This is the third article in the Suhrawardy series. In the earlier two articles, remarkable lives of Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, a stalwart of the independence movement and one-time prime minister of Pakistan, and the turbulence-tossed life of his second wife, Vera Suhrawardy, were charted as fully as the space allowed.

This article rounds off the series with the remarkable life and times of Hassan Shahid Suhrawardy, another talented member of the Suhrawardy clan. Like Vera he is less known today having been eclipsed by his younger politician brother, Hussain Shaheed. Yet the elder brother was as accomplished as his younger sibling.

Hassan Shahid was scholarly inclined, as he was more cosmopolitan than his younger brother. His range of friends was eclectic and global, so were his intellectual pursuits. And this vast network had a decisive bearing on his outlook. It was further broadened by his prolonged exposure to Western culture and his experience of working in different capacities in different European countries. Hassan’s interests spanned architecture, literature, poetry and politics.

Hassan Suhrawardy was born in 1890. After graduating from Calcutta University he proceeded to Oxford where he studied history. At Oxford, he was an active member of the Oxford Majlis which acted as networking forum for visiting Indian politicians and intellectuals and the students from the Indian subcontinent studying at Oxford. Hassan’s account of his brush with Sir Rabindranath at the Oxford Majlis is revelatory of his rebellious spirit and his fealty to traditions simultaneously.

In an article for the Municipal Gazette, Hassan recalled the meeting with Tagore in the following words, "I was introduced into a large size room where I first saw the poet. He was sitting on a divan, there were many chairs occupied by men and women -- Indian, British and continental who sat in rapt silence, as if in a prayer hall. In one corner of the room an English lady was modeling the poet’s head in clay whilst in another, a fierce man, a Pole perhaps, was sketching, as I saw from a corner of my eye, the fine folds of his robe. The windows were wide open onto the embankment and I do not remember if incense was burning in that room, but if it was not, then it ought to have been because the atmosphere was so charged with awe and admiration".

Read also: Suhrawardy and the tragic flaw in our history

Also, it was at Oxford that he fell in with a group of luminaries of English arts and literary scene. Among his list of friends was novelist, D. H. Lawrence. D. H. Lawrence mentions Hassan in his letters to his friends. One lasting evidence of this friendship survives in a photograph with Lawrence which still adorns the National Portrait Gallery, London. After his graduation from Oxford, Hassan lived and worked in different European capitals. Hassan served as reader of English language and literature at the Imperial University of St Petersburg and the Women’s University in Moscow. He tutored Alexander Kerensky, Prime Minister of the short-lived government before the revolutionary communist government took over. He was also active in the affairs of the Moscow Art Theatre where he staged Rabindranath’s Raja.

After the revolution, Hassan relocated to Berlin. In 1920 he did stints at Paris University followed by the Prague University. He also remained in close touch with exiles of the Moscow Art Theatre who fled Moscow after the revolution of 1917. It is fair to assume that he met Vera, the second wife of his younger brother, Hussain Shaheed, at the Moscow theatre. Years later, this acquaintance was to lead him to extending invitation to Vera to move to India when things got tough for her in Europe, following her estrangement from her husband. Hassan also served as arts advisor for the League of Nations in Paris.

However, in the 1940s, Hassan was lured back to India after living a fulfilling and eventful life in Europe. Back in India, at the Calcutta University, he began lecturing on arts. At the same time, he was arts commentator for the influential Statesman. The newspaper accounted him as one of its star contributor. His lectures on arts were later collected into a book under the title: The Art of the Mussalmans of Spain. (The book is published by Oxford University Press Pakistan). During this time, he translated books from Russian and Chinese into English. Besides Russian and Chinese, Hassan was fluent in Spanish, French, Italian and German.

Like his elder brother, he moved his domicile to Pakistan following the partition of India. In Pakistan he joined the Foreign Service. In those day the foreign service of Pakistan was graced by literary giants such as Patras Bokhari and Professor Ahmed Ali and S.M. Burke. Hassan’s overseas postings also included the ambassadorship to Spain, the country he knew well from his European days.

He was also a founder member of the Pakistan’s chapter of the international writers’ organisation PEN. During his career in the foreign office, Suhrawardy found himself engaged in the bureaucratic work of assessing qualifications of the members and prospective members of the Pakistan Foreign Service. How intellectually debilitating this must have been for a person of Hassan’s intellectual range and curiosity is quite easy to fathom.

In between, for a brief period, he lectured at the Columbia University. However, unlike his famous brother, he lived in obscurity in Karachi after his retirement. He is not known beyond a limited number of scholars interested in his work and towering genius. However, in recent years, there has been a surge of interest in his literary output. His exquisitely wrought poems have been compiled into a collection by Kaiser Haq. Hassan’s poetry reveals him as a sensitive poet at the height of his imaginative power. Along with Sarojini Naidu, he stands as one of the earliest known Indians writing poetry in English. Later on, this furrow was ploughed fruitfully by poets such as Taufiq Rafat, Daud Kamal and Harris Khalique. He died in 1965 in Karachi.

Related article: The story of Vera Suhrawardy