Sarshar: Pioneer of Urdu-Hindi Novel
By Ravi M. Bakaya
Firoz Mookerjee,
who lives in London, was born in undivided India. She graduated from Lucknow
University and later got her Ph.D. from the University of London, where she
worked on Ratan Nath Dar ‘Sarshar’ under the supervision of Ralph Russell,
Emeritus Reader in Urdu. This book is a revised version of her thesis. All
lovers of Urdu-Hindi literature in particular and Indian literature in general
will welcome the publication of the first book on Sarshar in English. However,
the importance of this book goes far beyond that. It is the first authoritative
research work on the complete works of Sarshar.
The second half of the nineteenth century was a very
important period in the history of Urdu, Hindi and Bengali prose. The ‘father of
modern Hindi’, Bharatendu Harish Chandra (1850-1885), the great Bengali
novelist, Bankim Chandra Chatterji (1838-1894), and Ratan NathSarshar (app.
1842-1902) - lived and worked during this period. Though Rabindranath Tagore
(1861-1941). also started writing in this period, his better known works belong
to the twentieth century.
Bankim, Bharatendu and Sarshar were each distinct in his
own way. What they had in common was their pioneering work in their own
literature, their familiarity with English literature, which to some extent
influenced their work, and the ‘didactic’ character of their literary work.
Ratan Nath Dar (‘Sarshar’ was his pen-name or
takhallus) was born in 1842 in a Kashmiri Pandit family domiciled in
Lucknow. His father, Baij Nath Dar, was a respected and influential citizen of
Lucknow, but he died when Ratan Nath was barely four years old. The Dars lived
in the neighbourhood of cultured Muslim families, and the young fatherless child
learned his Urdu from the expressive and gracious speech spoken by Muslim ladies
of his mohalla.
The Brahmins who had emigrated from Kashmir Valley in the
eighteenth century ‘to seek fame and fortune in the rich plains below’ in
Jawahar Lal Nehru’s words, had settled down mainly in Delhi and the United
Provinces and had adopted Urdu as their language, producing a number of
distinguished Urdu writers, scholars and poets, of whom Sarshar was undoubtedly
one of the greatest. Unfortunately, not much is known about his personal life
and even the year of his birth and the date of his death are matters of
conjecture and dispute. (Contrast this with his Hindu contemporary, Bharatendu
Harish Chandra. An obituary published after his death mourns that ‘his age was
only 34 years, 3 months, 27 days, 17 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds’!)
Sarshar, after leaving school, went to Canning College,
which had been established by the British in 1864, but he left without taking a
degree. However, he came out of college with a knowledge of English literature
which stood him in good stead during his career as a writer. He started his
working life in Kheri near Lucknow as a teacher. It was in this period that he
started writing articles for various Urdu newspapers and magazines, the most
notable of these being Avadh Punch. Some of his articles were on social
themes. His articles in an Urdu periodical, Akhbar-I-Sarishta-i-Talim,
published by the Department of Public Instruction, drew the attention of the
Director of the Department, who noted in his annual report that Sarshar’s
translations from English were the best he had seen.
In 1878 Sarshar was invited by Munshi Naval Kishore, the
biggest publisher of those days, to edit Avadh Akhbar, which became a
rival and competitor of Avadh Punch. Sarshar edited this paper with
distinction from 1878 to 1893 and many of his writings were first printed in it.
These included his voluminous novel, Fasana Azad, which was serialised by
the paper. Naval Kishore published it later in four volumes, the first being
brought out in 1880. Fasana Azad made Sarshar famous; while it was being
serialised in Avadh Akhbar, it was read and enjoyed by all sections of
society. This is a huge work, comprising four volumes totalling about 3000
pages. It relates the adventures of its central hero, Azad, and his inseparable
companion, ‘Khoji’ (a humorous diminutive for Khwaja) who provides cause for
endless mirth with his antics. Sarshar was undoubtedly influenced by Don
Quioxote in writing this story. Above all, it was Sarshar’s mastery of ‘the
vivid, racy colloquial’ language of Lucknow that made his work so popular.
This command of language is nowhere more evident than in
the passages of dialogue which form so large a part of the whole work. Sarshar
knew how well he could write dialogue, and he uses this talent to the full...He
knew exactly the forms of speech, the special vocabulary and the characteristic
style and tone appropriate to each of the wide range of characters of different
classes and different areas whom he introduces in his pages. The number of
characters who appear in Fasana Azad is enormous, yet all seem quite
distinctive...
Some idea of the scope and volume of Sarshar’s literary
output can be gained from the following lines in Firoze Mookerjee’s book:
During his editorship of Avadh Akhbar Sarshar
wrote many articles on political, social and literary subjects. In 1887 he
published a translation of Donald Mackenzie Wallace’s History of Russia, a
re-written version of an earlier novel, now entitled ‘Jam-i-Sarshar’. Two
years later he translated Lord Dufferin’s Letters from High Latitudes. In 1890
his novel, Sair-i-Kuhsar, appeared, followed some time before 1893 by
Kamini. About 1893 (Saksena) he started a series of short novels under the
general title of Khim-Kada-i-Sarashar. Included in this series were
Kururn Dhum, Bichhri Dulhan, Tufan-I-Betamizi, Pi Kahan, Hushsho
and Rangile Siyar. Sometime during this period he translated a political
pamphlet written by Dr Hunter, a history of Egypt entitled Shakh-i-Nabat
and a slightly abridged version of the Arabian Nights. In 1894 came Khudai
Faujdar, an adaption and free translation of Don Quixote.
HOWEVER, in all his work, Sarshar aimed at reforming
Indian society, cleansing it of obscurantist ideas. This didactic approach was
usual in the literature of those times and, indeed, it characterizes all
classical literature to some extent. As he said, introducing Fasana Azad
when he began serialising it in Avadh Akhbar :
Our real aim in this series is to enable the readers of
Avadh Akbhar in the guise of humour to become fully conversant with
education and culture and good taste, with correct conversational usage and the
idioms appropriate to various occasions, with the atmosphere of every kind of
gathering and with the manners of society as a whole..so that (knowledge of) the
various states of human communities and the effect of the company one keeps and
the climate of the age may bring substantial benefit to our country, so that
men’s minds may be illumined by the radiance of good thoughts and excellent
morals, and their mentality cleansed of the darkness of corrupting ideas and the
unworthy traits of the ill-bred, and upright minds may receive the frill
benefits that accrue from a sane training...Our aim is that from reading these
articles they may at one and the same time derive pleasure and enjoyment and
amusement on the one hand, and linguistic accomplishment and lofty ideas, on the
other.
Towards the end of his life, Sarshar went to live in
Hyderabad, which was in those days a great centre of Urdu language and
literature. According to his own account, published in Kashmir Prakash of
March 1899:
About four years ago I went to Madras as a member of the
Congress (the Madras session of the Indian National Congress was held in 1894)
and from there my good fortune brought me to Hyderahad, Deccan. Prominent Hindus
and Muslims welcomed me enthusiastically as did the public at large. Maharaja
Kishan Parshad, the Nizam’s Minister for the Army and a former Prime Minister,
appointed me at a salary of Rs 200 a month to correct his poems and prose.
Sarshar spent the last few years of his life in Hyderabad
as the literary mentor of Maharaja Kishan Parshad. He brought out a literary
journal called Dabdaba-i-Asafia at the same time. A novel, Chanchal Nar,
began to be serialised in this magazine, but was never finished. The Nizam also
patronised Sarshar.
Apart from being a foremost prose writer of his days,
Sarshar was also a distinguished poet. His poetic theme is love, but he has
written on other subject as well. His best known poem is his masnavi
‘Tohfa-I-Sarshar’ which he wrote to quell the outcry of orthodox Kashmiri
Brahmins against the visit to England of his friend Bishan Naryan Dar, a
barrister. In this long poem Sarshar makes fun of the Pandits who wanted to
boycott Bishan Narayan Dar because he had dared to cross the seven-seas.
