time with the music. This was way before the usual Laser Lights we see now.
Among his large collection of 78RPM records he had taped, almost all belonged to my Uncle, Asad Ali, and to me. He spent hours cleaning them and playing them as best as he could. I think it was the work of a genius.
When I was at sea he used to find out when I was coming back and came to the house the day I arrived. I used to have 20 to 30 LPs that I bought outside Pakistan and he'd always say don't play them until I have taped them myself. He'd borrow those and tape them and then return them to me because he wanted to play and record them the first time.
LS used to wonder how he’d shift these and his other collections (and there were loads that he collected) to another house. But he finally did, and it was a treat to see.
Sadly, while he had a wonderful collection, he was rather poor at sharing things, even if they were borrowed stuff. I remember a tape of Jafri Mamooñ (S M Jafri our humorous poet) that I had recorded and he copied it. When my tape got destroyed and I asked him for a copy, he said “that's mine now and I don't ever share it with others”. This really shocked me specially since a lot of his record collection was partly ours. But I did respect him for the work he did. Always. Even this idiosyncrasy never took away my love for him.
When Rashid (Bhai) Latif Ansari Sahab came from Canada and went to see him, LS said he had an LP that he owned but didn't have a cover. Could Rashid Bhai get it from somewhere. Rashid Bhai said that I have the LP and he will ask me. LS said 'Don't tell Zaheer it's for me'. Rather strange, because I would have happily given it to him. Rashid Bhai phoned me and asked me if I have a fight with him. Of course not, I said. He said to send LS the cover but he should not know that it was mine … and laughed. In fact I finally posted it to his wife, Zahida Bhabi, and said just give it to him but don't mention my name :)
LS wanted to sell his collection to Libraries in USA but there were some problems and it never got through. There was a person in Karachi — whom I won't name — among many others who wanted to purchase the lot and set it up as a Lutfullah Library. Sabeen Mahmud asked LS as to why he hadn’t given it to that really famous person, and LS said “I will never give it to a jaahil ādmi”.
Recently it has been great to see that Mohammad Khursheed Abdullah has had an arrangement with his family and is releasing some of his tapes on YouTube. Its so wonderful to see and hear some of the old poets on his postings.
I hope we will see the entire collection somewhere. Perhaps our Government can buy it and set it up as Lutfullah Library. It is a remarkable collection of poetry, prose, music and more.
Monday, December 31, 2018
The pain lasts forever!
ستارہ، چاند، تتلی، پھول، شبنم، چاندنی، جگنو
اداسی میں کوئ شےٴ خوشنما اچھی نہیں لگتی
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Thursday, December 20, 2018
Ayk din Sabeen nay müjh say kahā …
"Dilchaspi to müjhay āj ki nazmoñ say bohat haé
— laykin koee achchi pürāni ghazal sünaiyay"
So here, Sab, is a random ghazal I played out from my tape* to you.
The ghazal is by Ameer Rampuri, a student first of Shauq Kidvai and then of his brother (my Great Grandfather) Vahid Ali ‘Abr’ Kidvai.
Ameer Sahab came to our house in Allama Iqbal Town (Karachi). That was a very rare and memorable occasion for us. Nuzhat and I asked him to recite a few ghazals. Among others he recited was this one.
Sabeen fell in love with his tahtul-lafz recitation and his wonderful language. I hope the readers will, too.
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* To people reading this: This was recorded on my 10” Revox Tape Recorder (NOT a Cassette Tape), which is how I have recorded most of my Poetry/Qavvaali/Prose collections.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Urdu haé jis ka nām …
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| اختؔر شاہجہانپوری |
Two things I hear from many young people (and some older people) are:
(a) Their Urdu is weak because their schools never really paid attention to it.
