Historiography and Poetry
By Syed Afsar Sajid
1. ‘Taqweem’ — Afghan Jang Kay Bees Saal (Part I) by Atique Ahmad Siddiqi
2. ‘Nikalta Huwa Din’ by Farrukh Yar
‘Taqweem’
Atique Siddiqi is a Peshawar-born American intellectual, journalist, and column writer.
His book ‘Taqweem’ is purportedly a calendar, as it were, of events that chronologically
relate to the Afghan War (2002-2021).
The present edition seeks to cover the period from 2002-2012 — circumscribed in columns numbering 100. The rest of the period covered in another fifty columns, shall be chronicled in a latter book, as claimed by the author. These columns were published serially though intermittently in the Urdu daily ‘Aaj’ from Peshawar.
Eminent poet and educationist Mamun Aiman from New York terms this book as a
history of yesterday, today, and tomorrow in the context of its subject, and in the scheme
of Atique Siddiqi’s writings, he goes on to say, it is his ‘hirz-e-jaaN’ i.e., the most
cherished publication.
Dr. Ashraf Adeel from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania has contributed an exhaustive preamble to the book touching its theme, context and stylistics. Nasir Ali Syed rom Peshawar and Prof. Khalida Zahoor from New York have also commented on the merits of the work in their respective appraisals annexed to the work. Besides, noted literati Prof. Yunus Sharar, Wasif Hussain Wasif and Irshad Siddiqi have written complimentary flaps for the book.
In author’s opinion, a column writer is neither a historian nor a researcher; he is at best
an analyst of a situation or event without artfully painting its contours. He is not a
harbinger of a happy news either because journalism has also been called the ‘first draft
of history’ which cannot be completed because it relates to a world which itself is not
fully comprehensible.
The author explicates an adage that a journalist is bound to unfold the truth camouflaged in the kernel of a circumstance or happening. It is in this backdrop that Atique Siddiqi has dug out the relevant facts and figures from his columns published in Pakistan and in the US Urdu press during the past twenty-four years.
Some of the personages, political and others, described in the columns of the book are
Raymond Davis, Osama bin Laden, George W. Bush (former US President), Donald
Rumsfield (former US Secretary of Defense), Colin Powell (former US Secretary of State),
Condoleezza Rice (former US Secretary of State), Gen. David H. Petraeus (former Director
of CIA), Barack Obama (former US President), Hillary Clinton (former US Secretary of
State), Gen. Pervez Musharraf et al.
Evils like genocide, persecution, mendaciousness, destruction of natural environment,
flouting of democratic norms, suppression of citizens’ privacy, clash of civilizations,
massacre of civilians, disregard of transparency, squeezing of journalists, and subverting freedom of nations are stated to be a direct offshoot of the American belligerency in Afghanistan, and earlier in Iraq.
The book is an eye-opener on the politico-strategic chaos rampant in today’s world in
general, and South Asia in particular. A thoughtful reader will surely feel more informed about the ticklish social cultural, political, and economic issues tarnishing the reigning
global scenario, on both micro and macro levels.
‘Nikalta Huwa Din’
Farrukh Yar is a renowned poet of Urdu nazm with a distinctive tone, style, historic
consciousness, and variegated subjects and themes. ‘Nikalta Huwa Din’ (The Rising Day)
is his fifth collection of nazm in a succession after ‘Mitti Ka Mazmoon’, ‘Neend Jhooltay
Logon Kay Liye Likhi Gai Nazmain’, ‘Yeh Mah-o-Saal Yeh Umrain’ (UBL Literary Award
Winner) and ‘Karez’. He has also authored two other books titled ‘Dorahey’ and ‘Ishq
Nama Shah Hussain’ (Oxford University KLF-Getz Pharma Book Award Winner 2023)
bearing on history and research.
The present work comprises some thirty-six poems with a mix of mundane, surrealistic
and romantic topics. Farrukh is a modernistic poet endowed with a cosmic vision and a
fine artistic elan that enable him to create poetry of a high order. Eminent critic Nasir
Abbas Nayyar has ably discussed Farrukh’s poetics in the context of the latter’s diction
and stylistics.
Khurshid Husnain, Rana Mehboob Akhtar, Arif Waqar, Sultan Nasir, and Arshia Qasim Ahmad have also positively commented on the content and form of the book focusing on its thematic nuances embracing the metaphors of earth, time, mirror, culture, introspection, separation, barrenness, identity crisis, and lastly a univocal optimism about the future transcending the conundrum of time and space which is also strongly suggested by the title of the book itself viz. the rising day (symbolizing promise and hope).
The opening poem, a lengthier one, titled ‘Zameen Har Jagah Bolti Hai’, deftly
conceived and weaved on a postulational yet artistic plane, seems to be Farrukh’s poetic
manifesto. The modern mind seems to operate on two levels. The poet perceives the beauty around him, in a moment of heightened mental acuteness, and reproduces his impressions in the best words; that is the lower intellectual level. Simultaneously he can also be raised above himself by a quasi-transcendental inspiration, and on this higher level, create what is beyond the range of human observation. Farrukh’s poems in the current volume do approximate to this hypothesis!
