The Tale of Genji - pg. 60

"I would not be known for flitting lightheartedly to every flower
but this bluebell this morning I would be sad not to pick.

What do you suggest?" he said, taking her hand; but she replied with practised wit,

"Your haste to be off before morning mists are gone makes it all to plain,
so I should say, that your heart cares little for your flower,"

Genesis

I

Against the burly air I strode

Crying the miracles of God.

And first I brought the sea to bear

Upon the dead weight of the land;

And the waves flourished at my prayer,

The rivers spawned their sand,

And where the streams were salt and full

The tough pig-headed salmon strove,

Ramming the ebb, in the tide's pull,

to reach the steady hills above.

II

The second day I stood and saw

The osprey plunge with triggered claw,

Feathering blood along the shore,

To lay the living sinew bare.

And the third day I cried: 'Beware

The soft-voiced owl, the ferret's smile,

The hawk's deliberate stoop in air,

Cold eyes, and bodies hooped in steel

Forever bent upon the kill.'

III

And I renounced, on the fourth day,

This fierce and unregenerate clay,

Building as a huge myth for man,

The watery Leviathan,

And made the long-winged albatross

Scour the ashes of the sea

Where Capricorn and Zero cross,

A brooding immortality --

Such as the charmed phoenix has

In the unwithering tree.

IV

The phoenix burns as cold as frost;

And, like a legendary ghost,

The phantom-bird goes wild and lost,

Upon a pointless ocean tossed.

So, the fifth day, I turned again

To flesh and blood and the blood's pain.

V

On the sixth day, as I rode

In haste about the works of God,

With spurs I plucked the horse's blood.

By blood, we live, the hot, and cold,

To ravage and redeem the world:

There is no bloodless myth will hold.

And by Christ's blood are men made free

Though in close shrouds their bodies lie

Under the rough pelt of the sea;

Though Earth has rolled beneath her weight

The bones that cannot bear the light.

Savage Night At The Opera

books to buy

• The Trilogy
• In The Skin Of A Lion
• The Recognitions

Florida

The state with the prettiest name,

the state that floats in brackish water,

held together by mangrove roots

that bear while living oysters in clusters,

and when dead strew white swamps with skeletons,

dotted as if bombarded, with green hummocks

like ancient cannon-balls sprouting grass.

The state full of long S-shaped birds, blue and white,

and unseen hysterical birds who rush up the scale

every time in a tantrum.

Tanagers embarrassed by their flashiness,

and pelicans whose delight it is to clown;

who coast for fun on the strong tidal currents

in and out among the mangrove islands

and stand on the sand-bars drying their damp gold wings

on sun-lit evenings.

Enormous turtles, helpless and mild,

die and leave their barnacled shells on the beaches,

and their large white skulls, with round eye-sockets

twice the size of a man's.

The palm trees clatter in the stiff breeze

like the bills of the pelicans. The tropical rain comes down

to freshen the tide-looped strings of fading shells:

Job's Tear, the Chinese Alphabet. the scarce Junonia,

parti-colored pectins and Ladies' Ears,

arranged as on a gray rag rotted calico,

the buried Indian Princessis skirt;

with these the monotonous, endless, sagging coastline

is delicately ornamented.

Thirty or more buzzards are drifting down, down, down,

over something they have spotted in the swamp,

in circles like stirred-up flakes of sediment

sinking through water.

Smoke from woods-fires filters fine blue solvents.

On stumps and dead tress the charting is like black velvet.

The mosquitoes

go hunting to the tune of their ferocious obbligatos.

After dark, the fireflies map the heavens in the marsh

until the moon rises.

Cold white, not bright, the moonlight is coarse-meshed,

and the careless, corrupt state is all black specks

too far apart, and ugly whites; the poorest

post-card of itself.

After dark, the pools seem to have slipped away.

The alligator, who has five distinct calls:

friendliness, love, mating, war, and a warning --

whimpers and speaks in the throat of Indian Princess.

Hindi Books

• Jhoota Sach - Yashpal
• Agra Bazar - Habib Tanvir

This Week

• Tale of Genji - 250pgs
• Persian lessons - 75
• First short exercise 24.01 - Phaedo
• Hayat-e-Javed

Destroyer : If you can't see my mirrors

If you can't see my mirrors
I see you coming around, yeah
You're coming around

If you can't see my mirrors
I see you coming around, yeah
You're coming around now

Pissed-up Sunday morning
We'll miss you in the show
Pissed-up Sunday morning
We'll miss you when you go
Go gently through the floor
A dismal and meaningless sigh

Pissed-up Sunday morning
We'll miss you when you go
Pissed-up Sunday morning
I'd kiss you, but you know
It'd be gently through the door
A dismal and meaningless sigh

Home from your eleventh tour
Honorable discharge aboard the HMS Pinafore
Oh what fun, oh what more

If you can't see my mirrors
If you can't see my mirrors
If you can't see my mirrors
If you can't see my mirrors

The Master and Margarita - Closing

The next morning he wakes up silently but perfectly calm and well. His needled memory grows quiet, and until the next full moon no one will trouble the professor -- neither the noseless killer of Gestas, not the cruel fifth prosecutor of Judea, the equestrian Pontius Pilate.

[1928-1940]

The Master and Margarita - pg. 383

'And there, too,' Woland pointed behind them, 'what are you going to do in the little basement?' Here the sun broken up in the glass went out. 'Why?' Woland went on persuasively and gently, 'oh, thrice-romantic master, can it be that you don't want to go strolling with your friend in the daytime under cherry trees just coming into bloom, and in the evening listen to Schubert's music? Can it be that you don't want to sit over a retort like Faust, in hopes that you'll succeed in forming a new homunculus? There! There! The house and the old servant are already waiting for you, the candles are already burning, and soon they will go out, because you will immediately meet the dawn. Down this path, master, this one! Farewell! It's time for me to go!'

The Master and Margarita - pg. 371

'Oh, for pity's sake,' replied Azazello, 'is it you I hear talking? Your friend calls you a master, you can think, so how can you be dead? Is it necessary, in order to consider yourself alive, to sit in a basement and dress yourself in a shirt and hospital drawers? It's ridiculous!...'

Books for the remainder of this week

• Persian Lesson 60
• Genji: pg. 100
• Forum

The Master and Margarita - pg. 187

A tenner. I give him three roubles change. He leaves. I go to my wallet, there's a bee there -- zap in the finger! Ah, you! ...' and again the driver pasted on some unprintable words. 'And no tenner. Yesterday, in the Variety here' (unprintable words), 'some vermin of a conjurer did a seance with then-rouble bills' (unprintable words) ...

The Master and Margarita - pg. 74

The poet had wasted his night while others were feasting and now understood that it was impossible to get it back. One needed only to raise one's head from the lamp to the sky to understand that the night was irretrievably lost. Waiters were hurriedly tearing the tablecloths from the tables. The cats slinking around the veranda had a morning look. Day irresistibly heaved itself upon the poet.

The Master and Margarita - pg. 53

In the exact spot where the pile of clothes had been, a pair of striped drawers, the torn Tolstoy blouse, the candle, the icon and a box of matches had been left. After threatening someone in the distance with his fist in powerless anger, Ivan put on what was left for him.

The Master and Margarita - pg. 51

In the huge, extremely neglected front hall, weakly lit by a tiny carbon arc lamp under the high ceiling, black with grime, a bicycle without tyres hung on the wall, a huge iron-bound trunk stood, and on a shelf over the coat rack a winter hat lay, its long ear-flaps hanging down. Behind one of the doors, a resonant male voice was angrily shouting something in verse from a radio set.

The Master and Margarita - pg. 42

The sky over Moscow seemed to lose colour, and the full moon could be seen quite distinctly high above, not yet golden but white. It was much easier to breathe, and the voices under the lindens now sounded softer, eveningish.