Sabeen Mahmud hated Karachi Grammar School for not giving the children real access to Urdu. When I first met her she spoke good Karachi ‘Urdish’. When she was assassinated - 26 years later - she had already learnt to speak brilliant Urdu, loved its poetry, held Mushaerahs, adored Farsi Kalaam, became a total fan of Qavvaalis, and always spoke in Urdu at local conferences … when it was allowed. She carried a diary and noted down words and phrases in them that she found amusing, amazing, funny, and worth using. That’s a sign of a person growing up, day by day.
I have had several foreign friends ask me if we have a language that we can all speak - for whenever they go to a restaurant the Menus are in English and not Bilingual … and at every table they hear everyone, from parents to children, speaking in English. Even waiters!
I remember many times when Sabeen and I went to restaurants and she said, when served with a drink, "برف ڈال دیجیٴے" (Please put in some ice) the waiter usually said "You want Ice?". She always said " کیا اّپ کو اردو بولنے میں تکلیف ہوتی ہے؟ " (Do you have difficulty speaking in Urdu?)
(b) They have no understanding of Poetry.
This really, really amazes me. All our kids - as well as adults - love songs. These are poetical works - and they all can recite many of them for you. Faiz - whose works are in many homes (some out of fashion, of course) - and Habib Jalib are extremely popular (and even more so after Nayyara, Tina, and Laal sang them).
Occasionally one finds - specially when the school’s annual publications are being written - that students write verses in English. Some of them, without doubt, range from Good to Excellent. In Urdu, too, they write verses (and so do Teachers). But they are - in almost all the cases - quite bad, generally naa-maozooñ, and total lack of any laws of poetry.
The main reason is that they are taught by teachers who, themselves, have no understanding of poetry. In a series of books by a leading publisher here I found many badly quoted verses from senior poets, like Ghalib and Dagh whose divàns are available everywhere (and on Rekhta.org). They even had Ismail Merathi written out wrongly when his works are not only printed but you can listen to them on YouTube. Words were often missing or added and, in case they were written by the Author (which happened in some books), some were completely off the meter or had several meters in one ghazal.
Awful!!!
Sadly, many people - if not most - don’t even know of the various forms of poetry. Not only do they not know of the forms that ghazals or nazms take, they can’t decide if what is being recited is one or the other. This was more surprising when a famous singer said he would sing a Faiz ghazal on TV and proceeded with a nazm. I asked him and he said "I wasn't ever corrected by the TV people."
Hmmm.
When our kids go to private schools (which are all English Medium!), they learn famous childish verses, like “Mary had a little lamb” … or even read Limericks like “There was a young man of Khartoum”. When a little older, they are asked to write a poem on a cat, or a family member. Even older, they play Limerick Games.
Do we do that in our Urdu class? Does you teacher ask you to write a shayr? Does she explain what that should really mean and talk about its laws. Not just little kids but even grown-ups are never taught that, whether the students choose Easy Urdu or Urdu as a First Language.
(No idea now, though, with English Literature having been no longer taught in many schools, if my examples of English in higher classes really apply.)
I ran a few courses at T2F about Urdu Poetry. There were 10 students at each course that lasted for 8-10 Saturday afternoons. A small class is always more useful because interactions are more common and misunderstandings are also taken care of. Attendees ask better questions and some answer them well, or discuss them.
In addition, having grown up in a family where poetry and poets were always part of our lives, I also included anecdotes from various poets. This allows students to get to know more about the poets than just reading or hearing their poetry.
I hope many more people will have courses about such things. At T2F Zahra Sabri had a couple of courses on older poets and Musharraf Ali Farooqui did a series on Ghalib.
Apart from that there have been Mushaerahs at T2F, with some of our top poets (Iftikhar Arif, Anwar Shaoor and more), recitations by Zehra Nigah, Attiya Dawood, and Azra Abbas, and several seminars on Ghalib and Jaun Elia. Do attend them when they happen ... and, at the end, talk to the people there and ask questions. It will make your world (and our world) better.
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Urdu is our National Language and must be taught correctly. And so should all our Provincial Languages, wherever they are taught.
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10th December Addition
Another mistake by someone that I saw on Facebook today.
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Saturday, November 24, 2018
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
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