Amjad Islam Amjad

I am a poet, first and foremost. Everything else is secondary. Amjad Islam Amjad Interview by Ally Adnan Photographs by Mohsin Khawar Photography The winner of twelve (12) PTV, sixteen (16) Graduate, the prestigious Pride of Performance, the important Sitara-E-Imtiaz, and numerous other awards, Amjad Islam Amjad is a towering figure in the field of Urdu literature, poetry, television, film and theater. He has written more than forty (40) books in a prolific career that spans almost five (5) decades and continues to write both prose and poetry. In an exclusive interview for Newsline, he talks to Ally Adnan about his life, career, family, principles and a lot else. 1. You have written in most forms of Urdu poetry. Why is it that you are known more for your nazm ( ‫ )نظ‬and less for other forms you have used for poetry? There are two reasons why I am considered primarily as a writer of nazm ( ‫)نظ‬. One, my first book of poetry, Barzakh (‫)برزخ‬, consisted only of nazms (‫ )نظمیں‬and established me as a poet of the form. Two, nazm ( ‫ )نظ‬is my favorite form of poetry. 2. Why is nazm ( ‫ )نظ‬your favorite form of poetry? I like the structure and freedom the genre of nazm ( ‫)نظ‬. I am most comfortable writing in the form because it allows me to introduce an idea, develop it properly, examine it at length, and then take it to a crescendo. There are few, if any, restrictions of structure, subject and length in nazm ( ‫)نظ‬. This suits my stule. I have probably written as many ghazals (‫)غزلی ت‬ and geets (‫ )گیت‬as nazms (‫ )نظمیں‬but have received the most recognition for my nazms (‫)نظمیں‬. 3. At the time of partition, India and Pakistan had a common tradition of Urdu poetry. How has the Urdu poetry of the two countries become different over the years? A number of new countries were formed after the Second World War and each elected a single language as its national language. The Indian National Congress had been promoting Hindi as the national language since 1885. Urdu, of course, was the lingua franca of the region. At the time of partition, Pakistan chose Urdu as its national language whereas India adopted Hindi and English as its two official languages. Consequently, there was more focus on Urdu in Pakistan and Hindi in India. The first change that occurred was one of script. The two languages are very similar when spoken but written differently. Urdu is written in Perso-Arabic alphabet, from the right to left, whereas Hindi is written officially in the Devanagari script, from left to right. Urdu poetry in India is now often written in the Devanagari script. A number of senior Urdu poets of India, some very good ones, wrote a lot for Hindi films. These included Hasrat Jaipuri, Jan Nisar Akhtar Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Raja Mehdi Ali Khan, Sahir Ludhianvi, and Shakeel Badayuni. They wrote songs in good, if somewhat simple, Urdu for Hindi films and had to cater to a wide audience that included aficionados of the language as well as people who did not have an understanding of Urdu poetry. Their poetry, therefore, become simpler in form and language and the themes of love and romance came to dominate their poems. Over the years, and especially after the sixties, the language, structure and form of poetry in India became increasingly simpler. In Pakistan, on the other hand, elaborate language and complex poetic structures continued to be used poets. The izafat (‫اض فت‬, enclitic short vowel used for the syntactical construction of two nouns), for example, is very popular with Urdu poets in Pakistan but is rarely used by Indian poets because the device does not exist in Hindi. Urdu poetry written in Pakistan is heavily influenced by Persian; this is not the case with Indian poetry. The culture of poetry in the two countries has become very different as well. The mushaira (‫مش عره‬, poetry recitation event) is popular all over India after partition it has fallen out of favor in Pakistan. 4. Where do we have better poets and listeners? Without a doubt, Pakistan has had, and continues to have, better Urdu poets. It is difficult to say which country has better listeners. I dia ’s liste ith a lot of lo e, seriousness and attention. Mushairas (‫ )مش عرے‬are popular in the country and poets have a lot of opportunities to recite their poems in India. The proportion of really good listeners - those who truly know, understand and appreciate Urdu poetry - is small in the mushairas (‫ )مش عرے‬of both countries, and possibly a little smaller in India. 5. During the twentieth century, the contributions made to Urdu literature and poetry by the people whose mother tongue is not Urdu seem to be greater than those made by the ehl-e-zubaan (‫اہلِِزب ن‬, people whose mother tongue is Urdu). Why is it so? This is a consequence of the popularity, pervasiveness and spread of Urdu all over the region. When the British came to India, they quickly realized that they needed to communicate with Indians in a local language. It was not possible for them to learn the more than three hundred languages and dialects spoken in India at the time. After a number of surveys, the British decided that they would use Urdu, along with English, to communicate with Indians. They set up an Urdu center at the Fort William College, Calcutta, to teach the language to the British. The goal was to enable the British to understand Indian society and govern it effectively by making them conversant in a popular local language. The British also started teaching Urdu to Indians all over the country. They founded the Delhi and Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental colleges subsequently and set up departments in both to promote Urdu. Muhammad Husain Azad, Nazir Ahmad Dehlvi, Altaf Hussain Hali, Maulvi Abdul Haq and a number of other literary figures made tremendous contributions towards the popularization of Urdu in the region. As a result of the efforts of the British and native speakers of the language, Urdu spread outside of the centers of Delhi, Lucknow, Rampur and other cities where it was spoken and started becoming known all over the country. In the eighteenth century, virtually all literary work done in Urdu was done by the ehl-e-zubaan. In the nineteenth century, non-native speakers of the language had started writing in Urdu. And in the twentieth century, most of the major Urdu poets and writers were people whose mother tongue was not Urdu. 6. Virtually all Pakistani and a lot of Indian vocalists have sung your poetry. Do you believe that their songs have helped popularize your poems? Yes, they absolutely have and the singers deserve due credit here. 7. Which one of your poems that have been sung is your favorite? My favorite songs keep changing with time. If I had to pick one, Iqbal Ba o’s re dio of Dil Ke Darya Ko Kisi Roz Utar Jana Hai (‫ )دل ِکے ِدری ِکو ِکسی ِروز ِاتر ِج ن ِہے‬would be my all-time favorite. She did not sing it very often but it is masterpiece of ghazal singing. I also love Kahan Aa Ke Ruknay Thay Rastay (‫ )کﮩ ںِﺁِکےِرکﻨےِتﮭےِراسﺘے‬by Ghulam Ali, Chand Ke Saath Kayi Darad Purane Niklay (ِ‫چ ند ِکے ِس تﮭ ِکئی ِدرد‬ ‫ )پرانے ِنک ے‬by Jagjit Singh, Kisi Ki Aankh Jo Pur Nam Nahin Hai (ِ‫کسی ِکی ِﺁنکﮭ‬ ‫ )جوِپرِن ِنﮩیںِہے‬by Abida Parveen, Guzar Gaya Jo Zamana Usay Bhula Hi Do (‫ )گزرِگی ِجوِزم نہِاسےِبﮭاِہیِدو‬by Hamid Ali Khan, and Main Tara Tara Jagoon Tere Naam ( ‫ )میںِت رهِت رهِج گوںِتیرےِن‬by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. 8. You did not mention Main Tere Sung Kaise Chaloon Sajna (ِ‫میں ِتیرے ِسنگ‬ ‫ )کیسےِچ وںِسجن‬by Noor Jehan. Do you not like the song? Of course, I do. I love it.It is one of the best renditions of my poetry and my good fortune that Madam sang it. 9. She did change a word in the aastahyee (first line of the song) when she used the word sajna ( ‫ )سجن‬instead of saajana ( ‫)س جن‬. Yes, she did make that mistake. Saajana ( ‫ )س جن‬rhymes with hawa (‫ ;)ہوا‬sajna ( ‫ )سجن‬does not. 10. How come no one corrected her? Madam was known to have a temper. People were afraid to tell her anything that could offend her. She was also very charming and could justify just about anything. So pointing out errors to her was either risky or futile. When I tried to raise the issue with her, she asked me if I had disliked the song, with the innocence and fragility of a young Punjabi damsel. The only thing that I could muster in response was an affirmation that the song was great and the change did not matter. 11. What did you think of Noor Jehan? I think she was a truly great human being, the kind of which the world will not see again. She was kind, generous and warm. When she was comfortable, she made the most wonderful conversation and she had a great sense of humor. People sometimes talk of her foul language, her temper and her spitefulness. All that talk may, or may not, be true but it does not take away from her greatness. She did not always have an easy life. She once told me that she used to sing and dance, scantily clad, in the dead of the winter, four hours a day, outside the tent of a circus to attract customers, just to be able to earn a little money. She faced a lot of challenges and struggles in her life and earned fame, fortune and respect the hard way, and after a lot of suffering and pain. I believe that a little residual bitterness is justified after the kind of childhood and youth she had. I have great admiration for her strength, resilience and courageousness. 12. You once arranged a meeting with her for Parveen Shakir. Yes, I did. When I called Madam to request the meeting over dinner, she told me that she had promised to attend the engagement ceremony of a friend of her daughter Tina that very night but would try to join us for dinner. I had invited a large number of people – poets, writers and artists – to the dinner which was held at Shanghai Restaurant in Lahore. I was sure everyone would should up but had my doubts about Madam coming up since because she had a reputation for showing up late, keeping others waiting and not caring if others were inconvenienced. I was wrong. She showed up before all other guests and stayed the longest. She made the most delightful conversation through dinner, led a very lively discussion about poetry, literature and films, and recited her own poetry for the guests. Madam did not have any education at all but she had remarkable intelligence and a gift for picking up things very quickly. Her poetry was good. There was little that she could not learn if she set her mind to it. She did not speak English very often but when she did, it was always correct English. She had learned it all on her own. What a remarkable lady she was! 13. Mushairas (‫)مش عرے‬, as you said, are not held very often in Pakistan. Books of poetry often have to be published by the poets themselves and do not have a huge market. Singers do not pay royalties to poets when they sing their songs. How do poets make a living in Pakistan? They really do not. It is very difficult to make a good living if one writes poetry, however good, and does nothing else. The only two Pakistani poets who have been able to make a good living by writing good poetry are Munir Niazi and John Elia. Others have either lived in dire poverty or churned out substandard fare to make money. Things are improving but very slowly. We are working on putting a system in place that will ensure the payment of royalties and the enforcement of copyright laws. I receive royalties from my publishers but many writers do not. Things need to change. 14. One of your earliest plays was the comedy Ya Naseeb Clinic (‫)ی ِنصی ِک ینک‬. The play was wildly successful and arguably the funniest one ever produced by PTV. How come you never wrote a comedy after Ya Naseeb Clinic? Pakistanis, in general, do not have a sense of humor and do not take criticism well. They take everything personally and do not have the ability to laugh at themselves. A number of people got upset with me after seeing the play because they thought – incorrectly – that I was making fun of them. 15. Were you not influenced by any real persons while developing Ya Naseeb Clinic? I was but I did not pick on any one person in particular. The idea for the play came about after producer-director Kunwar Aftab Ahmed spent a few days in a clinic and shared a few funny experiences that I decided to bring to television. Other than one character that was based on Musarrat Nazir, all others were products of my imagination. Musarrat was a very famous actor at the time and had decided to leave the film industry and move to Canada with a doctor of Pakistani origin. Her decision had caused a lot of commotion in the industry which I found humorous in her story and decided to use in my play. 16. One of your most successful television serials was Waris. The role of the titular character, which was played by Agha Sikandar, was, however, very small in the serial which was dominated by the role of Chauhury Hashmat played y Meh oo Ala . Had you pla ed Chaudhury Hash at’s hara ter to be the central character of Waris when you had conceived the play? No, I had not. The character of Chaudhury Hashmat took a life of its own in the series. It as Meh oo Ala ’s a ti g a d possi ly y riti g, or just happenstance, that the character took a life of its own. It became so real for me that only wrote the actions and dialogs that seemed to come directly from Chaudhury Hashmat. Agha Sikandar, and a few other actors, got lesser screen time because Chaudhury Hashmat came to dominate the play. 17. How did you cast for the role of Chaudhury Hashmat? Mehboob Alam was a struggling actor when we were casting for Waris. He was new in Lahore and had done bit roles in a few films and plays. He used to hang around the television station to make sure that he was seen by directors and producers regularly. I was having a discussion about Waris with Yawar Hayat in his office in the television station one day, when Mehboob Alam stuck his face in the room ostensibly to say hello but really to be seen and get noticed. After ards, I told Ya ar that Meh oo Ala ’s eyes – bulging, bloodshot and piercing – reminded me of those of Indian actor K. N. Singh and were of the kind that I wanted Chaudhury Hashmat to have. Yawar suggested that we cast Mehboob for the role. At the time, he was in his early thirties and the role was that of a man in his seventies but Yawar was certain that he would be good in the role. He managed to convince me that Mehboob Alam was the right actor to play Chaudhury Hashmat. Mehboob used to suffer from Chorea and needed medication to control involuntary movements. His upper body used to experience tremors and he had trouble holding things steadily. His signature jerking of the head and shoulder and his peculiar way of holding the walking stick were actually symptoms of the disease but became an integral part of the character. 