The last of the gentle humorists

A new translation of Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi’s book takes us back to a time in history that is slowly fading away.

Colonial and post-colonial writing in Urdu was enriched by a tradition of humour and satire, and Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi is its leading light. A new translation of his last published work, Mirages of the Mind takes us back to a time in history that is slowly fading away.

Yousufi is widely regarded as the leading contemporary writer of the Urdu literary genre of humour and satire. For those uninitiated in the ways of Urdu literature, this might seem like a curious double category—humour and satire— and, though in ways it is, a brief history lesson will show how various literary strains combined to form its distinctness.

The genre’s history stretches back to the beginning of the 18th century. There, we find the first writer of Urdu humour and satire, Mir Muhammad Jafar Zatalli (his pen name means ‘the babbler of nonsense’), who, the tale goes, was executed in 1713 by Mughal Emperor Farrukh Siyar for writing an insulting, satirical poem to inaugurate the new emperor’s reign. So much for early attempts at Urdu satire.

Humorous and satiric moments continued unabated, whether in satirical poems, in ghazals, dastan stories, in letters (such as those of Ghalib), or in novels. But, for the genre to appear as a form in its own right, it had to wait until the second half of the 19th century. Then, in 1877, a satirical newspaper began to be published from Lucknow, The Avadh Punch, that was based upon the model of the famous British newspaper of similar name. The Avadh Punch generated imitators, and soon the genre was solidly a part of the Urdu reading public’s consciousness. It was only in the 20th century, then, that the genre became a prominent vessel of literary ambition.

Patras Bukhari (1898-1958), Rasheed Ahmad Siddiqui (1894-1977) and Yousufi (born 1922) are routinely cited as its leading modern writers. One recent critic has declared this the ‘Age of Yousufi’, and, without taking away from these two predecessors, I would suggest that Yousufi has found ways to embellish and extend his genre’s art in unexpected and profound directions.

So, are the genre’s two elements necessarily intertwined, as they are in the Urdu phrase ‘tanz o mazah’? Yousufi has an interesting way of thinking about his chosen literary enterprise. He thinks of the two parts—humour and satire— as being somewhat separable. While the latter seeks to lampoon regressive cultural practices and personages, the first is gentler. That is, satire laughs at people, and humour laughs with people. Yousufi’s books back up his thinking. His work draws us in with its gentleness, and it makes us laugh along with the ridiculous situations and awkward moments that his characters experience.

Yousufi is known for many characteristic flourishes, including his light touch, his mordantly ironic puns on classic Urdu, Persian and English poetry, and his love for eccentric characters. But, as a signature, perhaps his digressive style is the most obvious.

In Mirages of the Mind, his masterpiece and his last published work, Yousufi serves as the scribe for the stories of his fictional friend and protagonist, Basharat. Basharat’s own narrative style is not long story short, rather, short story long, and this suits Yousufi’s own brand of prose well.

At another point in the book, Yousufi describes this style through the words of Mirza Abdul Wadud Baig, ‘When you slip on a banana peel, you should never ever try to stop yourself or put on the brakes because that will only cause greater injury. Just slip without a care in the world. Enjoy it.’ Slipping on a banana peel and enjoying it might be good branding for Yousufi’s style.

This digressive style leads to some confusion in the classification of the book—is it a novel, or a series of tales? Is it fiction, or non-fiction? There doesn’t seem to be a necessary contradiction, at least in the first case. (All fictions are loosely non-fictions, and vice-versa, so the second question doesn’t present any real problems either.) We call it a novel, and the way in which Yousufi focuses on Basharat as his main character means that it is indeed a novel, of whichever sort, that the book bears.

The novel begins with Basharat’s story of his father-in- law, the formidable Qibla. Qibla is a larger-than-life character—irascible, belligerent, quirky, fashion-conscious, and, in private, disarmingly sweet. The narrative traces Qibla’s life back and forth across the border—from his lumberyard in Kanpur to his new life after Partition in Karachi.

Qibla’s physical aspect makes his seem half like a god, half like a demon. Basharat describes him in the following way, ‘His big eyes bulged from their sockets. They were always bloodshot—really bloodshot. As red as pigeon’s blood. I thought the red veins around his pupils would burst in a fountain of blood to spray across my face.’ This is, no doubt, a theatrical exaggeration, right? The description goes from more or less realistic to a comical—and rather disgusting—fantasy of what his bloodshot eyes might eventually become, a fountain of spurting blood.

But Qibla has his endearing aspects as well. He loves his lumber, perhaps too much. He protects it from those customers who don’t know about wood. To some, he refuses to sell. Generally, though, he overcharges. Again, in Basharat’s words, ‘He lived by his principles. Which is to say ‘Quality Store, Quality Product, Wrong Price.’ I’ve heard that Harrods, the world’s most famous store, advertises itself as having everything from sewing needles to elephants. But I’ve also heard that the price for either is the same! If Harrods sold lumber, I swear they would follow Qibla’s price points.’

