A known literary figure regards these stories as a ‘mirror’ of our eventful existence at both personal and collective levels
‘The author, in an anecdotal style, wistfully recapitulates his past. He is grossly distressed when he perceives a yawning gap between his ideal aspirations and the gruesome factuality of the worldly phenomena. Appearances look deceptive to him. The spiritualist in him seems to be engaged in a ‘quest for the eternal’, targeting misdemeanour, hypocrisy, misanthropy and the sham in the process.’
Bhari Pani
Author: Zia Butt
Publisher: Beyaz, Lahore
Pages: 155
Deeda-e-HairaN
Author: Zia Butt
Publisher: Matboo’at-e Lauh-o-Qalam, Lahore
Pages: 157 – Price: Rs.250/-
Zia Butt (b.1929) is not an unfamiliar name in the literary domain of Urdu short story. His professional association with the trade of accounting lasted until his superannuation in the year 1989 whereas his first collection of short stories titled Bhari Pani appeared in 1986. His post-retirement work Deeda-e-HairaN (2013), comprises his memoirs ostensibly steeped in mysticism, self-exploration, and broodings on religion, morality and society. The two publications have been jointly taken up for appraisement in the instant review.
Bhari Pani
It is a collection of Zia Butt’s 26 short stories on various subjects. Mansoora Ahmad, a noted literary figure of yesteryears, has contributed the flap of the book. In her opinion, Zia Butt is fully conversant with human psyche and its intricate texture. His characters are realistically portrayed as non-ideal human figures with little pretense to any kind of abnormality. Many of them are individual as well as typical at the same time which serves to revamp their fictive credibility. Mansoora Ahmad regards these stories as a ‘mirror’ of our eventful existence at both personal and collective levels.
Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, an outstanding literary figure of our times, has penned the preface to the book which is an avid estimation of Zia Butt’s literary proclivities and skills. He holds the latter as a classic example of realism in Urdu short story whose minute observation of the prevailing sociological environment coupled with a detached view of its latent incongruities, characterizes the form and substance of his short stories. The accent and idiom of the characters in these stories is that of the common man rather than elitist. Hence the stories look like a compendium of wit and wisdom.
The relevance of these remarks could be readily ascertained from a cursory reading of the short stories included in the collection that focus on issues like social disparities, injustice, deception, fraud, sensuality, hypocrisy, mal-administration, corruption and the like. At places the author employs symbols to spotlight the malaise without however implying a feasible antidote to the same. In effect he seems to contemplate, albeit altruistically, the dismal socio-cultural scenario infested with the aforesaid ills. The scientific metaphor of ‘heavy water’ is intended to dilute and dissipate its gravity.
The short stories titled Black Night, Pul Sirat, Tafteesh, Maey Kaun aur KahaN, Lakht Lakht, Barzakh, Sada-e-Sang, Full Stop, Afsana, Kafir, Deeda-e-HairaN, Maraje’at, and Bhari Pani are representative of the author’s fictional range and skill. Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi’s afore-mentioned views on Zia Butt’s art as a fiction writer tend to suggest that the latter employs art to excavate, as it were, the ‘archaeological’ values of life — values that appear to have lost their worth in the wake of an on-going socio-economic upheaval generated by the engines of phenomenal industrialization, technological advancement and commercialization in the modern times. The didactic aspect of art, and by extension literature, is meant to counteract these menacing trends in the current existential situation.
It is a common perception that society influences literature in many ways and the connection of literature with society is integral and pervasive. In fact ‘the range of social influences on literature is as broad as the entire range of operative social forces set in the prevailing system of social organization envisaging the class structure, the economic system, the political organization, the dominant ideas, the characteristic emotional tone, the sense of the past and the pattern of the future, the driving aspirations and their relation to the contemporary realities’. Everything in the compass of social life plays its active part whether small or large, directly or by deflection, immediately or by varying removes —- thus giving literature ‘the impress of its surrounding world’. Bhari Pani turns out to be an ardent espousal of these traits.
Deeda-e-HairaN
The book is a lucid exposition of the signs and secrets of mysticism, self-examination, and an apt plenitude of religious, moral and societal truths. In his prefatory remarks, the author avers that by a sustained process of meditation, he came to realize that sometimes what we may like or prefer for ourselves in the sensuous world may not be of any avail to us while what we may dislike or discard here may turn out to be a blessing for us. Thus suffering and disease do often convert into a blessing in disguise for us. The author pronounces that some of his observations and experiences would seem to defy a rational justification whence the logical outcome of a train of peculiar circumstances and situations would frequently baffle him. These are the truths that he has ventured to study and evaluate in the book.
It is essentially a collection of the author’s memoirs bearing on his personal and family life. The impressions gathered in the book are variegated though internally well connected. He recounts the various phases of his life embracing early education, upbringing, grooming, experience as a public servant, worldly wisdom, and mystical apperception.
The book comprises 38 chapters with captions like Dard-e-Agahi, Gumbad-e-Meenai, Alam-e-Tanhai, Lab-e-LarzaN, Jungle, Tajassus, Ahwal-e-Waqa’i, Ahwal-e-Arwah, Butan-e Wahm-o-GumaN, Haq Ashnai, Khalal Griftigan, Hairat Kuda, Jin ki Wapasi, Hayat-e-Nau, Shaneeda, Gosha-e-Tanhai, Kalma Toheed, Namaz-o-Zakat, Roza, Haj, Haqeeqat-e-Hal, Roohaniyat et al.
The author, in an anecdotal style, wistfully recapitulates his past. He is grossly distressed when he perceives a yawning gap between his ideal aspirations and the gruesome factuality of the worldly phenomena. Appearances look deceptive to him. The spiritualist in him seems to be engaged in a ‘quest for the eternal’, targeting misdemeanour, hypocrisy, misanthropy and the sham in the process. The mystic, the philosopher, the writer and the poet are all involved in this pursuit of the eternal truth but in their own manner and style. Respect for humanity teaches one to be temperate, content and self-restrained. This is also the final message of the author in the book.
