Farrukhi: the literary critic

Asif Farrukhi is physically no more; he died at the age of 60 on June 1, 2020. There have been obituaries that eulogized him as a creative writer, a fine human being, and a good editor; and most newspapers have published his life sketches too.

Here we look at him purely as a literary critic with the help of some of his essays. Interestingly, some of his best literary criticism he wrote while he was hardly 30 years old. Not that he didn’t evolve after that; in fact, he indulged in so many literary pursuits that his identity as a critic was overtaken by his editing, short story writing, and festival management.

In addition, his interviews with literary giants deserve a separate discussion. Belonging to a family of litterateurs such as Deputy Nazir Ahmed (whose great grandson he was), Shahid Ahmed Dehlavi, Dr Aslam Farrukhi, Anwaar Ahsan Siddiqui, and Taj Begum (his mother), Asif was well endowed by nature.

Despite his illustrious family background, he was not overwhelmed by them. Just take Deputy Nazir Ahmed for instance. Asif Farrukhi in his Urdu essay written in 1991 – and beautifully translated into English by Amina Azfar as ‘Nasooh and Nazir Ahmad: From Cholera to book burning’ – was scathing. He pointed out the conservative streak prevalent in Nazir’s writings, especially in his novels that propagated a certain compliance of tradition for both boys and girls. Asif was not the one to buy any of these ideas, particularly Nazir’s depiction of book burning in one of his novels ‘The penitence of Nasooh’.

Asif came back to this discussion in his nearly 30-page article on Hasan Askari published in the 77th issue of ‘Sawera’ in 2004. In this article, he critically analyzes Askari’s conception of east-west relations, which was a favourite topic for Asif too. In a sense, it is a meta-critical analysis of Askari’s criticism but in the end Asif gets back to Deputy Nazir Ahmed by pointing out the same contradiction in his writings such as in his novel ‘Ibnul Waqt’ (The Opportunist). Asif analyses how the novel’s protagonist wants to move from one ‘zone of influence’ to another. Both Nazir and Askari ended up opposing Western civilization as decadent.

But apart from his criticism directed at his great grandfather, Asif’s criticism stood out for at least two more features. Like any good literary critic, he understood the importance of a wide reading of world literature with contextual understanding of history and sociology, and that reflected in his criticism. Asif’s command over some key critical writings in other languages was also impressive. He also displayed, and that too without effort, his impeccable proficiency of English and Urdu, coupled with substantial understanding of Arabic and Persian. These are the four languages without which hardly any critic writing in Urdu can claim to draw any appreciation.

If you look at the plethora of literary criticism that appears in Urdu monthlies and quarterlies – and even in most research journals of Pakistani universities – you notice that many aspiring critics lack the required command over the basic principles of literary criticism. A noticeable lack of language proficiency itself is evident in their writing. And even more disturbing is the tendency in college and university teachers to justify their lack of competency in the name of linguistic pluralism – meaning everything should be acceptable, and you are a ‘purist’ if you try to correct them.

Though there are many good critics whose output is substantial with varying extent and scope, such as Farrukh Nadeem, Humera Ashfaque, M Hameed Shahid, M Naeem Virk, Naseem Abbas Ahmer, Nasir Abbas Nayyar, Ravish Nadeem, Sajid Javed, Salahuddin Dervish, and many others, overall the scene in literary criticism in Pakistan leaves much to be desired. That is one reason Asif’s departure definitely has left a deep void that will take some time to fill, if ever; it may sound a cliché, but that’s how it is.

Asif Farrukhi was no ‘professor’ in the academic sense of this word, neither was he keen to publish his ‘research papers’ in academic journals. He was more like Ahmed Saleem, Ali Abbas Jalalpuri, Dr Mubarak Ali, or Niaz Fatehpuri who preferred to address the common reader rather than trying to appear in ‘academic journals’ to get promotion to full professorship, whatever that means. In that, Asif was read widely and appreciated by students and teachers alike. He was a medical doctor by profession and proved that in-depth reading and insightful approach is more important for a critic than possessing a PhD.

In his critical writings, he admitted his own shortcomings and at times biased approach. If you read his ‘Bundar ki taqreer’ (Monkey’s Speech) he comes out as someone who while at college did not like Urdu classics such as ‘Fasana-e-Ajaib’ by Rajab Ali Baig. He considered it ‘dead’ and ‘unreadable’ work that boring class teachers were trying to keep alive. Look at the following paragraph, the translation is mine:

“In the classroom, our Urdu teachers gave us a brief explanation of long sentences that we copied in our notebooks. The teachers appeared helpless, as after becoming Urdu teachers they had accepted mediocrity in all aspects of their lives, and regurgitated the same trite phrases in their lessons year after year. They excelled at turning their class into a fruitless exercise. The expert teachers who had selected our syllabus carefully ensured that there remained no pulse of life in it. Each line looked like a sick animal in the morgue of a zoo, not having any connection with the young lives around.”

But then he says that it was Rasheed Hasan Khan’s corrected and edited version of Fasana-e-Ajaib that rekindled his interest. The revised book was not only readable but also resonated with life. Asif goes on to critically analyze different editions of the book that appeared, especially focusing on the speech by a monkey in it. The monkey in fact is a prince who is trapped in a monkey’s body by magic and can’t get out of it because he shared the secret with his minister’s son. Asif refers to similar episodes in many other pieces of fiction in other languages.

Asif’s essay, ‘Bato(n) sey afsaney tak’ (From conversation to short story) is a critical appraisal of the genre of short story itself. Asif was so immersed in short stories of many languages that he could compare and contrast their features at ease. Khushwant Singh was one of Asif’s favourite writers but he did not spare Singh in his criticism. Asif liked Khushwant Singh’s short stories but did not agree with his idea of a good short story. Singh said that a short story had to be short – not more than 3, 500 words; Asif had an issue with this pronouncement.

Singh preferred a sequential treatment of events, Asif did not like this commandment either. Singh liked short stories that conveyed a message, Asif had no soft corner for prescriptive literature. Singh’s idea of a good short story contained a beginning, a middle, and an end; whereas Asif could not confine a story into a straightjacket like this. Finally, Khushwant Singh wanted short stories to have an end that squirmed like a “scorpion’s sting”, but Asif would have none of it. He unpicks each of Singh’s suggestions in a masterly manner and proves his point.

Though there is much to write about the contributions of Asif Farrukhi, space constraints do not allow us to go into much detail here. He deserves not a column but books to acknowledge his critical and creative writings. His critical writings are scattered in dozens of journals and magazines, and need someone to compile them. Perhaps a university professor may encourage students to do at least one PhD thesis on Asif Farrukhi.

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

Email: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk