‘Love in the Time of Hate’: Rakhshanda Jalil’s book is a loving tribute to the Urdu language

In the backdrop of divisive politics and the shades of enthralling and deeply insightful cultural histories, Rakshanda Jalil’s Love in the Time of Hate was launched at the India International Centre in Delhi in the presence of authors, musicians, playwrights, editors, and even distinguished lawyers and literati of repute. While the hall was packed, the one person missing in our midst was my friend Khushwant Singh. I say this because Khushwant was the one who wrote reams about his love for

the language of Urdu, and for his bygone Lahore days, and recited Urdu nazms at the drop of a hat. Jalil’s book ripples like a river with couplets of all shades. She uses Urdu as a mirror to present many a lament and the reader must steal time to savour the poetry on every page of prose.

This book begins with the author’s ingeniously orchestrated personal yet pensive history that brings to life the most pivotal decades of the years when the language of Urdu was the salient power of poetry.

From one of the nation’s finest Urdu translators, the first section of this book is dedicated to politics in a quaint soft peddle. It is the people section that cascades into the haunts of history. Jalil touches briefly on Mohammed Iqbal and unconsciously brings alive Khushwant’s translation of Jawab e Shikwa. One remembers Khushwant distinctly stating that Iqbal was the voice of reason and justice amidst the veil of primitive punishments and bigoted dogmas. Islam for Iqbal was a new light of thought and learning to the world.

Jalil also takes examples of Taran e Hind (The Song of Hind, 1904) and Taran e Milli (The Song of the People, 1910) to reaffirm Iqbal’s love for the land as shown in the famous lines of Saare Jahaan Se Acha Hindustan Hamara. The readings of many more couplets with translations offer history and compositional clarity in India’s richness of literary traditions.

The people

Iqbal is followed by a solid seasoning of “People” as a section, in the course of which Jalil glides from MK Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru to Subhash Chandra Bose as well as Lata Mangeshkar and Dilip Kumar. She relates an incident of a train travel with the trio Lata Mangeshkar, Dilip Kumar and Anil Biswas. Kumar asks Biswas who she is. When Biswas told Dilip that the singer was a young girl from Maharashtra who sings well, he promptly said: But her Urdu pronunciation isn’t correct and in her singing, you could smell daal bhaat (lentils and rice). The conversation between Anil Biswas and Dilip Kumar becomes life’s lesson for Mangeshkar. Though hurt, she decided to learn Urdu. This narration speaks of the love for learning as well as the desire to perfect and do justice to one’s job.

From the lyrics of Jan Nisar Akhtar’s Ae-Dil-e Naadan in Razia Sultan to Sahir Ludhianvi’s for the film Ghazal, Majrooh Sultanpuri in the film Dastak to Naqsh Llyalpuri for Dard and the unforgettable Sajda, Jalil highlights how every album is a treasure trove of memories.

Chapter 26 “Brindavan Ke Krishn Kanhaiya” is a sheer delight. It mentions the brilliant Urdu poet Naseer Akbarabadi and Hafeez Jalundhari’s nazm about Krishen Kanhaiya’s nazm. The quintessential eternal spiritual lyric that has an emotive essence:

Is razz ko samjho
Yeh naqsh-e-khayaali
Yeh fitrat - e -aali
Yeh paikar e-tanveer
Yeh krishn ki tasveer.

This chapter on Urdu poetry about the beauty and ethos of Lord Krishna spells the secular cultural and spiritual fabric of India.

Issues and themes

With graceful ease, Jalil covers social issues as well as difficult themes of religious intolerance. From our litany of the independence movement days to the mapping of electoral politics, highlighting the plight of migrant workers and weaving in salient portions that shine the light on the perils of populism. She also focuses on issues of human rights and protests the amply endowed examples of masculinity as well as the authoritarian accents of patriarchy. It is the reflective refrain and the lyrical strains that keep us turning the pages as the book gets into definitive fragments of memories, experiences and references that look at life from various angles.

Jalil's love for Urdu is evident when she describes how the book came to be. She writes, “This book was written over three years. It brings together many strands that have interested me over the years, such as pluralism, multiculturalism, diversity, secularism as also its conjoined twin communalism. Some of the essays were triggered by events such as lynching, hate speeches, parks and streets being renamed, elections and the toxicity that swirls about in their wake, the steady erosion of democratic systems. Some other essays spring from my own beliefs and interests. As I say in the introduction, born in 1963, I grew up in an India that still had vestiges of Nehruvian idealism. In several essays, I invoke that idealism that is sometimes threatened, sometimes partly sullied, but has remained a guiding light throughout my life.”

Love in the Time of Hatred is more about love and less about hatred. It reads like a reflective reverie that must be savoured during the hours between dawn and dusk, as the muezzin calls for prayer, a temple bell rings, or church bells echo.

Uma Nair is an art critic and curator.

Love in the Time of Hate: In the Mirror of Urdu, Rakhshanda Jalil, Simon & Schuster India.