Qudratullah Shahab. The very name evokes intense reaction. So intense that no one has ever bothered about the merits or demerits of what he
produced as a writer of fiction. The whole debate has been, and continues to be, on who the man was and what he did, or didn�t do, in his life as a senior bureaucrat. This is quite interesting actually, and, briefly, here is why...
There have been others in our midst, like, for instance, Mukhtar Masood, who was Shahab�s junior in bureaucracy, but in the literary world he is known as a stylist and the author of such grand titles like Awaz-i-Dost, Safar Naseeb and Loh-i-Ayyam. Then there is that doyen of modern Urdu literature, Mushtaq Ahmed Yusufi, who was a leading banker in his professional life but he has ensured a permanent place in the Urdu Hall of Fame with Chiragh Talay, Khakim Bad-han, Zarguzisht and Aab-i-Gum. No one has ever bothered about how he was as a banker and an administrator. There are so many others. Lest it be mistaken, this is not the intention at all to suggest that there are any controversies related to the professional lives of Mukhtar Masood and Yusufi; just that such things have never overshadowed their literary merits.
The thread can be picked up in the classical context as well, for no one has ever worried about the kind of human beings Ghalib and Meer were. Accounts of their personal lives, their likes and dislikes, their tastes and preferences, and all the crooked edges in their personalities are all too easily available on the bookshelves even today. But they retain their status as luminaries on the basis of what they produced, with their person having nothing to do with their craft.
Qudratullah Shahab, for some strange reasons, has been denied this luxury. His person has been made to fade his craft by not just his opponents, but, oddly enough, by his friends as well. The kind of harm, say, Mumtaz Mufti has inadvertently done to the cause of his mentor by presenting him as some sort of a supernatural sufi in titles like Lab�baik and Alkh Nagri, is astounding. Bano Qudsia�s Mard-i-Abresham and Zikr-i-Shahab, which is a compilation of pieces written on Shahab, are much better and rational efforts to put things into perspective, but they have generally failed to wipe off the controversy generated by Mumtaz Mufti, and by parts of account, especially the last chapter, in Shahab-nama.
Things were already not quite rosy in themselves but the real harm has been done by biased and jaundiced accounts generated by those who tried to build their images riding on the shoulders of the controversy. While for those who have read Shahab, the story- teller, such accounts are so flimsy, phony and fake that they make no impact on the rational mind. But, unfortunately, for every one person who has read Shahab, there are at least three who haven�t for one reason or the other. In the hands of such souls, these predisposed accounts have become a powerful bluffers� guide, and, as such, the word keeps spreading around.
It is a reflection of Shahab�s strength as a writer with amazingly keen observation and with stunning story-telling skills to convert his simple narration into a work of art, that despite the controversy, his books have never stopped selling, and they still move off the shelves pretty quickly. The only issue at stake is that Shahab doesn�t get his due as a writer.
His short story Ya-Khuda � spread over some 70 odd pages � is arguably the best piece of fiction written in the context of partition, but instead of getting due acknowledgement, it ran straight into controversy between the progressives and the rightists over what Mumtaz Shireen, a �renegade leftist�, and the enigmatic Hasan Askari said in its praise. The row didn�t subside even when Abul Fazal Siddiqui, himself a senior progressive, stood up in Shahab�s favour, arguing that he was doing so �only in adherence to the principles of Progressive Movement which calls for truth to be spoken under all circumstances.� He called Ya-Khuda �everything that a progressive writer can hope to do, and more.�
The same is the case with his pen-sketch Maa�n-ji, which was described by Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, another leading enlightened progressive, as one of the best pieces of global literature. His psychoanalytical short stories in Nafsanay � among which �Ghareeb-khana� deserves a special mention � also need to be read even if it calls for an apparently difficult task of resisting the temptation to discard Shahab to the dustbin in a hurry.
In the name of literary objectivity, it is perhaps time for the pundits and the lay readers alike to revisit Shahab and his story craft, and to acknowledge his contribution to Urdu literature, and not to get influenced by Shahab-nama which, by its very nature, is controversial. But then very few autobiographies in history have been able to avoid one controversy or the other. Why single out Shahab on this count? Everyone has the absolute right to hold an opinion about Shahab the man. There is no argument over that. But his status as a writer of fiction needs to be settled on merit. And this calls for first reading him out without any blinkers. Is it like asking for the moon? By the looks of it, maybe it is.