The Tale Of Genji - Opening

1
KIRITSUBO
The Paulownia Pavilion

In a certain reign (whose can it have been?) someone of no very great rank, among all His Majesty's Consorts and Intimates enjoyed exceptional favor. Those others who had always assumed that pride of place was properly theirs despised her as a dreadful woman, while the lesser Intimates were unhappier still.

For Susan

First published in the Unites States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 2001
Published in Penguin Books 2003

Translation, introduction, and notes copyright Royall Tyler, 2001
All rights reserved.
Illustrations on pp. 5--1107 reproduced by permission of the artist and original publisher.
Copyright Minoru Sugai and Shogakukan Publishing Company.

Printed in the United States of America
Set in Weiss
Designed by Jay Zimet

Destroyer: European Oils

I went for you in military times and, then, I waited well into the 2300s.
I made my way through the Union Street design kids.
They were alright.
They were on fire.
They harbored an elementary desire to do good works.
I bought 'em all, I bought 'em all!
I made donations to The Plague, and The Fall and The Old Grey Mare in her stall!

Endangered Ape, a couple years in Solitary never really hurt anyone.
Distinguished colleagues, dead music-writers' brides - I apologize.
They were alright.
They were on fire.
They harbored an elementary desire to do good works.
I bought 'em all, I bought 'em all!
I made donations to The Plague, and The Fall and The Old Grey Mare in her stall.

I don't know, I guess I'm doing alright.
Tabitha takes another stab at becoming light.
She never wants to go.
Always want to stay illuminated.

Ride towards the dawn, Quicksilver on the side of nothing.
Never had a chance.
Never had to choose Your Blood versus Your Blues.

Book Cycle: December

1. Plato: Forum
2. Enquiries Into Human Understanding, Principles of Morals
3. Treatises
4. Hayat-e-Javed
5. Tale Of Genji
6. Ingeborg Bachmann (2010, rest of,)
7. Muslim Women in India
8. Odysseus Elytis

Master and Margarita - pg. 36

'Oh, no!' Pilate exclaimed, and he felt lighter and lighter with every word: there was no more need to pretend, no more need to choose his words. 'You have complained about me too much to Caesar, and now my hour has come, Kaifa! Now the message will fly from me, and not to the governor in Antioch, and not to Rome, but directly to Capreae, to the emperor himself, the message of how you in Yershalaim are sheltering known criminals from death. And then it will not be water from Solomon's Pool that I give Yershalaim to drink, as I wanted to do for your own good! No, not water! Remember how on account of you I had to remove the shields with the emperor's insignia from the walls, had to transfer troops, had, as you see, to come in person to look into what goes on with you here! Remember my words: it is not just one cohort that you will see here in Yershalaim, High Priest -- no! The whole Fulminata legion will come under the city walls, the Arabian cavalry will arrive, and then you will hear bitter weeping and wailing! You will remember Bar-Rabban then, whom you saved, and you will regret having sent to his death a philosopher with his peaceful preaching!'

The Master and Margarita - Opening

BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I

Never Talk With Strangers

At the hour of the hot spring sunset two citizens appeared at the Patriarch's Ponds. One of them, approximately forty years old, dressed in a grey summer suit, was short, dark-haired, plum, bald, and carried his respectable fedora hat in his hand. His neatly shaven face was adorned with black horn-rimmed glasses of a supernatural size. The other, a broad-shouldered young man with tousled reddish hair, his checkered cap cocked back on his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, wrinkled white trousers and black sneakers.

'... who are you, then?'
'I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.'

Goethe, Faust

PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group

First published as Master i Margarita in serial form in Moskva, 1966-7
This translation published in Penguin Books 1997

Text copyright Mikhail Bulgakov, 1966, 1967
Translation, Further Reading and Notes copyright Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, 1997
Introduction copyright Richard Pevear 1997
All rights reserved

Set in 10/12pt Monotype Garamond
Printed in the United States of America

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 84

Worse trials still awaited them in Canudos; they must not allow fear to overcome them, the Blessed Jesus would aid those who had faith. The end of the world continued to be a subject he very often spoken of. The earth, worn out after so many centuries of giving forth plants and animals and sheltering man, would ask the Father if it might rest. God would give His consent and the acts of destruction would commence. That was what was meant by the words of the Bible: "I bring not peace, but a sword!"

Book Cycle: This Week

• Hayat-e-Javed - 100pgs: pg. 248/900
• Quarantine
  
• Republic
  
• Meditations
• Persian 70/75
  

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 82

I asked him if they were prepared for more attacks, since the bourgeoisie reacts like a wild beast when the sacrosanct right of private ownership of property is violated. He left me dumbfounded by murmuring that all land belongs to the Good Lord Jesus, and that the Counselor is building the largest church in the world in Canudos. I tried to explain to him that it was not becaue they were building churches that the powers that be had sent soldiers to do battle with them, but he answered that it was precisely for that reason, since the Republic is trying to wipe out religion. I then heard, comrades, a strange diatribe against the Republic, delivered with quiet self-assurance, without a trace of passion. Th Republic is bent on oppressing the Church and the faithful, doing away with all the religious orders as it has already suppressed the Society of Jesus, and the most notorious proof of its intentions is its having instituted civil marriage, a scandalous act of impiety when the sacrament of marriage created by God already exists.
I can imagine the disappointment of many of my readers, and their suspicions on reading the foregoing, the Canudos, like the Vendee uprising at the time of the French Revolution, is a reactionary movement, inspired by priests. It is not as simple as that, comrades. As you know from my last letter, the Church condemns the Counselor and Canudos, and the jaguncos have seized the lands of a baron. I asked the man with the scar on his face if the poor of Brazil were better off during the monarchy. He immediately answered yes, since it was the monarchy that had abolished slavery. And he explained to me that the Devil, using Freemasons and Protestants as his tools, overthrew the Emperor Dom PedroII, in order to restore slavery. Those were his very words: the Counselor has inculcated upon his followers the belief that the republicans are advocates of slavery.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 79

He returned a week later. The floodwaters had begun to recede. Honorio, the Sardelinha sisters, and the half-dozen laborers who no worked for them were dejected, but Antonio took this latest catastrophe calmly. He inventoried what had been salvaged, made calculations in a little notebook, and raised their spirits by telling them that he still had many debts to collect and that like a cat he had too many lives to live to feel defeated by one flood.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 78

When he was better, they continued on south, a harrowing journey of weeks and weeks during which the only things they came upon were ghost towns, deserted haciendas, caravans of skeletons drifting aimlessly, as though hallucinated.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 77

Antoni's face was pale. "We have to start all over again," Honorio murmured. "Not in this city, though," his brother answered.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 71

Shortly thereafter the other soldiers fled, and as they ran for their lives some of them fell amid the nests of jaguncos that had formed in this corner or that, where they were beaten to death with spades and shovels and done in with knives in less time than it takes to tell. They died hearing themselves called dogs and devils, amid prognostications that their souls would be condemned as their corpses rotted.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 48

"The Church has lost its authority there on account of a crazy man who spends his time making the whole mob work all day long building a stone temple." I was unable to share his consternation and instead felt only happiness and sympathy for those men, thanks to whom, it would appear, there is being reborn from its ashes, in the backlands of Brazil, the Idea that the forces of reaction believe they have drowned in the blood of revolutions defeated in Europe. Till my next letter or never.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 37

The sun burns the backlands to a cinder, gleams on the greenish-black waters of Itapicuru, reflects off the houses of Queimadas lining the right edge of the river, at the foot of gullies of reddish clay. Sparse trees cast their shadow over the rocky, rolling terrain stretching south eastward, in the direction of Riacho da Onca. The rider -- boots, broad-brimmed hat, black frock coat -- escorted by his shadow and that of his mule, heads unhurriedly toward a thicket of lead-colored bushes. Behind him, already far in the distance, the rooftops of Queimadas still glow like fire. To his left, several hundred meters away, a hut at the top of a rise can be seen.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 29

