An enigmatic soul down to the very core, Mohammad Hasan Askari remains the amiable hermit of Urdu literature. He penned just 11 short stories,


but created enough ripples with his non-fiction work that kept him in good stead all his life and beyond.

This is not to suggest that his short stories were not good enough to cause waves; far from it, stories like Haramjadi and Phislan have enough in them to underline the potential of the writer to deal with sensitive issues with due dexterity. Quantity, in any case, is not the true judge of the worth of a man. Had it been so, the name of Patras Bokhari would not have survived this long on the basis of Mazameen-i-Patras for which even the finger tips are too many to keep a count.

A teacher of English literature by profession, Askari had a voracious appetite for global literature and his writings in the two volumes that are being discussed here, clearly portray the deep understanding he had of the various currents and developments of modern literature. His command over French language was such that his articles of literary criticism were carried by some of the leading journals in France. With that background, Askaris major contribution to Urdu literature was as a critic who introduced it to fresh avenues of literary criticism.

It is only understandable that Askari had his opponents who thought he was using foreign names mostly French to impress the local circles, but, being the hermit that he was, Askari never cared to respond to such slandering. But he did not totally shy away from the controversy, picking up the theme in his writings, stressing that if the human thirst for a better understanding of various phenomena has to be quenched, we will have to improve our understanding of western literature even if the names of French writers happen to be pretty difficult to pronounce!

But for the reader of today, it is crucial to realise that Askaris basic stress was on understanding western literature so that we could enrich our own. It was a means to an end; not an end in itself. In a column he wrote in early 1949, Askari made his approach clear in as many words, condemning those newcomers who, in his view, were borrowing European thoughts without bothering about the local and historical context.

Those belonging to the old school of thought do have the sense of tradition, but they dont know how to keep a tradition alive. Their rivals have the potential and the talent to do that, but they dont have a sense of tradition and its importance, he wrote in a column titled Adabi riwayat aur naey adeeb.

From Naya Adab, Askari moved on to explore and define what he termed Pakistani Adab. During the process he focussed his attention on Manto, writing in detail and often about how his writing had changed in the post-Partition era. He was not even bothered whether or not Manto himself agreed with his theorisation. In poetry he spotted Nasir Kazmi and, to a lesser extent, Salim Ahmad.

It was, however, not long before his mercurial self got bored with this, and announced the death of literature, a slogan that was vehemently and publicly countered by Intizar Hussain and Nasir Kazmi. Gradually Askari faded from the scene. He was never comfortable in public, but in this latter stage he actually tried to stay indoors. The hermit in him had finally won the battle.