Sarshar died at the age of 55 or 56-his end being
hastened by his addiction to drink. He had himself confessed:
Peene pe jab ate hain phir bas nahin karte,
Maikhana me sunte nahin Sarshar kiseeki.
(Once he strats drinking, he won’t stop. In the drinking
house Sarshar doesn’t listen to anyone).
Firoze Mookerjee appropriately devotes considerable space
in her book to Lucknow of Sarshar’s days, which had inspired most of his work.
There is an informative chapter on the prose narrative tradition inherited by
Sarshar, which he developed further, giving it a modern trend. All of his main
works have been discussed by the author of the book, as also his minor novels
and his role as a translator. In conclusion, Feroze Mookerjee says:
When we review the course of Sarshar’s development as a
writer, we see at once that the key period extends from 1878 to 1890. In the
course of these twelve years as he progresses from the stage of Fasana Azad,
a stage in which, though closely tied to the old tradition, he is grafting
on to it the new modes of writing which characterise the moden novel, to the
stage where in Jam-I-Sarshar and Sair-I-Kohsar, he has all but severed his ties
with the old and practically completed a transition to the new. After that the
trend is reversed, and already in Kamini, he is in many respects back
behind the starting point which Fasana Azad represented. Yet, taken as a
whole, his writing represents a great step forward in the development of Urdu
prose and fiction.
Firoze Mookerjee draws pointed attention to Sarshar’s
striking attitude to women:
Above all, he is a champion of women’s rights. More than
any other Urdu writer of his time he pleaded passionately for justice to women.
To illustrate the gross injustice done to them both by Hindus and Muslims, he
created numerous women characters from every section of society, women who are
beautiful, intelligent and possess a strength of characters which his men
characters lack. Yet they are treated badly and are exploited by society.
Firoze Mookerjee rightly calls Prem Chand the true heir
to Sarshar. In fact it was Prem Chand who introduced Sarshar to Hindi
readers by producing an abridged version of’ Fasana Azad which in Hindi
he called Azad ki Katha. This HindI version has run since
into numerous editions. It should be remembered that Prem Chand started as an
Urdu writer and turned to Hindi later as it ensured greater circulation to his
writings. Prem Chand acknowledges his debt
“In my writing there is more influence of Sarshar
and Sarat Chandra and less of Tagore.”
There is a detailed and very useful bibliography appended
to the book. It is interesting that such a detailed treatment of an Indian
writer who died a century ago should have been facilitated by the excellent
literary records-books, newspapers and periodicals-in the India House Library
and the British Museum Library in London. One wonders if the author could have
found all this priceless material in India. The paucity of available
biographical material on Sarshar himself is shown by the fact that only
six such titles are listed-two books each by Prem Pal Ashk and Tabassum Kashmiri
and one each by Sayyad Latif Adil and Qamar Rais. Three of these six titles were
published in Pakistan. It is a sad commentary on Urdu in India today that
though-like Sarshar-Firoze Mookerjee had her cultural roots in Lucknow, she had
to find a publisher in Pakistan for her book on this distinguished Kashmiri
Pandit writer.
One fervently hopes that this excellent study will find a
place in most university and college libraries in India and on the shelves of
many lovers of Urdu and Hindi literature and, indeed, Indian literature in other
languages. An Indian edition of Firoze Mookerjee’s book is greatly to be
desired, for books published in Pakistan are unfortunately not easily available
in this country.
Lucknow and the world of Sarashar
Author: Firoze Mukerjee
Publishers: Saad Publications Karachi, 1992
pp. xv+242
Price: Rs 150
*The reviewer was formerly a Professor of Russian
Studies at JNU. (Courtesy: Mainstream, June 19, 1993)
Source: Kashmir
Sentinel
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