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January 23, 2004
A Day in the Company of Mujtaba Hussain
I have only last week returned from a 16-day visit to Hyderabad in South India. This was my second visit to the State where I was born and raised a couple of decades before it was taken over by India. My first visit was half a century after I had migrated to Pakistan in Oct., 1948. I had recorded my impressions in a series of four columns in this very space. The latest visit was five years after that and the most memorable event this time was the day I spent in the company of Mr. Mujtaba Hussain who is undoubtedly a humorist par excellence in Urdu language. A humorist poet and dramatist, Himayetullah , joined our company adding further to my pleasure and honor.
Like any other outstanding person, Mujtaba, is a personification of humility and self-effacement. He had a knee replaced in the hope of getting rid of the arthritis pain. After two surgeries, he has ended with a fake knee joint, a permanent limp and a walking stick to enable him to be mobile. I couldn’t avoid feeling guilty that his inherent nobility was making him ignore the discomfiture to take me to some of the institutions striving for the cause of Urdu language.
Our first stop was at the office of Siyasat, the premier Urdu daily of Hyderabad with a circulation of some 50,000. The editor, Zahid Ali Khan, is a scion of a noble Nawab family and son of the founder of the paper, Abid Ali Khan. Mahboob Hussain Jigar, the elder brother of Mujtaba Hussein was the co-founder and the leading light of the paper.
The office was buzzing like a bee hive reflecting the inspiration of the editor and proprietors and their dedication to the objectives of the paper that appeared to have permeated the entire staff.
We visited next the Idara-e-Adabiyat-e Urdu, an institution set up by my teacher and the Head of the Department of Urdu, Dr. Qader Mohiuddin Zoor. It is being run now by a successor of his in that Department, Dr. Mughni Tabussum, an eminent poet and writer himself.
Going through the small museum carrying the collections of manuscripts, miniature paintings and other objects d’art of Dr. Zoor. I regretted my impish dexterity which had led me to write on the black board just before his arrival in the class, Ghalib’s couplet: “Ishq per ZOOR nahin hai yeh voh atish Ghalib …and underneath the comment: “What a nice couplet by Dr. Zoor”. When he entered the class and read this, he appeared more amused than annoyed.
While I was standing there in that exhibition room marveling at the paintings, memories came rushing one over the other of my two-year association with Dr. Zoor, his contagious and intense love of the language and his inspirations to his pupils. I have no hesitation in giving him the credit for standing first in Urdu in my B.A. The building that houses the Idara was, I understand, donated by him along with his entire collections.
Our next stop was the Urdu Academy, a very active and perhaps effective body headed now by a dynamic businessman, Ibrahim Masqati. He is no writer or poet but perhaps the biggest producer and supplier of milk to the city. Yet, I thought him to be an appropriate person to head that institution. For, he is blessed with tremendous drive and is an uncanny go-getter particularly as he is on intimate terms with people who count in that society. Prof. Asada, head of the Urdu Dept. of Tokyo University was an important guest of the Academy on that day. We were treated to lunch by Mr. Masqati and presented with sets of books in Urdu brought out by the Academy.
From the Academy, Mr. Mujtaba took me to the residence of Dr. Isaac Sequeira, a former Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Head of the Department of English and Director of an Indian-American cultural society. His drawing room where we were received had no drawing at all; for, it was loaded with book shelves over-flowing with books. He is married to his books and seemed quite happy living and sleeping surrounded with them. He had read the script of my forthcoming book on “Life in America”, praised its contents -perhaps led by his habit of encouraging his students- and offered to write a Preface for it. I cherish his gesture.
His knowledge of various facets of life in America astounded me. Much as I wanted to keep listening to him, we had to make a move, as Mujtaba did not want our next host waiting long for us.
Our next stop was the residence of Dr. Hasanuddin Ahmad, a retired I.A.S. offer, head of Villa Academy, and the illustrious son of an illustrious father, Nawab Din Yarn Jung, a pillar of the last NorAm’s administration. His mansion remains intact while almost all such other enormous residences have succumbed to the rash of high-rise apartment buildings.
We were treated to a sumptuous, Hyderabadi dinner by Dr. Hasanuddin. The Academy he runs also patronizes Urdu writers and poets. It has published dozens of books in Urdu.
It was growing late in the evening, so we called it a day to go to our houses.
I reached my sister’s place where Afroze, my son, and I were spending our two-week sojourn in Hyderabad. But, I couldn’t sleep for hours, despite the comfortable bed, the cool and salubrious weather and the total absence of mosquitoes, bedbugs or other insects. Images of Mujtaba limping along with me without even a grimace kept occurring to me making me conscious of my inability to thank him adequately. I had always considered him a humorist par excellence, but I had just discovered what a great individual he was. He lives in Delhi and had made it convenient to be in Hyderabad during my visit to that city. I enjoyed his company as much as I cherish the memories of my associations with the famous humorists: Shaukat Thanavi and my colleague, Syed Mohammed Jaffery.
He gave me his latest book carrying a selection of his columns. This is his seventeenth book. Being still disturbed and somewhat disoriented by the jet lag, I haven’t yet been able to go through the entire contents.
A prolific writer, an exemplary purveyor of wit and humor, Mujtaba excels in his field owing to the simplicity of his language, the absence of repetition or over-lapping of themes, his racy style and smooth flow of his pen. He creates humor without offending anyone or affronting the high cultural values he had been nurtured on in the Hyderabadi milieu. He has dedicated his life to the service of Urdu language like his elder brothers Ibahim Jalees and Mahboob Hussain Jigar. Their combined contributions cover three quarters of a century.
Mr. Hasan Chishti of Chicago, an icon of Hyderabadi culture and an eminent writer and poet himself, has indeed earned the gratitude of a vast segment of South Asian community by publishing in four volumes selections from the scintillating writings of Mujtaba Hussain. The copy presented to me by Mujtaba is the fourth volume. I have read all the earlier volumes and was genuinely happy that the money I had spent on them was a wise investment as it has paid me back in pleasure many times more. (Hasan Chishti may be reached at: Hasan10@AOL.com or by Phone at 733-743-1705)
Arifhussaini@hotmail.com January 18, 2004
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