Urge to Fly - books

Water of Life

noreply@blogspirit.com (Khwaahish-e-Parwaaz) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 19:55:00 +0530

Mohammad Hussain Azad's Aab-e-hayaat (Water of Life) is regarded as the first documented 'history' of Urdu literature. It is a book that has shaped and influenced the thoughts of the Urdu literary community all through the 20th century. I'm not much of an on-line reader, so while a link to the online version of the English translation by F.W Pritchett and S.R Faruqui figures prominently in my IE favorites folder, I desperately wanted to own a copy of the book. So you can imagine my delight when I found an old copy of this translation at a bookshop last week.

As I opened the book, I was quite amused by the very first line. The translators try to warn the reader –

"Āb-e ḥayāt is not a trustworthy history of Urdu literature. It cannot and should not be read as such."

Now, this is interesting… the first documented 'history' of Urdu literature is not 'trustworthy' after all. As I dived deeper into the initial chapters – the translators' introductory notes – it became obvious to me that the translators felt very strongly about what Azad had written in this seminal book.

"The unique power exerted by Āb-e ḥayāt is what made us decide to translate this exasperating, moving, wrongheaded, fascinating, all-too-persuasive text."

As I moved further along, I understood why FWP and SRF used these words to describe the book. While theorizing on the history of Urdu literature, Azad starts off with a critique, going completely ballistic in condemning the stagnation…

Umrao Jaan - A Mixed Bag

noreply@blogspirit.com (Khwaahish-e-Parwaaz) — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 10:35:00 +0530

First, let's get a few facts right:

1. J.P Dutta's Umrao Jaan is not a 'remake' of Muzaffar Ali's 1981 version; it's another interpretation of Mirza Hadi Ruswa's novel. The screenplays of the two films are completely different. If there is anything common, it's the fact that both Ali and Dutta have taken creative liberty to change the tone of the original story to romanticize the character of Umrao Jaan and transform her into a tragic lovelorn heroine. Both follow the same adaptation 'device' of modifying the chronology of events and putting actual events from the book in a different context to lend more sadness to the protagonist's character.

2. Muzaffar Ali's 1981 version was not a commercial success. Despite a plethora of well-deserved awards (except the hugely controversial National Award for Rekha), the film's business was below average (my memory fails me, but I think it was probably a box-office disaster…but, then, when did box-office returns become a measure of a film's quality?).

3. Muzaffar Ali's 1981 version is not the 'original' adaptation of Ruswa's book. It's only the most well-known and authentic. There have been two eminently forgettable attempts before that – Mehndi (1958) and Zindagi Aur Toofan (1975).

It is important to keep the above in mind because many film journalists, with their shocking lack of knowledge and unpardonable disdain for research, would have us believe the contrary.

Now let me get to J.P Dutta's adaptation of Umrao Jaan. In my earlier post on Don I have made…

Bitten by the Reading Bug

noreply@blogspirit.com (Khwaahish-e-Parwaaz) — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 20:10:00 +0530

I know a lot of people who love to spend their spare time reading a book - reading is a passion for them. Almost all of them picked the habit as a kid. In that respect, I’m more of an exception. The reading bug never bit me as a kid, though my parents, especially my mom, were always strong advocates of reading as a habit. They would take my brother and me to Book Fairs and buy a lot of books for us, but while my brother took on to reading fairly early – making quantum jumps from Enid Blytons to Hardy Boys to Ludlums by the time he was 10, the habit never really caught on with me. If at all I read anything, it was only due to peer pressure; I didn't want to feel left out when my brother and our friends discussed the latest Hardy Boys adventure. I didn't enjoy reading as a kid. I didn't have the patience for it.

It was fairly late in life that I truly discovered the pleasure of reading. Actually, it was the writing bug that bit me first. It started with a diary that I maintained very religiously, then I moved to the next logical step of shaping my diary into a semi-autographical book, and finally I found my passion - poetry. And when I started writing, I was naturally drawn towards reading. Since I had chosen Hindi and Urdu as the languages of choice for my poetry, I mostly…

The Da Vinci Code - Dan or Ron?

noreply@blogspirit.com (Khwaahish-e-Parwaaz) — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 15:50:00 +0530

So the film is finally out! Is it good? Does it live up to the hype?

Everyone who has seen the film will tell you that the book is better. Of course it is. But does that necessarily make it a bad film? Not at all, but let me try first to analyse why the book seems better.

When was the last time you watched a film that was as good as (if not better than) the book it was based on. For a moment let's forget about The Godfather or the LoTR trilogy (though some people do feel that these films could not capture the spirit of the books – I disagree). I think that books and films are very different media: what works in one does not necessarily work in the other. In a book, the author can easily delve into the minds of its characters; all he needs is some good imagination and a way with words. But how can one capture that on a visual medium like film? There are a few time tested techniques for that, but they don’t always work. Let's take two examples – a dream, and the thought process a person goes through while, say, cracking a code. While a good, imaginative director can visually depict a dream very well, it's quite a challenge to portray a person’s thought process on screen, no matter how good the actor is. That's precisely where The Da Vinci Code, the film, cannot live up to the…

Staying in Touch

noreply@blogspirit.com (Khwaahish-e-Parwaaz) — Mon, 15 May 2006 15:15:00 +0530

I've recently finished reading Vikram Seth’s Two Lives. It's a fascinating book. Part memoir, but largely biography, this book is about the tumultuous lives of the author's granduncle and grandaunt. What I like most about the book, apart from the uncomplicated and direct narrative style (which is expected out of Vikram Seth anyway), is the fact that we learn about the two remarkable individuals largely through the letters they exchange with each other and their other friends. While the author was lucky to 'interview' his granduncle and get his side of the story first hand, he had nothing to refer when it came to writing about his grandaunt (not even his granduncle had complete visibility to his wife's pre-marital life). As the author himself observes, this book would never have got written, but for the chance discovery of a set of letters that were very carefully preserved by his grandaunt. And the depth of information we get from that is infinitely more and much richer than what even a first-hand interview could give.

Last week I received an email from a friend. It was quite a general email, but there was one line that is largely responsible for this post. It simply said, 'Hey why don’t you mail me once in a while?'

Vikram Seth's book and my friend's email set me thinking. When was the last time I wrote a letter? If my memory serves me right, that was almost 6 years back. Or an email? Well, I do write…