They were lying underneath a tree, smoking cigars, and in a sudden fit of boldness he asked him point-blank: "Why did you kill the mistress?" "Because I've got the Dog in me," Big Joao answered immediately. "Don't talk to me about that any more." The Kid thought that his companion had told him the truth.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 25

He does not resemble the government officials or the doctor in the white smock with whom he has come here. Young, nearsighted, with thick eyeglasses. He does not take notes with a pencil but with a goose-quill pen. He is dressed in a pair of trousers coming apart at the seams, an off-white jacket, a cap with a visor, and all of his apparel seems fake, wrong, out of place on his awkward body. He is holding a clipboard with a number of sheets of paper and dips his goose-quill pen in an inkwell, with the cork of a wine bottle for a cap, that is fastened to the sleeve of his jacket. He looks more or less like a scarecrow.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 18

During the many months of drought the Counselor and his disciples worked unceasingly, burying those dead of starvation, disease, or anguish whom they came across along the sides of the roads, rotting corpses that were food for wild beasts and even humans. They made coffins and dug graves for these brothers and sisters. They were a motley group, a chaotic mixture of races, backgrounds, and occupations. Among them were whites dressed all in leather who had made their living driving the herds of the "colonels," the owners of great cattle ranches; full-blooded Indians with reddish skins whose great great-grandfathers had gone about half naked and eaten the hearts of their enemies; mestizos who had been farm overseers, tinsmiths, black smiths, cobblers, or carpenters; and mullatoes and blacks who had been runaway from the sugarcane plantations on the coast and from the rack, the stocks, the floggings with bull pizzles and the brine thrown on the raw lash marks, and other punishments invented for slaves in the sugar factories.

Quarantine - Opening

1

The writing of a text presupposes the existence of a fine net of relationships binding the different threads that weave within it.

A.J.L., in memoriam

First published in Great Britain by Quartet Books Limited 1994
27 Goodge Street, London W1p 1FD

Originally published under the title La Cuarantena
by Mondadori Espana, S.A. in 1991

Copyright 1991 by Juan Goytisolo
Translation copyright 1994 by Peter Bush



All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
in any form or by any means without the prior
written permission of the publisher

A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire

Book Cycle: This Week

• War Of The End Of The World - 150 pgs: pg.350/568
  
• Hayat-e-Javed - 100pgs: pg. 248/900
• Quarantine - 50pgs/122
• Meditations

Message

Out of the corpse-warm foyer of heaven steps the sun.
There it is not the immortals,
but rather the fallen, we perceive.


And brilliance doesn't trouble itself with decay. Our godhead,
history, has ordered for us a grave
from which there is no resurrection.

Book Cycle: November

1. Plato: Forum, Republic
2. Enquiries Into Human Understanding
3. Treatises
4. Hayat-e-Javed
5. War of the end of the world
6. Early Xtian Writers
7. The Bible: Genesis
8. Twilight in Delhi
9. Aab-e-Hayat
10. Kleist
11. Ingeborg Bachmann (2010, rest of,)
12. Muslim Women in India

Days of 1964

posted by Shigekuni: shigekuni.wordpress.com

Houses, an embassy, the hospital.
Our neighborhood sun-cured if trembling still
In pools of the night’s rain . . .
Across the street that led to the center of town
A steep hill kept one company part way
Or could be climbed in twenty minutes
For some literally breathtaking views,
Framed by umbrella pines, of city and sea.
Underfoot, cyclamen, autumn crocus grew
Spangled as with fine sweat among the relics
Of good times had by all. If not Olympus,
An out-of-earshot, year-round hillside revel.

I brought home flowers from my climbs.
Kyria Kleo who cleans for us
Put them in water, sighing Virgin, Virgin.
Her legs hurt. She wore brown, was fat, past fifty,
And looked like a Palmyra matron
Copied in lard and horsehair. How she loved
You, me, loved us all, the bird, the cat!
I think now she was love. She sighed and glistened
All day with it, or pain, or both.
(We did not notably communicate.)
She lived nearby with her pious mother
And wastrel son. She called me her real son.

I paid her generously, I dare say.
Love makes one generous. Look at us. We’d known
Each other so briefly that instead of sleeping
We lay whole nights, open, in the lamplight,
And gazed, or traded stories.

One hour comes back—you gasping in my arms
With love, or laughter, or both,
I having just remembered and told you
What I’d looked up to see on my way downtown at noon:

poor old Kleo, her aching legs,
Trudging into the pines. I called.
Called three times before she turned.
Above a tight, skyblue sweater, her face
Was painted. Yes. Her face was painted
Clown-white, white of the moon by daylight,
Lidded with pearl, mouth a poinsettia leaf.
Eat me, pay me—the erotic mask
Worn the world over by illusion
To weddings of itself and simple need.

Startled mute, we had stared—was love illusion?—
And gone our ways. Next, I was crossing a square
In which a moveable outdoor market’s
Vegetables, chickens, pottery kept materializing
Through a dream-press of hagglers each at heart
Leery lest he be taken, plucked,
The bird, the flower of that November mildness,
Self lost up soft clay paths, or found, foothold,
Where the bud throbs awake
The better to be nipped, self on its knees in mud—
Here I stopped cold, for both our sakes;

And calmer on my way home bought us fruit.

Forgive me if you read this. (And may Kyria Kleo,
Should someone ever put it into Greek
And read it aloud to her, forgive me, too.)
I had gone so long without loving,
I hardly knew what I was thinking.

Where I hid my face, your touch, quick, merciful,
Blindfolded me. A god breathed from my lips.
If that was illusion I wanted it to last long;
To dwell, for its daily pittance, with us there,
Cleaning and watering, sighing with love or pain.
I hoped it would climb when it needed to the heights
Even of degradation as I for one
Seemed, those days, to be always climbing

Book Cycle: This Week

• Hayat-e-Javed :150pgs
• Never Let Me Go (100 pgs)
• The War Of The End Of The World (70 pgs)
• The Republic : Start

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 144

اسپین والوں نےبھی مسلمانوں کے زوالِ سلطنت کے بعد اسی طرح مسلمانوں کی نشانیاں مٹائی تھیں مگر انھوں نے اپنی حکومت کے زمانے میں ایسا کیا تھا اور ہمارے ہموطن بھائی محکوم ہونے کی حالت میں ایسے ارادے رکھتے ہیں ۔ لیکن ہم کو اطمینان رکھنا چاہئے کیونکہ جس تعلیم نے ہمارے ہندو نوجوانوں کو مسلمانوں سے تعصب اور نفرت کرنا سکھا یا ہے وہی آگے چل کر ان کو یہ سبق دے گی کہ جط تک ہندو مسلمان مل جل کر نہ رہیں گے اور ایک دوسے کے مصالح کو ملحوظ نہ رکھیں گے تب تک برٹش انڈیا میں عزت حاصل نہیں کر سکتے۔

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 139

انگریزی مدارس کی تعلیم میں جس سے زیادہ تر ہندو مستفید ہوتے تھے تاریخِ ہندوستان کی وہ کتابیں جو نہایت تعصب آمیز طریقہ پر لکھی گئیں تھیںاور جن میں مسلمانوں کی برائیاں اور ظالمانہ کارروائیاں دانستہ یا نا دانستہ نہایت تفصیل کے ساتھ درج کی گئیں تھیں ۔ اس تعلیم کا ضروری نتیجہ یہ تھا کہ ہندووں کے دل میں مسلمانوں کی طرف سے نفرت اور ناگواری کا تخم جم جائے اور وہ رفتہ رفتہ ایک نہایت گھنا اور عظیم الشان درخت ہو جائے۔

