Renowned Urdu novelist Abdullah Hussain passed away on Saturday. He was 84. Mr Hussain’s family told Dawn that he had been suffering from blood cancer for the past year. He was taken to the National Defence Hospital on Friday after his condition deteriorated. Later, he was brought back to his home where he died. - Dawn
Fly Me To the Moon
When Abdullah Hussain ashed a cigarette, he always missed the ashtray. There was an inevitable salting in his immediate periphery. He had large, dramatic hands that he used to swat the air when he spoke. He spoke English with a slight, lilting British intonation, tending to accent vowels. He chose his words carefully but did not seem to care about his appearance. I spent time palavering with him at my place, his place, in hotel rooms where the curtains always seemed drawn, but never saw him comb his hair or dwell before the mirror. He would change from one pair of track pants to another, from one crumpled shirt to another before leaving for a dinner or a session at a literary festival. He lumbered like a giant emerging from a cave into the bright light of day.
It was not as if Abdullah Sahab didn't care what people made of him, and it was not if he didn't care for company, but he didn't suffer fools, didn't care for crowds. Once he told me, "Lots of people come...you know, scores of people...I don't know them, never seen them ‒ they have never heard of me, probably, and never read a word that I have written, and they just want to come and have they their picture taken...In the last few months, there must have been thousands and thousands...It's ridiculous...It's like taking a picture of Humayun's tomb."
I knew the man more than the monument. Whenever he was in Karachi, he would drop by my place to spend an evening, accompanied by his boon companion, the renowned novelist, actor, and erudite raconteur, Mustansir Hussain Tarar, and our animate confrere, the columnist and short-story writer, Irfan Javed. Even when Abdullah Sahab's knees were giving way, he insisted on climbing the 37 steps to the second floor by himself, measuring each stair with his large white sneakers. We would chat into the night about life, literature, love, listening to Madam or Frank Sinatra, Kehnde ne Naina, or Fly Me to the Moon.
Abdullah Sahab had an impish sense of humor and a hearty laugh, especially after a drink or two. He knew his whiskey. He famously ran an off license in South London for years before returning to Lahore. When somebody in the audience at the Karachi Literary Festival misunderstood the nature of the operation, asking him whether it was becoming for somebody of his stature to deliver liquor to clients, he responded, "I didn't go to them. They came to me."
Once, he summoned me to the Mehran Hotel as he had tumbled off his bed the night before because the bed was too small for him. Over tea and cigarettes, he told me he been honored by the Al-Hamra recently at an elaborate ceremony. There were other writers in attendance on stage, a renowned critic, a renowned judge, various dignitaries and officials, and even the Prime Minister turned up. After speeches were delivered, accolades bestowed, as the program came to close, the Prime Minister came up to Abdullah Sahab. His PA whispered something in his ear. Looking Abdullah Sahab up and down, he said, " Udaas Naslain tussi likhiyan si?"
Give and Take
Hussain had been a giant since the publication of the epic, stylistically innovative Udaas Naslain in 1963. It was, indeed, a brick lobbed at the conventions of Urdu literature. Hussain famously claimed that he wrote the opus out of boredom when ensconced as a chemist at a cement factory in Dadu Khel in the Punjabi hinterland. I wish I were bored enough to produce a masterpiece. I had read 30, 40 pages of his opus a couple of decades before but in recent history, came to him via his unimaginatively titled, rarely mentioned debut novel in English, Émigré Journeys, a volume I chanced upon in the remainder section of a bookshop in Boston. The picture on the back flap features the profile of a handsome man with salt and pepper lambchop sideburns. He sports a checkered blazer and over a dark sweater and gazes into the distance. What, I wondered, was he thinking?
I never asked him. I did inquire why he decided to pen a novel in English. He told me he had always planned to do so – he considered the prospect at the beginning of his career – but never quite came around to it till the autumn of his days. Imagine if he had: the topography of Urdu literature might have been dramatically different. More intriguing was the disclosure that he was completing his second English novel. He worked on it diligently. "I have a very low threshold for pain," he said in late 2013. "I have problems with my back. My knees have gone...I'm going to England next summer. I'm going to have my knees replaced." Come next summer, however, he refused to budge. His family left but he said, "I have work to do."
"Why don't you send me what you're working on," he once asked over the phone.
Feeling bold, I replied, "I will only send you mine if you send me yours."
"I will send you mine only if you tell me what you make of it."
When I reminded him of his promise several weeks later, he wrote in an email:
After we traded drafts of our respective manuscripts, I wrote,
A few weeks later, Abdullah Sahab wrote,
In my next communication, I wrote that I was very sorry to hear of his sister's demise: "I can only imagine how difficult the death of a sibling would be... I'm also sorry for the tardy response but I was in interior Sind for a week to escape routine, the city, and conduct some further research. I caught the bus to Sakrand, spent time in the ample library of a leftist, indeed surkha pir, and attended, by chance, a languid political rally, before participating in the animate annual festival of Jhoolay Lal."
Moreover, I told him that I was very flattered to hear praise for my work, and that as soon as I was done with his opus, I would call him with comments. I told him that the manuscript was lucid, ambitious but suggested that the opening movement required "a fundamental restructuring." He listened without interruption – a rare quality among writers – and wholeheartedly agreed – a rarer quality still. Perhaps it should not come as a surprise. Abdullah Hussain was a rare creature, indeed an endangered species.
Seabound
The last time we met we weren't quite at sea, but close enough. Tarar Sahab had expressed a wish to be among the mangroves, so a friend and acolyte from Hyderabad had arranged for an evening on a launch. He insisted we join him. Convening at a room at the Beach Luxury Hotel after sundown, we sipped refreshments while waiting for the actor Kamal Ahmed Rizvi. He never turned up; the traffic was mangled that night due to some political brouhaha, and the driver got lost in the labyrinthine streets of the city. Hussain Sahab was getting impatient. He was also not completely on board: since he had become increasingly unsteady on his feet, he fretted about climbing into a launch. We tried convincing him that it would be a genial evening even though it was obvious that he was not in his usual spirits.
At half nine, we piled into Irfan Javed's car headed out towards the creek. Negotiating traffic, we spoke about the conventions of the memoir – a form writers typically wade into towards the end – and by extension, about the legacy of a writer or poet in the collective consciousness. Irfan was accidentally provocative: when he asked Abdullah Sahab about a late poet, known for vaingloriousness. "I knew [him]. He was a liar. He glorified himself [this way]." Abdullah Sahab's mood had soured. "A gentleman is something else. But I am an honourable man." He was not particularly interested in revisiting his life. He lived to write. And that was that.
When we arrived at the creek, he supported himself on my shoulder, cursing fate, the expedition. We were anxious about the hurdles he faced immediately ahead: he had to traverse a slat bridge, negotiate the swaying pier before clambering up a short ladder. Although Abdullah Sahab continued to rage, he persisted heroically. Despite his anxieties, aliments, circumstances, he had always pressed on.
Once we were ensconced on the launch, however, a cool breeze stirred and there were fireworks in the distance – some political party celebrating some forgotten conjuncture. Appetisers – chicken boti if I remember correctly – were served and Hussain Sahab's mood began to clear. Then Tarar Sahab, in his inimitable manner, narrated a raucous story about an episode that occurred on the set of the television serial, [Siraj-ul-Daula]. Hussain Sahab laughed like a child. We stretched on the seats, relieved. It was as if a great storm had passed.
It was a memorable evening, despite the fraught trip to the creek and other issues. The toilet for instance, was not functional – we had to make do otherwise – and the spread was cold. Moreover, the boat kept going in circles. But it didn't matter. We were well, we were happy, we were together.
As the launch circled back to shore, however, I caught Hussain Sahab gazing into the distance. I don't know what he was thinking and I didn't dare ask but recalled the following passage from Journeys: "I do not know where to turn yet I turn – like a fish caught up in the eddy, with no power in my limbs. It was the eddy that first gave me the dying feeling... I drew no breath of the living, only that of the half-dead, unseen and unheard..."
Novelist HM Naqvi is the award-winning author of Home Boy.
Fly Me To the Moon
When Abdullah Hussain ashed a cigarette, he always missed the ashtray. There was an inevitable salting in his immediate periphery. He had large, dramatic hands that he used to swat the air when he spoke. He spoke English with a slight, lilting British intonation, tending to accent vowels. He chose his words carefully but did not seem to care about his appearance. I spent time palavering with him at my place, his place, in hotel rooms where the curtains always seemed drawn, but never saw him comb his hair or dwell before the mirror. He would change from one pair of track pants to another, from one crumpled shirt to another before leaving for a dinner or a session at a literary festival. He lumbered like a giant emerging from a cave into the bright light of day.
It was not as if Abdullah Sahab didn't care what people made of him, and it was not if he didn't care for company, but he didn't suffer fools, didn't care for crowds. Once he told me, "Lots of people come...you know, scores of people...I don't know them, never seen them ‒ they have never heard of me, probably, and never read a word that I have written, and they just want to come and have they their picture taken...In the last few months, there must have been thousands and thousands...It's ridiculous...It's like taking a picture of Humayun's tomb."
I knew the man more than the monument. Whenever he was in Karachi, he would drop by my place to spend an evening, accompanied by his boon companion, the renowned novelist, actor, and erudite raconteur, Mustansir Hussain Tarar, and our animate confrere, the columnist and short-story writer, Irfan Javed. Even when Abdullah Sahab's knees were giving way, he insisted on climbing the 37 steps to the second floor by himself, measuring each stair with his large white sneakers. We would chat into the night about life, literature, love, listening to Madam or Frank Sinatra, Kehnde ne Naina, or Fly Me to the Moon.
Abdullah Sahab had an impish sense of humor and a hearty laugh, especially after a drink or two. He knew his whiskey. He famously ran an off license in South London for years before returning to Lahore. When somebody in the audience at the Karachi Literary Festival misunderstood the nature of the operation, asking him whether it was becoming for somebody of his stature to deliver liquor to clients, he responded, "I didn't go to them. They came to me."
Once, he summoned me to the Mehran Hotel as he had tumbled off his bed the night before because the bed was too small for him. Over tea and cigarettes, he told me he been honored by the Al-Hamra recently at an elaborate ceremony. There were other writers in attendance on stage, a renowned critic, a renowned judge, various dignitaries and officials, and even the Prime Minister turned up. After speeches were delivered, accolades bestowed, as the program came to close, the Prime Minister came up to Abdullah Sahab. His PA whispered something in his ear. Looking Abdullah Sahab up and down, he said, " Udaas Naslain tussi likhiyan si?"
Give and Take
Hussain had been a giant since the publication of the epic, stylistically innovative Udaas Naslain in 1963. It was, indeed, a brick lobbed at the conventions of Urdu literature. Hussain famously claimed that he wrote the opus out of boredom when ensconced as a chemist at a cement factory in Dadu Khel in the Punjabi hinterland. I wish I were bored enough to produce a masterpiece. I had read 30, 40 pages of his opus a couple of decades before but in recent history, came to him via his unimaginatively titled, rarely mentioned debut novel in English, Émigré Journeys, a volume I chanced upon in the remainder section of a bookshop in Boston. The picture on the back flap features the profile of a handsome man with salt and pepper lambchop sideburns. He sports a checkered blazer and over a dark sweater and gazes into the distance. What, I wondered, was he thinking?
I never asked him. I did inquire why he decided to pen a novel in English. He told me he had always planned to do so – he considered the prospect at the beginning of his career – but never quite came around to it till the autumn of his days. Imagine if he had: the topography of Urdu literature might have been dramatically different. More intriguing was the disclosure that he was completing his second English novel. He worked on it diligently. "I have a very low threshold for pain," he said in late 2013. "I have problems with my back. My knees have gone...I'm going to England next summer. I'm going to have my knees replaced." Come next summer, however, he refused to budge. His family left but he said, "I have work to do."
"Why don't you send me what you're working on," he once asked over the phone.
Feeling bold, I replied, "I will only send you mine if you send me yours."
"I will send you mine only if you tell me what you make of it."
When I reminded him of his promise several weeks later, he wrote in an email:
My dear HM
I hope you are well. A strange thing happened...I looked at the manuscript of my novel (which I had thought was done and finished) and was horrified to see that it hadn't begun where it was begun; that there there was a gap, which had to be filled before it was properly begun (pardon my grammar). So I have been writing the very first few pages of the novel for the last several days. Don't you think it's a joke to get back to the beginning after spending years on it? I am anxious for you to read it, but be patient please for a few more days.
Thank you.
Abdullah H.
After we traded drafts of our respective manuscripts, I wrote,
Adaab, Abdullah Sahab.
I'm honoured and excited to receive the manuscript. I'll do my best to say something intelligent about it.
In the interim, I'm dispatching mine to you. I suspect it has issues that require some attention, from pacing to infrastructure to characterization. I would be grateful if you could let me know how I can improve it.
Warmly,
HM
A few weeks later, Abdullah Sahab wrote,
My dear HM
Apologies are more than due for non-contact over so long. My various lame excuses: returning from Karachi, I was grabbed by a vicious flu & fever. Then there were a couple of deaths in close family (one was of my elder sister), involving regular hospital visits for many days, followed by burial rituals etc. A season of distress! Yet, believe it or not (and here I call upon Ghalib for moral support): go maen raha raheen-e-sitamhai rozgar / lekin teray khayal se ghafil nahine raha. I had hardly reached three-quarters stage of Home Boy when reluctantly had to put it aside in order to grapple with The Selected Works of my namesake the Cossack – a veritable Ode to Karachi. Right from “I am a fat man & an anxious one . .” to Family Matters and a Memon friend (the point where I am at just now), it has proved so absorbing that I never went back to the first novel. My habitual slowness is owed to the fact that, from the very beginning of my reading life, if I like words, phrases and sentences I go back and read them again, and then again, relishing them like something delicious in the mouth (almost a sensual pleasure – one of the few left to me at this age). The misgivings you expressed about it in your letter were misplaced. I haven’t felt any structural or other flaws in the text. It is a delight to read...You have passed the test put down in an old saying: ‘Just as in Tennis you are only as good as your second service, so in fiction you are only as good as your second novel’ (Our other Karachi friend Irfan Javed thinks so too.). I’ll write to you again after I have finished it.
Meanwhile, I have made some changes in [my novel]: added an epilogue and a few minor alterations. Please replace the version that you have with this one (and take your time).
Abdullah H.
In my next communication, I wrote that I was very sorry to hear of his sister's demise: "I can only imagine how difficult the death of a sibling would be... I'm also sorry for the tardy response but I was in interior Sind for a week to escape routine, the city, and conduct some further research. I caught the bus to Sakrand, spent time in the ample library of a leftist, indeed surkha pir, and attended, by chance, a languid political rally, before participating in the animate annual festival of Jhoolay Lal."
Moreover, I told him that I was very flattered to hear praise for my work, and that as soon as I was done with his opus, I would call him with comments. I told him that the manuscript was lucid, ambitious but suggested that the opening movement required "a fundamental restructuring." He listened without interruption – a rare quality among writers – and wholeheartedly agreed – a rarer quality still. Perhaps it should not come as a surprise. Abdullah Hussain was a rare creature, indeed an endangered species.
Seabound
The last time we met we weren't quite at sea, but close enough. Tarar Sahab had expressed a wish to be among the mangroves, so a friend and acolyte from Hyderabad had arranged for an evening on a launch. He insisted we join him. Convening at a room at the Beach Luxury Hotel after sundown, we sipped refreshments while waiting for the actor Kamal Ahmed Rizvi. He never turned up; the traffic was mangled that night due to some political brouhaha, and the driver got lost in the labyrinthine streets of the city. Hussain Sahab was getting impatient. He was also not completely on board: since he had become increasingly unsteady on his feet, he fretted about climbing into a launch. We tried convincing him that it would be a genial evening even though it was obvious that he was not in his usual spirits.
At half nine, we piled into Irfan Javed's car headed out towards the creek. Negotiating traffic, we spoke about the conventions of the memoir – a form writers typically wade into towards the end – and by extension, about the legacy of a writer or poet in the collective consciousness. Irfan was accidentally provocative: when he asked Abdullah Sahab about a late poet, known for vaingloriousness. "I knew [him]. He was a liar. He glorified himself [this way]." Abdullah Sahab's mood had soured. "A gentleman is something else. But I am an honourable man." He was not particularly interested in revisiting his life. He lived to write. And that was that.
When we arrived at the creek, he supported himself on my shoulder, cursing fate, the expedition. We were anxious about the hurdles he faced immediately ahead: he had to traverse a slat bridge, negotiate the swaying pier before clambering up a short ladder. Although Abdullah Sahab continued to rage, he persisted heroically. Despite his anxieties, aliments, circumstances, he had always pressed on.
Once we were ensconced on the launch, however, a cool breeze stirred and there were fireworks in the distance – some political party celebrating some forgotten conjuncture. Appetisers – chicken boti if I remember correctly – were served and Hussain Sahab's mood began to clear. Then Tarar Sahab, in his inimitable manner, narrated a raucous story about an episode that occurred on the set of the television serial, [Siraj-ul-Daula]. Hussain Sahab laughed like a child. We stretched on the seats, relieved. It was as if a great storm had passed.
It was a memorable evening, despite the fraught trip to the creek and other issues. The toilet for instance, was not functional – we had to make do otherwise – and the spread was cold. Moreover, the boat kept going in circles. But it didn't matter. We were well, we were happy, we were together.
As the launch circled back to shore, however, I caught Hussain Sahab gazing into the distance. I don't know what he was thinking and I didn't dare ask but recalled the following passage from Journeys: "I do not know where to turn yet I turn – like a fish caught up in the eddy, with no power in my limbs. It was the eddy that first gave me the dying feeling... I drew no breath of the living, only that of the half-dead, unseen and unheard..."
Novelist HM Naqvi is the award-winning author of Home Boy.
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