“Jala hai jism jahan dil bhi jal gaya hoga, kuredte ho jo ab rakh justaju kya hai?”

“Where the body has burned the heart must have burned too, / Raking the ashes now, what are you seeking?”
— Asadullah Khan Ghalib

Ghalib’s masterful she’r is truly impossible to translate because of the layers of meaning embedded in it. Without going too deep into ma’ani afrini I will settle for two words to focus on: kuredna and justaju. Kuredna generally means to probe, or to dig, etc., but in ghazal parlance it has the special nuance of picking the scab on wounds that have begun to heal. Ghalib has expertly merged the implication of kuredna as in wounds, with kuredna as through ashes, creating an image of someone relentlessly clawing through ashes searching for something, maybe a heart, which was impervious to, or survived, burning. Justaju is difficult to gloss in English. It could be translated as quest or pursuit, but it implies much more. There is usually an element of longing hidden in justaju.

Justaju Kya Hai is Intizar Husain’s 2011 memoir, where we find him scouring through ashes, picking out nuggets of memory. He has been blamed for indulging in nostalgia in his writing, both fictional and non-fictional, and he has responded in his inimitable style to the criticism levelled on his fiction through his memoir. In Justaju Kya Hai, he examines the importance of memories and the need to nurture them.

Husain’s 1999-2002 memoir Chiraghon ka Dhuan (Smoke of Clay Lamps) described the reunion of Urdu writers and poets continuing their ecstatic, pain-filled journey in the newly created state of Pakistan, echoing Altaf Hussain Hali’s poignant verse: “Bazm ko bin barham hue muddat nahin guzri bahut, uth raha hai shama se us bazm ki ab tak dhuan.” “It has not been long since the assembly scattered / Smoke is still rising from extinguished lamps.”

Justaju Kya Hai goes one step further with the imagery of extinguished lamps. Ghalib is, after all, Hali’s ustad. Many a parvanah has been singed to death by the lamps; the extinguished lamps are silent but the magic pen can piece the stories together.

I am struck by the symbiosis of Husain’s fiction and non-fiction, particularly with regard to the motif of the journey, or hijrat. He tracks hijrat all the way to Adam and Eve’s eviction from Paradise, making it more profound with a wealth of new interpretations. He speaks of three dimensions of the past: the past of the human race, the community’s past and the individual’s past. In the context of Partition, he asks some extremely pertinent questions: What gets carried forward, and what gets left behind when cultures are split and literary tradition is sundered? His response is that in both fiction and non-fictional works, the past is invoked because it flows in our blood and is a part of our communal consciousness. The smoke of clay lamps alludes to the end of a journey and the continuation of another quest.

In Justaju Kya Hai, Husain goes back and forth between India and Pakistan, literally and figuratively, connecting the present and past in real time and through memories. He wants to keep exploring the outcome of the rupture with the homeland, the culture and the community that was sundered. He describes meetings with writers on both sides of the border. He seamlessly brings moments from the past to bear on the present. A dominant theme is the need to remember, to salvage whatever is possible from the common cultural past. He invokes the 18th century classical Urdu poet Rafi Sauda’s verse to both substantiate and help negotiate his path in the labyrinth of memories:

“Fikr-i-ma’ash zikr-i-butan yad-i-raftagan, iss mukhtasar hayat mein kya kya kare koi.” “Worries of work, talk of beauties, remembering those who are gone / How much can one do in this short life?”

Husain remembers influential writer, and publisher of the literary journal Saqi, Shahid Ahmad Dehlvi, who migrated from Delhi to Pakistan in 1947. His forebears had lived in Delhi for centuries. He recalls the gathering in Dehlvi’s temporary home in Lahore when Dehlvi read from his account Dilli ki Bipda (Delhi’s Lament). “It is a book-length narrative, but people heard him read in deep silence. When Dehlvi’s voice began to falter, people in the audience could not restrain their tears. Dehlvi, too, broke down, and the mahfilbecame a majlis of mourners.” How can one forget that evening, asks Husain. When civilisations or tehzibs are desolated and those who grew in their lap become refugees, then the season of tears engulfs them. Slowly, the displaced ones find new roots, becoming busy in their pursuits, but a few remain who carry the weight of the heritage (bar-i-amanat) on their shoulders, because there has to be someone who would gather the bits and pieces of memories, the yad-i-raftagan, and save it in the treasure house of history.