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 107

تحقیقِ لفظِ نصاریٰ

سر سید مرادآباد میں ہی تھے کہ ان کو معلوم ہوا کہ بعض اضلاع میں مسلمانوں کی بعض تحریریں ایامِ غدر کی ایسی پیش ہوئیں جن میں انگریزوں کو لفظ نصاریٰ سے تعبیر کیا تھا۔ حکام نے اس لفظ کو بھی بغاوت سمجھا اور ان کے لکھنے والوں کو وہ سزائیں دی گئیںجو ان کی قسمت میں لکھی تھیں۔

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 93

“سر رشتہ تعلیم جو چند سال سے جاری ہے وہ تربیت کے لئیے ناکافی ہی نہیں بلکہ خراب کرنے والا تربیتِ اہلِ ہند کا ہے اردو زبان جس کے وسیلہ سے اکثر جگہ تعلیم جاری ہے اس کی حالت ایسی نہیں ہے جس سے تعلیم ہونا ممکن ہو۔ کینکہ جس زبان میں ہم کسی قوم کی تعلیم کا ارادہ رکھتے ہیں اس زبان کی نسبت ہم کو یہ دیکھنا چاہیئے کہ اس میں علمی کتابیں کافی موجود ہیں بھی یا نہیں؟ کینکہ اگر یہ نہ ہو تو تعلیم ممکن نہیں۔ دوسرے یہ کہ وہ زبان فی نفسہ اس قابل ہی یا نہیں کہ اس میں علمی کتابیں تصنیف ہو سکیں ؟ کینکہ پہلی بات کا تو علاج ہو سکتا ہے مگر دوسری بات لا علاج ہے ، تیسرے یہ کہ آیا وہ ایسی زبان ہے یا نہیں کہ اس میں علوم پڑھنے سے جدتِ طبع، حدتِ ذہن، سلامتِ فکر، ملکئہ عالی، قوتِ ناطقہ، پختگئیِ تقریر اور ترتیبِ دلائل کا سلیقہ پیدا ہو سکے ؟ ان تینوں باتوں میں سے اردو زبان میں کوئ بات نہیں ۔ پس گورنمنٹ پر واجب ہے کہ اس طریقہء تعلیم کو جو در حقیقت تربیت انسان کو خراب کرنے والا اور خود بخود لوگوں کے دلوں میں بد گمانی پیدا کرنے والا ہے۔ بل کل بدل دے اور اس زبان میں تربیت جاری کرے جس سے تربیت کا جو اصلی نتیجہ ہے وہ حاصل ہو"۔

“میری صاف رائے ہے کہ اگر گورنمنٹ اپنی شرکت دیسی زبان میںتعلیم دینے سے بالکل اٹھا دےاور صرف انگریزی مدرسہ اور اسکول جاری رکھے تو بلا شبہ یہ بد گمانی جو رعایا کو گورنمنٹ کی طرف سے ہے جاتی رہے ۔ صاف صاف لوگ جان لیں کہ سرکار انگریزی زبان کو وسیلہ سے تربیت کرتی ہے اور انگریزی زبان بلا شبہ ایسی ہے کہ انسان کی ہر قسم کی علمی ترقی اس میں ہو سکتی ہے"۔

سر سید احمد خان

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر86

“سید احمد خاں کو سرکار انگریزی کی طرف سے ضلع بجنور کا نظم و نسق سپرد تھااور وہاں کے ہندو مسلمانوں کی خانہ جنگیاں یادگار غدر ہیں۔ اس عموم بے تمیزی میں خود سید احمد خاں کے ساتھ بھی لوگ نہایت درجہ کی گستاخی اور بے توقیری کے ساتھ پیش آئے اور قریب تھا کہ ہلاک کریں عودِ تسلط کے بعد اس ضلع کے تمام با شندوں کی جان سید احمد کی مٹھی میں تھی اگر ان کے سے اختیارات کسی دوسرے کو ہوتے تو بجنور کے حصہ میں قیامت آ گئی ہوتی۔ مگر یہ معاملہ فہم، منصف مزاج،نرم دل، نیک طینت آدمی اس وقت بھی فرق کرتا تھا بغاوت اور خانہ جنگیوں میں ، مخالفت اور جہالت میں ، حملہ اور حفاظت میں ۔ اور سید احمد خاں کی بدولت بجنور ہی ایک ضلع تھا جو عواقب اور تبعاتِ غدر سے محفوظ رہا"۔

نواب محسن الملک

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 81

انھی دنوں میں ایک شخص منیر خاں نامی مع جمیعت چار سو آدمی کے نگینے سے بجنور میں آیااور سر سید اور میر تراب علی، دپتی رحمت خاں کے قتل کے درپے ہوا ان کو بہ جبر و تحکم طلب کیا اور کہلا بھیجا کہ اگر حاضر نہ ہو گے تو بہتر نہ ہوگا۔ سر سید اور میر تراب ولی اس کے پاس گئے۔ منیر خاں نے سر سید سے مسئلہ جہاد کے بارے میں گفتگو کی۔ انھوں نے نہایت سنجیدگی سے اس کو سمجھا یا کہ شرع کے بموجب ہرگز جہاد نہیں ہے، اس نے ان کو تو رخصت کیا اور مولوی علیم اللہ رئیس کے پاس خود جا کر یہی مسئلہ پوچھا ۔ انھوں نے بڑی دلیری سے اس کے ساتھ گفتگو کی اور بہت سی دلیلوں سے اس کو قائل کیا کہ مزہب کی رو سے جہاد نہیں ہے ۔ اس روز مولوی علیم اللہ قتل ہوتے ہوتے بچے ۔ دوسرے دن منیر خاں وہاں سے دلّی چلا گیا اور وہاں جا کر لڑائی میں مارا گیا۔

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 58

سر سید کا مزکورہ بالا جلسوں میں شریک ہونا آخر کار رنگ لائے بغیر نہ رہا ۔ اگرچہ اس وقت تک دلی کے مسلمانوں میں قدیم سوسائٹی کی بہت سی خوبیاں باقی تھیں لیکن چونکہ ان کے اقبال کا خاتمہ ہو چکا تھا اس لئیے ان کی سوسائٹی میں ان خرابیوں کی آہستہ آہستہ بنیاد پڑتی جاتی تھی جن کو تنزل اور ادبار کا پیش خیمہ سمجھنا چاہئیے۔ طبیعتیں عموماْ عیش و نشاط اور راگ رنگ کی طرف مائل ہو جاتی تھیں ۔ بے فکر امیر زادے عیاشی اور لہو و لعب کی مثالیں قائم کرتے جاتے تھے اور خربوزوں کو دیکھ کر خربوزے رنگ پکڑتے جاتے تھے ۔اگرچہ سر سید سترہ اٹھارہ برس کی عمر میں متاہل ہو گئے تھے پھر بھی وہ اس متعدی مرض کے اثر سے اپنے تئیں نہ بچا سکے ۔ لیکن جیسا کہ معتبر زریعوں سے معلوم ہوا ہے ، باوجود غایت دلبستگی کے جو جنون سے کسی طرح کم نہ تھے، سر سید نے جس حیرت انگیز طریقہ سے اپنے تئیں اس دلدل سے نکالا وہ درحقیقت ان کی زندگی کا ایک بہت بڑا کارنامہ ہے جس کو ان کی اخلاقی طاقت کا سب سے پہلا کرشمہ سمجھنا چاہئیے۔ گویا یہ شعر ان کے حسبِ حال تھا:

ھزار دوام سے نکلا ہوں ایک جنبش میں

جسے غرور ہو آئے کرے شکار مجھے

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 54

سر سید کہتے تھے کہ "اس زمانے میں میری عمر آٹھ نو برس کی ہوگی۔ تقریباْ انھیں دنوں میں راجہ رام موہن رائے جو برہمو سماج کے بانی تھے ۔ ان کو اکبر شاہ نے کلکتہ سے بلایا تھا تاکہ اضافئہ پنشن بادشاہی کے لئے ان کو لندن بھیجا جائے چنانچہ وہ بادشاہ کی طرف سے لندن بھیجے گئے اور ً1831 میں وہاں پھنچے"۔ سر سید نے لندن جانے سے پہلے ان کو متعدد دربار بادشاہی میں دیکھا تھا۔

