Animals in Urdu: Part I

One of my readers, and a fellow columnist for Dawn, Shahzad Sharjeel, has written to me suggesting that I also write about the role of horses and other animals in the Western genres of fiction and films. This is an interesting point and I may discuss it in one of my future columns.

Another suggestion was to cover the role of animals in ‘Dastaan-e-Amir Hamza’ and also reflect upon the importance of ‘Duldul’ in fable and fiction. For now, I will focus only on Urdu short stories; the above-mentioned suggestions may be covered in another column or essay.

Two of the earliest Urdu short story writers were Munshi Prem Chand and Sajjad Haider Yildirim. Both were born in the same year — 1880 — in the United Provinces (UP) in India, and started writing in the early 20th century. Prem Chand was a realist to the core, whereas Yildirim was more of a romantic. In his story ‘Chirhya Chirhey ki Kahani’ (a story of sparrows), Yildirim makes a bird talk about how it feels about humans. The bird says that men are cheaters in love and try to seduce many women, whereas sparrows are honest and stick to one partner. The female sparrow talks about how women use makeup to look more beautiful. It is a short story of hardly six pages but is an interesting read about how sparrows may look at us; it is included in ‘Khayalistan’, a collection of Yildirim’s stories.

Munshi Prem Chand in one of his stories describes how as a child he disturbed a nest of sparrows and touched their eggs without knowing that the sparrow will not accept an egg that has been sullied.

Talking about sparrows, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s story based on his observations in prison also comes to mind. Written in 1943, when Azad was in Ahmed Nagar prison, his ‘Chirhya Chirhey ki Kahani’ is a masterpiece of Urdu prose garnished with Persian and Urdu gems of poetry from Shaad Azeemabadi to Atishi Qandhari. Azad describes how he was initially disturbed by sparrows trespassing into his cell; after first trying to drive them out, he then makes friends with them and feeds them with love. The story advocates for non-violence and ends with a lesson from an injured sparrow which starts flying after getting sunlight.

Khawja Ahmed Abbas’s short story ‘Ababil’ (Sparrows) is considered one of his best stories. ‘Ababil’ is not only included in the selection of K A Abbas’s best stories done by Raam Laal – another writer of repute – it has also been translated into English by Suresh Kohli and included in the first volume of ‘Best Loved Indian Stories of the Century’ published by Penguin Books. ‘Ababil’ is the story of some house sparrows living in the home of Raheem Khan who is a misanthrope. He is ruthless to his wife, children, his oxen, and neighbours. He becomes violent at the drop of a hat and beats anyone who challenges him.

Gradually, Raheem’s family leaves him; other villagers stop talking to him; and he is left with the house sparrows with whom he becomes gentle. He starts feeding and protecting them. This friendship with the birds transforms him into a soft person. Though he dies alone, with only sparrows around him, he is no more a hardened soul. The story teaches us how the way we treat animals is a reflection of who we are. It has been observed that people who love animals are seldom violent, and one reason why our societies lack softness is precisely this lack of love to animals.

Another very short story is by S M Shahid in his brief collection of hardly 40 pages titled ‘Apna Pinjra’ (1988). The story is a moving conversation between a daughter and her father. The daughter longs to be a sparrow; just to feel free like a bird and to be able to sing and dance and hop around the trees.

Irfan Ahmad Urfi’s story ‘Chirhya’ also deserves a mentioned from the modern Urdu literature. Urfi is a prolific young writer and playwright who has produced some of the best Urdu pieces of writing in the 21st century. His story is about a poor girl whose father catches sparrows and then sells them around traffic signals. The girl waits at home for the unsold sparrows to feed and play with them. Gradually, the girl herself feels like a sparrow, caged and unable to fly. The story has an unexpected ending that you must read in Urfi’s collection ‘Control Room’ (2017).

You may be asking why only sparrows? What about other birds? Well, think of Khadija Mastoor who wrote the short story, ‘Cheelain’ (Kites), set in a poor village where an abundance of kites creates problems for everyone. The kites attack and pick food items from villagers, depriving them of whatever meagre meal they may have. But then some other kites are revealed in the shape of exploitative human beings such as loan sharks, religious leaders, and landlords. When an animal dies, kites eat the cadaver, and when a father dies, his daughter is left at the mercy of humans who hover around her like kites circle a corpse. The story is a chilling narration of exploitation of the poor at the hands of the powerful.

Moving from sparrows and kites to pigeons, Mazhar ul Islam’s story ‘Kandhey par Kabootar’, translated into English as ‘The Pigeon on the Shoulder’ by Christopher Shackle, is a symbolic representation of General Ziaul Haq’s Pakistan. The story presents a school boy with a pigeon on his shoulder trying to enter his home. The guard of the house does not open the door and a noxious stench is emanating from the house. When the boy breaks a windowpane and peeps into his home, he finds the guard transformed into a wolf.

Both the boy and the pigeon have been banished from the house and the guard wolf is in charge. Though the story was published in 1982, it is still relevant as the symbols of peace – pigeons and children – are still targeted and killed (remember the APS tragedy?).

To avoid politics, we move to a romantic story by Razia Fasih Ahmad, ‘Neelkant’ (blue-necked jay), included in her collection of stories titled , ‘Niqab Posh’. The story revolves around two blue-necked jays perched on two different branches of the same tree, being observed by the narrator. Both birds are silent and aloof and look dejected; their eyes are downcast. The narrator wonders about what might have caused them to be so profound and melancholic in their thoughts. As the writer is waiting for her husband, she keeps watching and thinking that the birds must have quarrelled with each other.

Maybe the couple is tired of each other or the male must have ogled at another bird, causing the female to feel betrayed. Maybe the male wandered around and the female waited for him too long. Finally, the bird on the outer branch flutters its wings and flies away. The observer keeps watching as the ditched bird goes into a coma and after a while falls from the tree and dies. When the observer’s husband comes back, she relates the story to him explaining how the male ditched its female partner who could not bear the betrayal.

The husband, who is bird-savvy, picks the corpse and shows to his wife that the dead bird is actually a male. This discussion about Urdu stories with birds cannot be complete unless I mention arguably the best such story ‘Taoos Chaman ki Mynah,’(The Mynah of the Peacock Garden) by Nayyar Masood, but that we will discuss in the next part of this article tomorrow.

To be continued

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK and works in Islamabad.

Email: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk