By Qazi Obaidur Rahman Hashmi
The novel, Akhri Sawarian (The Last Rides), by Syed Mohammed Ashraf woven around a well-knit plot, captures the reader’s attention at its outset. Written in first person, it begins with the anguish and curiosity carefully embedded in the structure of the narrative through introducing an enigmatic ancestral memoir comprising a travelogue which constantly keeps us on tenterhooks till its magical mystery is unraveled at the end.
In the course of the illusive journey of the protagonist who is glued to the chariot of time is seen passing through, and rejoicing the tremendous hues associated with the blossoming of socio-cultural life of the vast Indian society. The narrator, a master craftsman, despite being aware of the futility to remain entangled to his ancestor’s fascination to Central Asia’s mighty ruler Emir Timur, cannot abruptly circumvent from this central trope as it is the only peg to hang on to the storyline. However, his full attention is diverted to main predilections i.e., the celebration of the confluence of ethnicity and the portrayal of cultural bonds of fraternity between individuals of different creeds and diverse identities. The stunning visual effects of a vast thriving society characterized by its homogeneity, valor and wisdom promises a prominent place in the annals of India’s multi-cultural history.
Ardent lover of Nature
The narrator is an ardent lover of Nature and its splendid ethereal beauty especially in rustic environment. He is always found in its realm freely mingling with simple human beings, birds and animals and enjoying the fragrance of the wild fruits and flowers.
Jammu, an innocent charming girl from a destitute family being kept in the landlord’s family and the protagonist nursing a clandestine liaison with her despite his tender age, seems to be natural, especially when the girl herself appears to be smitten with his innocent gestures.
Nevertheless, forced by the destiny when she is married to an old man with two grown up siblings from the previous marriage, she doesn’t bemoan her fate. She rather keeps her spirit high and does everything for the children except succumbing to her husband’s libidos. Her bold stand in the face of repression and her desire to a dignified existence is remarkable. Noting its poignant narration, it is reminiscent to a story by Tagore though in a different situation, depicting the absurdity of child marriage in ancient times.
Here he is looked after by the innocent girl in a spirit which only a mother or sister can afford to display. Akhri Sawarian is neither a didactic novel nor has any edifying quality. However, keeping in view, the protagonist’s own code of conduct, self esteem and ethical parameters though much less than Premchand, he is definitely a critical insider who despite having amorous tendencies never ventures to trespass a certain moral barrier in his relationship. Here the narrator unlike any other feminists seems to be more realistic, conscious and sympathetic to the cause of women empowerment.
Enriched with inter-textual references, frequent flashbacks, tropes and motifs, this novel, a fine example of cultivated aesthetic and literary taste, never deviates from its path and primary aim of retrieving and showcasing the glimpses of a culturally fascinating and vibrating Indian society.
Strategies are many
There are several strategies converged in the plot and the texture right from the time of conception to structuring the narrative to justify the projection of a particular view of life in the novel. One of them is to ensure the protagonist growing up and not attaining abrupt maturity so as to be able to witness and be a part in his childhood of the generally pastoral serenity, its soothing ambiance and the panoramic view.
The nuanced and incisive description of abject impoverishment, onslaught of maladies, the convergence of the people on mass scale at special occasions, empathy, quarrels on ordinary things, yearnings, deprivations, simplicity in attires and imaginations and a firm belief in rituals and sacraments bring forth the clear picture of a society.
Now in the last stage of the fast changing scenario, we come across a stage where we see the protagonist albeit in a new Avatar. Sitting in the carriage drawn by the galloping horses in the dust of time, surmounting hurdles, passing through rough terrain, lesser known places and locations. Through this arduous journey, we are transported to a completely different and highly perturbing level of existence where the protagonist is now capable to comprehend the purpose of life. Though distraught and shattered, he is seen in this mist, conversing with his better half who is helping her husband to navigate through the ravaging river of time. This phase is marked by the presence of sharpening intelligence and probing glances of our hero’s life companion. She becomes instrumental in decoding the mystery surrounding the small purse and the great grandfather’s travelogue. It is a great redeeming factor in settling an intriguing paradox. It also opens the possibility of a plethora of other wounds to be inflicted by the arrows of time in the days to come. Now as the story proceeds on the predictable lines, a depressingly brooding protagonist seated as usual in his moving coach, now in familiar locations, though initially reluctant, relents willy-nilly to his equally subdued and stressed wife’s persuasions to shed some light and unfold the long held mystery around the ancestral box, being the life threatening crux of the problem.
She exclaims: Your great grandfather’s old wallet has become the tormenting scabbard of Timur. It has kept you since your childhood on the tenterhooks.
This leads to the opening of a Pandora’s Box of hazardous historical events, fancies and hallucinations spread over a long period of time. During recounting the chain of events, one is struck with disbelief to see the pathetic scenes of the fettered skeleton of the last Mughal emperor; Bahadur Shah Zafar perched in a bullock cart passing through the rugged surface all the way to be incarcerated in Rangoon. In the meanwhile the wheel of chariot moves forward to the delight of the chronicler to a tempestuous journey undertaken by the protagonist’s great grandfather in his younger days to Samarkand, in murky past and his illusory encounter with a bed ridden and mutilated legendary despot Emir Timur.
In the technique of sub-plot along with the main story there is also a rare moment when the narrator to his utter bewilderment, suddenly discovers that his great grandfather is being gifted with the snippet of the royal sword’s scabbard and a relic by the mighty hands of none other than Timur himself. After revealing this secret to his wailing and sobbing wife, he seems to be all the more desperate to be under the spell of lunacy that needs immediate medical attention. This part of the narrative culminating to the final closure becomes more interesting because of the protagonist’s realization of the social polarization, simmering discontent and unintelligible contradictions in the society at large. He, who had never envisaged such dreadful lurking images earlier, gets traumatized.
By way of ensuring tranquility and spiritual solace, he is led during a frosty winter night to a secluded corner in Mehrauli at Delhi. However, owing to mental inconsistency, delusion, persisting gloominess and strange feelings, lying in his beloved wife’s lap he looks around with his eyes wide open as a shudder runs down his spine with the constantly blowing freezing gusty winds.
The narrator in order to epitomize his idea of a synthetic national identity has frequently employed the analogy of “Assorted Fragrance” which signifies India’s century’s old multi-cultural and ethnic diversities.
The hanging clouds of haze and fog appeared to him like gigantic civilizational legacies being snatched and driven away by the thugs on the wings of time. With little hope to see them again, shivering with high fever in the freezing atmosphere, he is weeping profusely and bemoaning as he is fully disillusioned with the new found realities of time and feels himself completely misfit to reconcile with the changed vocabulary of social etiquette replaced with tardiness of behaviors and degrading moral bonding. Sitting beside the citadel of a vast and magnificent cultural repository, he murmurs to himself in utter chaos and suffocation, the couplet of Mirza Ghalib.
Mauj-e-Khoon, Neelay Samandar Ka Safar Karti Hui,
Dajla Roshan Kabhi Is Rang say Ganga Roshan
Blood laden waves passing through the blue oceans
It’s colour, blazing Tigris often Ganges
Notwithstanding the fact that the narrator is fully aware of the implicit subversion of our ethos and a perceptible indiscretion in people to people relations, he doesn’t necessarily commit himself to pinning down the obvious reasons or casting aspersion on anyone for wrecking-havoc in the society. He prefers instead to deal with the effects rather than the reasons of the turmoil, thereby restricting himself to merely lamenting and bemoaning the loss of the mosaic of cultural identity.
Even against the backdrop of the shifting sands of the historic realities in the subcontinent, the narrator riding high on the back of the unbridled horse of the time, though in pensive, mood is still ready in bardic fashion to go extra miles to see a new sun rising from the dusty horizon. Worries and tensions writ large on his countenance, an anguished protagonist with an indomitable flickering spirit, at times appears engrossed in the futile act of thwarting the course of the tidal waves and the next moment sitting on the threshold of humanity awaiting a miraculous return of the caravan lost in the wilderness. Contemplating in melancholic mood, he mutters in a state of soliloquy wondering about a formidable humanity vanishing with little hope to emerge again from the whirl pool .of the ravaging river of time. It’s reflective of his amazingly unwavering resilience to cope with the harsh reality of the moment with fortitude but with little hope.
However, it is not to be forgotten that the awe inspiring picturisation of mental images, enormous capacity to traverse through the wide spectrum of human emotions and tantalizing depiction of the fictional realities of life are definitely the outcome of a highly skilled, sharply focused and a calibrated mind of the artist which has found full expressions in this novel in terms of its unconventional craftsmanship, terrific sense of impish humor, irresistible quest for wit and irony taking precedence over many other devices and attributes of linguistic and literary manifestations.
Akhri Sawarian is another post-partition trail blazer of Syed Mohammed Ashraf though tragic at the core shall stay in our thought and imagination.
Qazi Obaidur Rahman Hashmi is a distinguished Adjunct Professor of Urdu at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi. His dedication to Urdu literature and education is highly appreciated.
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