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 49

سر سید کو مسماۃ مان بی بی نے جو ایک قدیم خیر خواہ ان کے گھرانے کی تھی پالا تھا ۔ اس لئے ان کو مان بی بی سے نہایت محبت تھی ۔ وہ پانچ برس کے تھے جب مان بی بی کا انتقال ہوا۔ ان کا بیان ہے کہ " مجھے خوب یاد ہے مان بی بی مرنے سے پانچ گھنٹے پہلے فالسہ کا شربت مجھکو پلا رہی تھی۔ جب وہ مر گئی تو مجھے اس کے مرنے کا نہایت رنج ہئوا ۔ میری والدہ نے مجھے سمجھایا کہ وہ خدا کے پاس گئی ہے۔ بہت اچھے مکان میں رہتی ہے، بہت سے نوکر چاکر اس کی خدمت کرتے ہیں اور اس کی بہت آرام سے گزرتی ہے، تم کچھ رنج مت کرو، مجھ ان کو کہنے سے پورا یقین تھا کہ فی الواقع ایسا ہی ہے۔ مدت ہر جمعرات کو اس کی فاتحہ خوانی ہوا کرتی تھی اور کسی محتاج کو کھانا دیا جاتا تھا۔ مجھے یقین تھا کہ یہ سب کھانا مان بی بی کے پاس پہنچ جاتا ہے۔ اس نے مرتے وقت کہا تھا کہ میرا تمام زیور سید کا ہے ۔ مگر میری والدہ اس کو خیرات میں دینا چاہتی تھیں۔ ایک دن انھوں نے مجھ سے پوچھا کہ اگر تم کہو تو یہ گہنا مان بی بی کے پاس بھیج دوں ۔ میں نے کہا ہاں بھیج دو۔ والدہ نے وہ سب گہنا مختلف طرح سے خیرات میں دے دیا"۔

حیاتِ جاوید - صفحہ نمبر 48

وہ اپنے خاندان کے اکثر بچوں کی نسبت زیادہ قوی اور توانا اور ہاتھ پانو سے تندرست پیدا ہوئے تھے۔ وہ اپنی ماں کی زبانی بیان کرتے تھے کہ جب ان کے نانا دوسری بار کلکتہ سے دلی میں آئے اور ان کو پہلے ہی بار دیکھا تو یہ کہا کہ " یہ تو ہمارے گھر میں جاٹ پیدا ہوا ہے"۔

Constructing Pakistan - Closing

Pakistan is a nation of over one hundred and sixty million people, and it has, like so many other postcolonial nations, struggled to produce, articulate, and popularise its normative structure. Due to its strategic location, its recent problematic role as a regional US ally in the war against terror, and its national potential as a leading Muslim nuclear power, Pakistan is one of the most important Mulsim nation-states of the twenty-first century. Unfortunately, since the terrorist attacks of 2001, Pakistan has been mostly represented a problem both in the media as well as in the scholarly works produced in the United States. Thus, I hope that my attempt at articulating the formative national history of Pakistan will facilitate a more engaged public debate and academic scholarship on the past, present, and the future of Pakistan.

Constructing Pakistan - pg. 137

This is how the narrative of Indian Muslim nationhood finds different expressions. While the early exponents of the Muslim cause desperately needed to create a space for the Muslims within the hegemonic project of the empire, during the terminal stages of the freedom struggle, one important strand of national struggle is focused primarily on cleansing the Muslim consciousness of the residual effects of the hegemonic negotiation of the Western system. Both Iqbal and Mawdudi represent the struggles of two such reformers in retrieving and articulating a Muslim identity separate from the Hindus but also in difference to the in identity-forming imperatives of the British hegemonic project.

Iqbal and Mawdudi are both aware of the pitfalls of purely Western secular nationalism and are skeptical about it. For them Islam must form the basis of everyday life in an Islamic state and must not be reduced to the affair of the individual. It is this public nature of Islam as a way of life that forces the Muslim scholars of this particular path, for there were dissenting views, to make it imperative for the Muslims to seek a separate, autonomous nation-state. Hence, while Iqbal articulates a grand vision of the nation, Mawdudi, highly influenced by Iqbal but also the more conservative of the two, illustrates the tactical details of the Muslim nationalistic vision.

Constructing Pakistan - pg. 132

Mawdudi's sundering of the Muslim identity in two proposes a politics different from the politics of Unionist Nationalism, for the Muslims can only be successful if both aspects of their political identity are accommodated. If the Muslims have to alter or abandon their Muslim identity in order to forge a nationalistic alliance, then that, according to Mawdudi, is absolutely impossible. Mawdudi then goes on to challenge the Hinduized Western concept of nationhood:

Those who want us to follow the path of nationhood only as Hindustanis follow the Western concept of nationhood, which has the Hindu view of humanity deeply embedded in it. They aim to eliminate the national differences caused by religious and traditional differences and replace them by one nation united under the mixture of Hinduism and communism ... We can only follow this path if we sacrifice our second condition of nationality, our Muslimhood.

Constructing Pakistan - pg. 129

In his second speech, Iqbal is even more confident of his vision and completely aware of the prevailing charged political climate on the question of Muslim nationhood. He begins by putting forward his own idea of nationhood as opposed to the Western concept:

Politics have their roots in the spiritual life of man. It is my belief that Islam is not a matter of private opinion. It is a society, or if you like, a civic church. It is because present-day political ideals [...] may affect its original structure and character that I find myself interested in politics. I am opposed to nationalism as it is understood in Europe [...] I am opposed to it because I see in it the germs of atheistic materialism, which I look upon as the greatest danger to modern humanity. Patriotism is a perfectly natural virtue and has a place in moral life of man. Yet that which really matters is a man's faith, his culture, his historical tradition. These are the things which, in my eyes, are worth living and dying for, and not the piece of earth with which the spirit of man happens to be temporarily associated.

Constructing Pakistan - pg. 120

Overall, Iqbal's idea of Muslim identity is trans-historical and trans-national; he sees the Western concept of the nation-state as a divisive force against the Islamic concept of a larger Muslim ummah

Constructing Pakistan - pg. 118

According to Ahmad Mian Mukhtar: 'Iqbal had studied Islamic Sufism deeply including the original writings of all great Sufis. But he had noticed certain un-Islamic practices in Sufisn and was opposed to these unIslamic influences':

This Neo-Platonism is an altered version of Plato that one of his followers (Plotinus) presented as a religion. In Muslims this was spread through Christian translations and became a part of Islam. In myopinion this is strictly un-Islamic and has no relationship with the Qura'nic philosophy. The edifice of Sufisn is based on this Greek absurdity.

Book Cycle

1. Twilight in Delhi
2. Aab-e-Hayat
3. Hayat-e-Javed
   
4. Early Xian Writers
5. Kleist
6. Ingeborg Bachmann (2010, rest of,)
7. Muslim Women in India
8. Plato the two books: Forum, Republic,
   
9. Genesis : The Bible

Constructing Pakistan - pg. 98

There are some obvious differences in the retrieval strategies of Hali and Naumani. While Hali, steeped in the loyalist discourse of his times, focused mainly on the social transformative history of Islam and its mastery of knowledge, Naumani's focus is more on the illustrious martial traditions of Islam. His heroes of the past are Muslim warriors who sacked empires, and changed the world, and as is evident from these lines, 'Received the throne and crown of Kisra/ and collected revenues from the Tartars.

