nafajafam said:
When recommending a book, also mention something about it.
Example what is it about, fiction, etc.
ok, i'll start with one. a few questions asked to the author of bhao and his response is given below:
Q. How strongly is Bahao influenced by Aag Ka Darya?
A. Aag Ka Darya is, of course, a great novel. But I am very keen to avid the trap of comparisons. I want my book to be judged in its own right. That is why I did away with the initial plan of dividing Bahao into two parts: one dealing with events 5,000 years ago and the other taking place in 1990. I knew that our critic has rote-learned certain names, and the only way he can speak about a book is by making comparisons. (In order to avoid comparisons with Aag Ka Darya) I ended Bahao as a novel in its first part. Then I began with Raakh, which is an independent novel as such. It is not a sequel. But those who have read Bahao will feel that there are some links, running as an undercurrent.
Q. Would you categorise Bahao as a stream of consciousness novel?
A. The concept of ‘stream of consciousness’ is now outdated, actually. Ainee Aapa (Quratul Ain Haider) made excellent use of that technique in Aag Ka Darya. Trends have moved on since then. Now you have magical realism, which you find in Rushdie, Marquez, Kundera… I think that if you amalgamate the two techniques, then you get something that is found in Raakh. And which is, perhaps, present even in Bahao in its initial form.
Q. A periodical from Karachi has dubbed Bahao as a “Punjabi” novel. How do you react to that?
A. I am proud to be a Punjabi, but I do not see myself as “a Punjabi writer.” I am “a writer”. I felt sad when I read that statement. That misunderstanding arose out of liberal usage of certain Punjabi words in the novel. But those words are originally Dravidian, dating back to that period. I did not use them just because they were Punjabi words. I used them because these words were current in the period about which I was writing. In fact, I carried out regular linguistic research in order to create my diction because I felt that the rhythm of speech 3,000 years ago could not have been the same as it is today. Look at how the rhythm of speech spoken by the characters in Prem Chand’s stories seems alien to us now. In the same way, I had to discover the rhythm of speech as it was 3,000 years ago.
In my research I was helped by Fareedkoti Saheb, Arif Waqar and Ali Abbas Jalalpuri. They helped me establish the correct vocabulary. Then there was a Ph.D. thesis from Berkeley University, titled Ancient Tamil Poetry, which dealt with the Tamil Poetry of 2,500 years ago. Now, Tamil and Brahvi are the two languages of the subcontinent which have the maximum number of Dravidian words. I had already written about 150 pages by then, but I had to re-write them because that thesis really gave me the rhythm for my novel.
While we are on the topic, let me add one more thing. It is rather strange that we all refer to the civilization of Moenjodaro as the Indus Valley Civilisation. Mind you, the course of the River Indus spreads from the North to the Arabian Sea. The Indus does not belong to the province of Sindh. It only ends there. The grandeur of the Indus, which inspired the Rig Veda can only be seen in the Punjab or in the mountainous North. When the Rig Veda says, and I have quoted it in my novel, that “Sindhu comes roaring, riding its white chariot,” it is certainly not speaking of Sindh. You will see that the archaeological literature prior to 1947 speaks of the Harrappan Civilisation and not the Indus Valley Civilisation.
I am not against the use of the term Indus Valley, but I would like to point out to all our scholars, cultured individuals and politicians that the civilization we talk about included almost the whole of Pakistan, not just Sindh.
- tolkien
