Dhaltey saye: a remarkable autobiography

By Mushir Anwar

Three very interesting autobiographies, two of them, self-admittedly, accounts of the authors’ ‘sinful lives’ – Paap beeti as they fondly and stylishly title the respective stories of their gallant days -- and the third (Dhaltey Saye) so very engaging for its candid informality, straightforwardness and sheer avoidance of cant and dissimulation, have appeared in recent months that in their own way not only make a departure from the set pattern of this genre in Urdu literature but give a lead to whoever might be thinking of writing about himself. Write without fear, they seem to be telling the prospective autobiographer.

Saqi Faruqi’s Paap Beeti might remind you of Kishwar Nahid’s ‘Shanasayyan, Ruswayyan’, though on the scale of Mr Saqi’s ten she is around four in what she would have actually liked to say about her friends and foes but, on the other hand, compared to him she appears too demure about her own self. Saqi Sahib, according to his own open-ended values by which he wishes to be known and judged, judges others too. Ashfaq Naqvi Sahib, author of the second Paap Beeti, appears progressively innocent as the list of his profligate adventures lengthens. Saqi’s callous pen blots big and small alike; Naqvi hardly taints himself. But of the two sinners, some other time.

Muniruddin Ahmad’s Dhaltey Saye is a very engaging account of a remarkable life. It is a brave man’s story who rose from ordinary circumstances, surmounting all kinds of hurdles --- economic, religious and cultural --- to become a writer, scholar and traveler and in sum a successful man in terms of a life well spent. One could rightly envy a career so rich in accepting challenges and not shying away from difficult situations and taking on life with full gusto and fearlessness, but above all remaining true to himself and pursuing the path which has appeared to be right to him. Born in a religious family of Ahmadis and trained in Rabwah to become a missionary he walks out lightly when the mission’s material character is exposed to him. He makes no fuss about it and does not look back, neither entertains any hostility towards people who detest him for his act of reneging. And he does that while in Germany where he was under no compulsion of any sort nor any temptation either on that account. In fact what he saw in the character of missionaries of his denomination could probably have been universally true of all preachers in the conversion trade abroad.
Leaving the mission is an important chapter of the book but he narrates the entire episode with the remarkable ease that is seen throughout the book. He doesn’t load you with unnecessary verbosity or rhetoric of any kind in his description. He employs no stratagems to strike a style or makes any effort to appear artistic. This lends an engaging quality to his tale that one reads on without getting bored. But perhaps it is not so much this plain rendition as his ability to convince you of his fidelity to facts. And it is the earlier chapters about his childhood in Rawalpindi, the intimate and unpretentious details of the simple life of those days, family intrigues and later his studentship time in Rabwah which establish his credibility and make his account authentic.

Dhalte Saye is a book full of eventful pages. There is no space wasted in assertions of any kind, there is no didacticism, no moral harangues, no virtuous fervour and no self-righteousness. If there are friends or relatives who he dislikes he says so and tells you why. If there were moments in his life when he could have succumbed to temptation or taken advantage of a situation but did not, he tells you with endearing simplicity how he regrets that. And then he is entirely free of boastfulness of any kind.

The narration of personal life kind of ends with his marriage to Ota ( I may be forgiven for the phonetic spelling of her name from his Urdu script) his European wife, but the story continues in his travels abroad attending international conferences on culture , religion and other related subjects. This could have been a boring or unreadable part of his story but here too he chooses his facts with great care and touches upon only the most human aspects of the experience instead of providing synopses of his talks or lectures as another in his place would. In his trip to Israel while telling us other interesting things, he does not hide the fact that he visited an Arab Ahmadi friend and said his prayers in an Ahmadi mosque. I am sure Ahmad’s book would win him many admirers.

DAWN. Karachi. August 13, 2008