Constructing Pakistan - pg. 96

With Shibli Nomani, then, Muslim literature is geared towards the Islamic past and its pan-Islamic present to define the particularities of the Muslims of India. In his popular works he insists upon the need to retrieve the stories of past Muslim heroes. He was, therefore, not necessarily opposed to Western education and viewed Sayyid Ahmad Khan's reformatory efforts in a positive light; but at the same time he did not want the Muslim youth to lose touch with their history. He stresses upon the importance of this aspect in one of his essays:

Someone has aptly pointed out that our misfortune is not only that we have been conquered by the Europeans; but they have also succeeded in conquering our dead. When we speak of courage, strength, honour and knowledge, it is the European heroes we talk of ... not our own. The reason for this does not lie in the fact that we no longer revere our own heroes, but because modern education does not provide us with an opportunity to learn the accomplishment of our ancestors.

Constructing Pakistan - pg. 92

The book Ibn-ul-Waqt with these lines. The task of the Muslim loyalist reformer is further complicated by the traditional point of view. The reformer, in order to be effective must also be a pious Muslim. The novel, thus, foregrounds the importance of double negotiation: the Muslim elite will only be able to lead the Muslim masses if they do not lose their sense of self and Muslim identity in the process of dealing with the British. It was this important aspect of the native Muslim identity that forced the British to abandon their universalist project and change their policies specific to the perceptions of the natives. Respecting local religions and maintaining Muslim family law, thus, were a means of creating a hegemonic relationship.

The War Of The End Of The World - pg. 10

Something out of the ordinary occurred then in the boy's life; shortly thereafter, as a result of the changes that took place in him because of the sermons of the Lazarists, people began to call him the Little Blessed One. He would come out of the sessions where they preached with his eyes no longer fixed on hi surroundings and as though purified of dross. One-Eye spread the word about that he often found him kneeling in the darkness at night, weeping for Christ's sufferings, so caught up in them that he was able to bring him back to this world only by cradling him in his arms and rocking him. On other nights he heard him talking in his sleep, in agitation, of Judas's betrayal, of Mary Magdalene's repentance, of the crown of thorns, and one night he heard him make a vow of perpetual chastity, like St. Francis de Sales at the age of eight.

The War Of The End OF The World - pg. 7

The man in black nods. He has a little beard as red as his hair, and piercing bright blue eyes; his broad mouth is firmly set, and his
flaring nostrils seem to be breathing in more air than his body requires.
"Provided it doesn't cost more than two milreis," he murmurs in broken
Portugese. "That's my entire capital."

حیاتِ جاوید - آغاز

پیش لفظ

“ابتدا میں لفظ تھا ۔ اور لفظ ہی خدا ہے"

پہلے جمادات تھے ۔ ان میں نمو پیدا ہوئی تو نباتات آئے۔ نباتات میں جبلّت پیدا ہوئی تو حیوانات پیدا ہوئے۔ ان میں شعور پیدا ہوا تو بنی نوع انسان کا وجود ہوا ۔ اسی لئے فرمایا گیا ہے کہ کائنات میں جو سب سے اچھا ہے اس سے انسان کی تخلیق ہوئی۔

ابن الو قت - اختتام

حجۃالاسلام: میں امید کرتا ہوں کہ مزہب کے متعلق جو کچھ میں نے اب تک تم سے کہا پہلے حصے یعنی نفس اسلام کی نسبت تمہاری تشفی کر سکتا ہے بشرطیکہ تم کو تشفی درکار ہو اور جب اسلام کی اصلی اور حقیقی عمدگی تمہارے زہن میں اچھی طرح بیٹھ جائے گی ، جس کی شناخت یہ ہے کہ اعمال اضطراراْ سر زد ہونے لگیں تو میری یہ بات لکھ کر رکھو کہ انگریزی وضع خود تم ہی کو بہ تقاضائے مزہب وبال معلوم ہونے لگے گی۔ رہا دوسرا حصہ یعنی اسلام کے فرقوں میں کسی فرقہ خاص کی تعین اس کو کسی دوسرے وقت پر رکھو۔

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 218

حجۃالاسلام: اگر ہم ایک گھر کی رفارم کرنا چاہیں تو اس کے یہ معنے نہیں ہیں کہ اس کو جڑ بنیاد سے کھود کر پھینک دیں اور از سر نو دوسرا مکان بنا کر کھڑا کریں۔ اسی طرح مسلمانوں کی رفارم کو تو اسی وقت رفارم کہا جائے گا کہ مسلمان مسلمان رہیں، یعنی باپ دادا کے مزہب کے، وضع کے پابند ہیں ۔ دور سے الگ پہچان پڑیں کہ مسلمان ہیں اور پھر ان کے دلوں میں زمانہءحال کے مطابق ترقی کی گدگدی پیدا کی جائے۔

Poetry and Religion

Shigekuni posted this unbelievable poem by Les Murray on his blog:


Religions are poems. They concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture

into the only whole thinking: poetry.
Nothing’s said till it’s dreamed out in words
and nothing’s true that figures in words only.

A poem, compared with an arrayed religion,
may be like a soldier’s one short marriage night
to die and live by. But that is a small religion.

Full religion is the large poem in loving repetition;
like any poem, it must be inexhaustible and complete
with turns where we ask Now why did the poet do that?

You can’t pray a lie, said Huckleberry Finn;
you can’t poe one either. It is the same mirror:
mobile, glancing, we call it poetry,

fixed centrally, we call it a religion,
and God is the poetry caught in any religion,
caught, not imprisoned. Caught as in a mirror

that he attracted, being in the world as poetry
is in the poem, a law against its closure.
There’ll always be religion around while there is poetry

or a lack of it. Both are given, and intermittent,
as the action of those birds – crested pigeon, rosella parrot -
who fly with wings shut, then beating, and again shut.

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 196

حجۃالاسلام: ذرا تو سوچ کر کہو، خدا بھی ہے یا تم ہی تم ہو؟

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 183

حجۃالاسلام: خیر ،آپ پوچھتے ہیں عرض کرتا ہوں کہ میرے نزدیک انگریزی تعلیم کا یہ نتیجہ تو ایک نہ ایک دن ضرور ہونا ہے کہ گورنمنٹ کا گنگا جمنی رنگ کہ کسی قدر انگریزی ہے اور کسی قدر ایشیائی اور جس کے لئے یوریشین کا لفظ نہایت مناسب ہے اور ہم اپنی زبان میں ایسا لفظ بنانا چاہیں تو مغلئی اور انگریزی کو ملا کر 'مغریزی' کہہ سکتے ہیں، غرض گورنمنٹ کا یہ دوغلا پن تو باقی رہتا نظر نہیں آتا۔ ہندوستان اور ولایت میں جو پرلے درجے کی مغایرت اور اجنبیت تھی ، یوماْ فیوماْ کم ہوتی چلی جاتی ہے اور اس کے چند در چند اسباب ہیں ؛ انگریزی تعلیم، انگریزی اور دیسی اخباروں کی کثرت ، ڈاک، ریل، تار، سفر ولایت کی سہولت، ہندوستانیوں اور انگریزوں دونوں کے دلوں میں ایک دوسرے کے جاننے پہچاننے کا شوق۔ غرض جس قدر ہندوستانیوں کی آنکھیں کھلتی چلی جاتی ہیں اسی قدر ان کے حوصلے بڑھتے چلے جاتے ہیں ۔ انجامِ کار ہندوستانی ضرور خواہش کریں گے کہ ہوم گورنمنٹ اور انڈین گورنمنٹ دونوں کا ایک رنگ ہو اور ولایت میں جو حقوق رعایائے سلطانی ہونے کی حیثیت سے آپ لوگوں کے تسلیم کئیے گئے ہیں اور جو اختیار آپ لوگوں کو دیئے گئے ہیں ، وہی حقوق اس ملک میں ہندوستانیوں کے تسلیم کئیے جائیں اور وہی اختیار ان کو ملیں۔

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 177

مسلمان سوائے ایک خدا کے جس کو کوئی انسان دیکھ نہیں سکتا ، موجوداتِ عالم میں اس سے ارضی ہوں یا سماوی، کسی چیز کی عبادت یعنی اعلیٰ درجے کی تعظیم نہیں کرتا۔ حجۃالاسلام صاحب کے بیان کے مطابق اسلام خودداری اور بے تکلّفی اور سادگی اور توکّل اور صبر کا مجموعہ ہے۔ لیکن ہندو بندر اور سانپ اور گائے اور پیپل اور تلسی اور آگ اور پانی اور پتّھر اور چاند اور سورج ہر چیز کے آگے ماتھا ٹیکنے کو موجود ہے ، جس کے معنی دوسرے لفظوں میں یہ ہیں کہ آدمی سب میں ادنیٰ درجے کا مخلوق ہے اور اس کو دنیا میں ادنیٰ بن کر رہنا چاہیئے۔ حجۃالاسلام صاحب اس سے یہ نتیجہ نکالتے ہیں کہ مسلمان کار فرمائ اور حکومت کے لیئے بنایا گیا ہے ، جس طرح ہندو کارکنی اور اطاعت کے لیئے۔

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 172

ساس: اے ہے غدر کے دنوں میں کچھ ایسی گھڑی کا پیرا اس موئے فرنگی کا آیا تھا کہ بچے کی مت پھیر دی ۔ ہم سے تو ایسا چھپا یا ایسا چھپایا کہ دن کو گورے شہر میں گھسے اور رات کو ہم نے جانا کہ سارے غدر ہمارے گھر میں فرنگی چھپا رہا ۔ جس وقت فرنگی کو لائے تھے اگر ذرا بھی مجھ تو معلوم ہوتا تو میں اس کو کھڑا پانی نہ پینے دوں۔ خدا جانے کمبخت کہاں سے ہمارے گھر آمرا تھا۔ نہ آتا نہ بچہ ہاتھ سے جاتا۔ آخر میرا صبر پڑا ہی پڑا۔ کسی کی آہ کا لینا اچھا نہیں ہوتا۔ خدا نے اس کے پیچھے ایسا روگ لگایا کہ سارے سارے دن اٹونٹی کھٹوانٹی لئے پڑا رہتا تھا، آخر کو جاتے ہی بن پڑی۔ کالا منہ، خدا کرے پھر آنا نصیب نہ ہو۔

The War Of The End Of The World - Opening

The man was tall and so thin he seemed to be always in profile. He was dark-skinned and rawboned, and his eyes burned with perpetual fire. He wore shepherd's sandals and the dark purple tunic draped over his body called to mind the cassocks of those missionaries who every so often visited the villages of the backlands, baptizing hordes of children and marrying men and women who were cohabiting.

To EUCLIDES DA CUNHA
in the other world;
and, in this world,
to NELDA PINON

First published in the United States of America
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc. 1984
Published in Penguin Books 1997

Originally published in Spanish as La Guerra del fin del mundo
by Editorial Seix Barral, S.A., Spain

Printed in the United States of America
Set in Aldus
Designed by Cynthia Krupat

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 162

حجۃالاسلام: وقت سے پہلے کوئ مر نہیں سکتا، پھر کیوں گھبرائیں اور وعدہ پورا ہوئے پیچھے کوئ رک نہیں سکتا تو کس برتے پر اترائیں؟ اِذاجاء اجلھم لا یستاخرون سا عتہ ولا یستقدمون۔

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 160

ابن الو قت: عموماْ ہندوستانیوں کا اور خصوصاْ دیہاتیوں کا اور غرباء کا طرزِ تمدن اس طرح واقع ہوا ہے کہ ہندوستان کی سرزمین پر ہر جگہ ہیضے کا بیج موجود ہے، گرمی پڑی اور بیج پھوٹا۔

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 156

مہینہ اور تاریخ تو یاد نہیں ، پر اتنی بات کا خیال ہے کہ پانی برسنے میں دیر ہوئ، مسلمانوں نے صلاح کی کہ جمعہ کے دن عیدگاہ میں پہلے نمازِ استسقاء پڑھیں اور وہیں جمعے کی نماز ہو۔ جمعرات کو عید گاہ میں صفائ ہوئ ، شامیانے تنے، جا نمازیں بچھیں ۔ یکایک رات کو اچھا زور کا پانی برسا ، وہ سارا منصوبہ ملتوی رہا اور بدستور جمعے کی نماز جامع مسجد میں ہوئ۔ نماز کے بعد لوگ حجۃالاسلام سے ملے اور پوچھا آپ کب تشریف لا ئے؟

حجۃالاسلام: “کل بین العصر والمغرب" یہ سن کر سب نے کہا : “آہا! ہی آپ ہی کے قدموں کی برکت ہے کہ خدا نے اپنے بندوں پر رحم فرمایا۔"

ابن الوقت - صفحہ نمبر153

وہ کسی کا مقولہ بہت درست ہے "عندالمصا ئب تز ھل الا حقلا" ۔ اب کسی کو اس کا مطلق خیال نہ تھا کہ ابن الوقت نے ترکِ اسلام کیا ہے یا وہ انگیزوں کے ساتھ کھاتا پیتا ہے یا قوم اور برادری اور گھر کو چھوڑ کر انگریزوں میں جا ملا ہے یا اس نے بزرگوں کے نام کا بٹا لگایا ہے یا اس نے خاندان کی آبرو کو ملیا میٹ کر دیا ہے۔ سارے رنج و شکوے بھول بسر کر سب کو اسی کی پڑی تھی کہ کسی طرح ابن الوقت کو اس بلا سے نجات ہو۔ اس کی پھوپھی تو اس طرح بین کر کے روتی تھیں جیسے کوئ مردے کو روتا ہے مگر ملا کی دوڑ مسجد، سب نے مل کر منتوں اور نیازوں اور چلوں اور عملوں اور دعاوں کی بھرمار کردی اور ختم خواجگاں اور "لا الہ الا انت سبحانک انی کنت من الظالمین" اور "امن یجیب المظطر انا دعاہ و یکشف اسوء" اور "فلم تقتلوھم و لکن اللہ قتلھم و ماریت اذرعیت و لکن اللہ رمی" اور " اللھم انا نجعلک فی نحورھم و نعوذ و بک من شرورھم " حزب البحر اور دلائل الخیرات، اور یاسین، اور صلوۃ الحاجۃ، اور یاسین، اور صلوۃ الحاجۃ اور اعمال حصر السان کے حربے صاحب کلکٹر پر چلنے شروع ہوئے۔

A Party For Boris - Closing

The Oldest Cripple
Boris
Cripple shakes Boris several times
All look at Boris
Johanna suddenly
He's dead
screaming
He's dead
to The Good Woman
He's dead
Boris is dead
exeunt All with the exception of The Good Woman, either wheeling themselves in their wheelchairs or being wheeled in silence by the attendants and waiters and backing out of the room. Hardly is The Good Woman alone with Boris's corpse when she bursts into horrible peals of laughter.

THE END

A Party For Boris

The Oldest Cripple to The Good Woman
We keep asking ourselves
what form of suicide
would be most bearable for us
Cripple
Always with what
and how to do it
Cripple
with our bed sheets
with our pocket knives
Cripple
with the kitchen knives
Cripple
or jump out of the window

A Party For Boris

The Great Woman
We have gone among the apes
The Queen went about among the apes
accompanied by a pig
I am tired
Wheel me back to where I was

A Party For Boris -

Then you asked me whether my husband
had said anything before he died
Your brutal frankness
In your morbid way
you wanted to find out details
My husband was killed instantly
I was not killed
But my husband was killed instantly
my legs were gone

A Party For Boris

No one has time for letters
For ideas
it is true that people have no ideas
because they have no time
for ideas
and they have no time
because they have no ideas
nobody likes to live like a specter
I have the most time
and I have no time at all
that is my misfortune

A Party For Boris - Opening

First Prologue

Empty room, high windows and doors
The Good Woman right
Johanna enters from left with a table and places it by The Good Woman
The Good Woman
It's cold
Johanna moves the table still closer to The Good Woman and places herself behind her
The Good Woman
Heavens it's cold
Bring me the blanket

THOMAS BERNHARD (1931-89) was a playwright, poet, and novelist whose prestigious literary prizes include the Austrian State Prize, the Buchner Prize, the Bremen Prize, and Le Priz Seguier. His novels Woodcutters, Concrete, Gargoyles, and The Lime Works are also available in English translation from the University of Chicago Press. KENNETH NORTHCOTT is professor emeritus in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago. PETER K. JANSEN is associate professor of German at the University of Chicago.