When Qibla immigrates to Pakistan, he finds himself at a loose end. He had a ‘mansion’ in Kanpur, but he’s stuck begging for a home in Karachi. After trying to go through the proper channels for a while, he wisens up and takes what is within reach—an apartment on Burns Road. Qibla breaks this apartment’s lock and yanks off the nameplate, which reads, ‘Custodian Of Abandoned Properties’. He redoes the nameplate to read ‘Muzaffar Kanpuri’. To his friends, he explains his fake poetic penname by stating that he’s never heard of a civil court case against a poet. (Because, presumably, everyone knows they are indigent.)

Still, the apartment doesn’t compare to his old house, which in his imagination has grown day by day. Indeed, nostalgia informs most of the novel, and here is where Qibla displays his greatest nostalgia. His new home lacks size, and its quality is suspect as well. Qibla has some photos of his old house, and he gets one framed: ‘Qibla got a photo of the mansion enlarged and framed, and when he was hammering a nail into his apartment’s paper-thin wall, the neighbor on the other side came over and asked whether he could place the nail a foot higher so that he could use the nail’s other end to hang up his shervani.’

Talk about communitarian living in South Asia—this is real community!

Qibla’s narrative is punctuated by three major incidents involving other characters. In Kanpur, Qibla’s store is next to another lumber store owned by an ex-wrestler from Kannauj, whom everyone refers to as Mr Wrestler. The two men have an intensely antagonistic relationship that ends with violence. When Mr Wrestler infringes on the space outside of Qibla’s shop where customers pass by, Qibla gives chase with a charpoy leg. They pass over a set of railroad tracks, and Qibla hits Mr Wrestler, who falls and breaks his leg. This leg has to be amputated, and soon Qibla finds himself in jail. But, contrary to expectation, Qibla is not humbled by the experience. Instead, he exits jail two years later even more menacing than before:

‘He installed a pole outside his cabin and hung on it a wooden leg, which he had had made by a carpenter. Each morning and evening he would raise and lower this leg, just like the Union Jack was raised and lowered in those days in military camps. He sent threatening letters to those who hadn’t paid their bills for two years.’

Not only that, but he begins to take special pride in signing ‘ex- con’ after his name.

The funniest story of his relationship with Basharat is probably that of the build-up to Basharat becoming his son-in-law. Basharat’s fear of Qibla, and of asking him for his daughter’s hand in marriage, is so great that Basharat can’t do it in person. He writes a letter, which he sends by registered post, though they live next door to each other. The letter runs to 23 pages of encomium and false praise (about Qibla) but never gets around to mentioning the name of the object of Basharat’s affections. Qibla’s response is classic: ‘He read the letter twice and then handed it to his secretary with these words, “Read this and tell me who this prince wants to marry. He’s described me quite well, though.” ’

Qibla’s other defining relationship is that with his wife. While his interactions with his wife aren’t generally funny, they do lend poignancy to the portrait that Yousufi sketches, and they make us view Qibla not as a caricature but a character—living, robust, and, like real people, contradictory in many ways. Qibla’s wife suffers a debilitating hand disability. She develops this several years after their marriage, and as a result of this, gradually loses contact with the outside world. That is, people shun her. Qibla, quite in contrast, takes to caring for her with saintly and meticulous attention:

‘So Qibla dedicated his life to helping her, and he did so in such a selfless and loving way that it beggared description. Her hair was always braided. Her scarf was always pleated, and on Friday, it was always cornflower blue. With the passage of time, her hair grew grey. But Qibla’s love for her didn’t weaken in the least. You couldn’t imagine that this embodiment of sacrifice and love was the same person who, when out of the house, raged and fumed like a sword cutting through air.’

Yousufi’s writing is never simply about laughing. This is another way in which it transcends its genre. With Qibla, and with so many other characters in the novel, we notice something familiar from his earlier books, but newly clear—we see how Yousufi loves the eccentric, and that he includes these characters not just for a good laugh. Rather, these characters reveal social values.

Every culture has its norms, but they become evident only when they run into conflict with difference. Cultural difference that is entirely ‘the other’ does, unfortunately, on frequent occasions incite hatred, fear and derision.

But difference within a culture has a greater chance of being held at an intimate distance, a position from which the difference of eccentric people can inspire reflection and, in some cases, positive cultural change.

Certainly, there is much laughter to be found in his books. But his distinction between humour and satire continues to direct our attention to something significant: while his characters might be exaggerated in this way or that— frequently they are oddballs, misfits, wayward souls and eccentrics— their humanity makes them three-dimensional.

His love for these characters and for the types of people they stand for in ‘real life’ is clear.

That makes his writing something beyond simply humour writing; it makes it great literature.

Mirages of the mindMushtaq Ahmed Yousufi