Not everyone has the time to weep: “Fursat zaruri kaam se pao to ro bhi lo, ay ahl-i-dil ye kar-i-‘abas bhi kare chalo.” “If you could find time from important tasks you would cry / O brave hearts embrace this frivolous task as you go your way.”

When Delhi was ravaged in 1857 it had many mourners. But when Delhi was ruined in 1947, the devastated ones shed some tears and moved on. It was Dehlvi who found time to weep for Delhi’s lost culture: “Dil ke phaphole jal uthe sine ke dagh se, iss ghar ko aag lag gayi ghar ke chiragh se.” “Scars lighted the heart’s blisters / This home was set on fire by its own lamp.”

Muneer Niazi’s poems mourned migration in ways similar to Husain’s. The poet and the fiction writer were connected through the particular experience of loss: “Jin gharaon se hum ne hijrat ki, Khanpur ay Khanpur, teri galiyon mein thein kaisi pyari pyari suratein, masjidon ke sabz dar and aur mandiron ki muratein, Khanpur ay Khanpur, aam ke tarik baghon mein hava chalti hui, qaus ek rangon ki koh-o-dasht par dhalti hui.” “The homes from where we migrated / Khanpur o Khanpur / So sweet and pretty were the faces in your alleyways / Green doors of mosques and idols in temples / Khanpur o Khanpur / The winds blowing in the darkened mango groves / A rainbow of colours descending in the mountain valleys.”

The experience of loss of a culture brings together individuals mourning its dissipation. It is a sharing of bereavement of a cultural past that can only be recollected for posterity. Husain compares it to the feelings expressed in a verse by Atish: “Aa andalib mil ke karen aah-o-zariyan, tu hai-i-gul pukar main chillaon hai dil.” “O bulbul, come let us sigh and weep together / You lament, ah rose! I wail, ah heart!”

Husain longs for the moment when evening descended in his village and peacocks called in mournful, strident notes. Niazi yearns for the dense mango orchards in Khanpur; their recollections are always as fresh as if they are narrating them for the first time. The tears that well up in Husain’s eyes when he reads those poems sustain his affinity with Niazi’s mango orchards, henna bushes, mountains and valleys. The forests in Husain’s village become deeper, more dense and colourful with Niazi’s poetic imagery. He wanders from his jungle to the next one that is bigger, more frightening than the previous one. Then he finds a path in the forest that leads him from his childhood to the ancient past. The fears and anxieties of childhood connect him with the fears and anxieties of the people of the ancient past. “Jangalon mein koi piche se bulaye to Muneer, mur ke raste mein kabhi us ki taraf mat dekho.” “Muneer, if you hear someone call behind you in the jungles / Don’t turn in your path to look back in that direction.”

These fears have, from ancient times, travelled with us and become deep-seated inside us. We appear brave, but inside us is a fear. We are afraid to look inside ourselves. Is there a forest growing within us? The forest that was around us is now within us. We have built cities and walls around cities, but unknown to us the forest has grown within us. Again, Niazi says: “Dabi hui hai zer-i-zamin ek dahshat gung sadaon ki, bijli si kahin laraz rahi hai kisi chupe tah khane mein.” “Fear of silent pleas lies deep beneath the earth / A lightning flickers in some hidden cavern.”

When Husain delves into the deepest regions of his consciousness, pictures and voices of stories begin to surface, like vessels filled with gold and gems, buried in the past, waiting for a call to surface. When Adam and Eve were banished from heaven to earth, they were afraid of the earth, but drawn to it, too. It is said that henna bushes grew where Eve’s tears fell. What lies beneath the earth is as mysterious as the space that surrounds it. The mystery of the universe gets wrapped into myth and folk tales that are passed on from generation to generation. A question which intrigues Husain and which he asks in his work is: where does this fear come from? Is it the aftermath of Adam and Eve’s eviction from Paradise? Is it the fruit of hijrat, of migration? The answer he gives is that the experiences of our forebears are embedded in the myths, parables and tales waiting to be invoked in our lives. The myths are a part of tradition, which provides continuity and meaning to our sense of being.