18. Waris is one of the most successful Pakistani television serials of all times. What do you think made Waris so successful? It was the team spirit of everyone involved with the serial. Acting, writing, direction, photography, editing and everything else may have been good but could not have individually made the play the success that it was. It was the collective hard work, dedication and commitment of the entire team, and not individual work, that created magic in Waris. 19. Were you satisfied with the performances of the actors in Waris? Immensely. Waris had a lot of relatively inexperienced actors but virtually everyone acted well. Mehboob Alam was phenomenal as Chaudhury Hashmat. Abid Ali, Firdaus Jamal, Shujaat Hashmi and Aurangzaib Leghari turned in stellar performances. Tahira Naqvi did very well as Seemi. Agha Sikander was great as Farrukh. Munawwar Saeed played the role of Chaudhury Yaqub exactly like I had envisioned it. Uzma Gila i’s perfor a e i the play as fla less. There were two scenes in which she brought tears to my eyes and outdid everyone else in the cast. 20. What scenes were those? The first scene was the one in which she met Chaudhury Hashmat for the first time. The second is the one in which she met her father after his escape from the private prison of Chaudhury Hashmat. I do not think anyone has ever acted as well on television as she did in those two scenes. 21. There was little, if any, money in television when you wrote Waris. Now that show business has come of age in Pakistan, writers are able to make good money by writing for television. Why have you stopped writing for television in such lucrative times? Show business may have come of age in Pakistan but television has become a business in the country. It is no longer a platform for responsible, artistic expression. The obsession with ratings, returns and fame has killed the soul of the industry. As a senior writer and a person who has paid his dues, I have a piece of advice for the current crop writers: if you have to make choice between lining your pockets a d aki g a ho e i the hearts of other’s y doi g the right thi g, always opt for the latter. 22. Are making money and doing the right thing mutually exclusive? Not necessarily but they seem to have become so in the world of television in Pakistan. 23. Why? Because of a total and utter lack of dedication, commitment and sincerity. People appear to be worried only about fame and fortune; everything else is secondary and there seems to be no focus on producing quality work. I used to write for television to convey messages that would touch the hearts of viewers. It is not possible to do that with producers who care only about budgets and the number of scenes that are shot each day; directors who do not believe in rehearsals and worry only about ratings; actors who do not prepare for their roles and learn their lines on set; writers who recycle old ideas and are afraid of risks; and people who do not know how to work in teams. I am a very fortunate person. God has given me enough money to lead a comfortable life and He has given me a lot of respect. I am not going to trade the love and respect that I get from people all over the world by compromising on quality and on my principles just to make more than I need to lead a happy life. 24. Did your parents write? No, none of my elders were writers. I was the first one in my family who took up writing as a profession. 25. Your son, Ali Zeeshan Amjad, writes poetry. Yes, but not very often. 26. Why? He is busy with production work for television. He recently made a documentary on the life of Zafar Ali Khan and is working on another one about Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. 27. Do your daughters write? No, but they are well-educated and very good readers who appreciate good writing. My elder daughter is married to the son of poet Anwar Masood and has aster’s degrees i Art and in Philosophy. The younger daughter has a aster’s degree i Applied Psychology. 28. There is a lot that you have accomplished in your life. You have written for the stage, television and films, spent time in the academic world, worked for television, translated works of literature and poetry, written short stories, prose, poetry and travelogues. What is that you have enjoyed the most? Poetry. I am a poet, first and foremost. Everything else is secondary. Ally Adnan lives in Dallas and writes about culture, history and the arts. He tweets @allyadnan and can be reached at allyadnan@outlook.com.