The three plays in this volume were originally published in three separate volumes as Ein Fest Fur Boris(1968), Ritter, Dene, Voss(1984), and Der Theatermacher (1984) by Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.


The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
1990 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 1990
Printed in the United States of America



The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences -- Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48--1984

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 148

ادھر عملوں نے مثلوں کی خوب روئ دھنکی۔

ابن الو قت - صفحہ نمبر 145

صاحب کلکٹر: آپ کیوں سوکھے پتّوں اور کانٹوں کو یاد کرتے ہیں، جب کہ باغ کی ساری ہی بہار آپ ہی کے حصے میں تھی۔

India Wins Freedom - pg. 219

Later that day Gandhiji met Lord Mountbatten. He saw him again the next day and still again on 2 April. Sardar Patel came to him soon after he returned from his first meeting with Lord Mountbatten and was closeted with him for over two hours. What happened during this meeting I do not know. But when I met Gandhiji again, I receive the greatest shock of my life, for I found that he, too, had changed. He was still not openly in favor of partition but he no longer spoke so vehemently against it. What surprised and shocked me even more was that he began to repeat the arguments which Sardar Patel had already used. For over two hours I pleaded with him but could make no impression on him.

Destroyer: If you can't see my mirrors

If you can't see my mirrors
I see you coming around, yeah
You're coming around

If you can't see my mirrors
I see you coming around, yeah
You're coming around now

Pissed-up Sunday morning
We'll miss you in the show
Pissed-up Sunday morning
We'll miss you when you go
Go gently through the floor
A dismal and meaningless sigh

Pissed-up Sunday morning
We'll miss you when you go
Pissed-up Sunday morning
I'd kiss you, but you know
It'd be gently through the door
A dismal and meaningless sigh

Home from your eleventh tour
Honorable discharge aboard the HMS Pinafore
Oh what fun, oh what more

If you can't see my mirrors
If you can't see my mirrors
If you can't see my mirrors
If you can't see my mirrors

India Wins Freedom - pg. 216

They (Moslems) would have complete internal autonomy in provinces in which they were in a majority. Even in the Centre they would have more than adequate representation. So long as there were communal jealousies and doubts, their position would be adequately safeguarded. I was also convinced that if the Constitution for free India was framed on this basis and worked honestly for some time, communal doubts and misgivings would soon disappear. The real problems of the country were economic, not communal. The differences related to classes, not to communities. Once the country became free, Hindus, Moslems, and Sikhs would all realize the real nature of the problems that faced them and communal differences would be resolved.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 215

As soon as Sardar Patel had been convinced, Lord Mountbatten turned his attention to Jawaharlal. Jawaharlal was not at first at all willing and reacted violently against the very idea of partition, but Lord Mountbatten persisted till step by step Jawaharlal's opposition was worn down. Within a month of Lord Mountbatten's arrival in India, Jawaharlal, the firm opponent of partition, had become, if not a supporter, at least acquiescent towards the idea.
I have often wondered how Jawaharlal was won over by Lord Mountbatten. Jawaharlal is a man of principle, but he is also impulsive and amenable to personal influence. The arguments of Sardar Patel must have had some effect, but could not have been decisive. Jawaharlal was also greatly impressed by Lord Mountbatten, but perhaps even greater was the influence of Lady Mountbatten. She is not only extremely intelligent, but had a most attractive and friendly temperament. She admired her husband greatly and in many cases tried to interpret his thought to those who would not at first agree with him.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 214

It must be placed on record that the man in India who first fell for Lord Mountbatten's idea was Sardar Patel. Till perhaps the very end Pakistan was for Jinnah a bargaining counter, but, in fighting for Pakistan, he had overreached himself. The situation within the Executive Council had so annoyed and irritated Sardar Patel that he now became a believer in partition. The Sardar's had been the responsibility for giving Finance to the Moslem League. He therefore resented his helplessness before Liaqat Ali more than anybody else. When Lord Mountbatten suggested that partition might offer a solution for the present difficulty, he found ready acceptance of the idea in Sardar Patel's mind.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 211

The day before he left, Lord Wavell presided over his last Cabinet meeting. After the business was over, he made a brief statement which made a deep impression on me. Lord Wavell said, "I became Viceroy at a very difficult and critical time. I have tried to discharge my responsibility to the best of my ability. A situation, however, developed which made me resign. History will judge whether I acted rightly in resigning on this issue. My appeal to you would, however, be that you should take no hasty decision. I am grateful to all of you for the cooperation I have received from you."
After this speech, Lord Wavell collected his papers quickly and walked away without giving any of us an opportunity to say anything. The next day he left Delhi.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 198

In the latter half of October, Jawaharlal took a step which was unnecessary and which I opposed. His nature is, however, such that he often acts on impulse. As a rule he is open to persuasion, but sometimes he makes up his mind without taking all the facts into consideration. Once he has done so, he tends to go ahead regardless of what the consequences may be.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 194

Besides, the choice of his nominee caused both amusement and anger. When Mr. Suharwardy had formed a Moslem League Ministry in Bengal, the only non-Moslem included in his Ministry was Mr. Jogendra Nath Mandal. He was then almost unknown in Bengal and had no position whatever in all-India politics. Since he was a nominee of the Moslem League and had to be given a portfolio, he was appointed Law Member. Most of the secretaries to the Government of India were British. Mr. Mandal also had a British secretary who complained almost daily that it was difficult to work with a member like Mr. Mandal.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 187

Jawaharlal is one of my dearest friends and his contribution to India's national life is second to none. He has worked and suffered for Indian freedom and, since the attainment of independence, he has become the symbol of our national unity and progress. I have nevertheless to say with regret that he is at times apt to be carried away by his feelings. Not only so, but sometimes he is so impressed by theoretical considerations that he is apt to underestimate the realities of a situation.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 187

However, with great difficulty I got to Dum Dum just a few minutes before the plane was due to leave. I found there a large military contingent waiting in trucks. When I asked why they were not helping to restore order, they replied that their orders were to stand ready but not to take any action. Throughout Calcutta, the military and the police were standing by but remained inactive while innocent men and women were being killed.



The Calcutta airport situated near the ancient munitions factory where Dum Dum bullets were first produced.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 186

The 16th of August was a black day in the history of India. Unprecedented mob violence plunged the great city of Calcutta into an orgy of bloodshed, murder and terror. Hundreds of lives were lost. Thousands were injured and property worth crores of rupees was destroyed. Processions were taken out by the League, which began to loot and commit acts of arson. Soon the whole city was in the grip of goondas of both communities.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 185

On the other hand I noticed in Calcutta that a strange situation was developing. In the past, political parties had observed special days by organizing hartals, taking out processions and holding meetings. The League's "Direct Action Day" seemed to be of a different type. In Calcutta, I found a general feeling that, on 16 August, the Moslem League would attack Congressmen and loot Congress property. Further panic was created when the Bengal Government decided to declare 16 August a public holiday.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 168

In such context, the demand for Pakistan loses all force. As a Muslim, I for one am not prepared for a moment to give up my right to treat the whole of India as my domain and to share in the shaping of its political and economic life. To me it seems a sure sign of cowardice to give up what is my patrimony and content myself with a mere fragment of it.

-- statement 15 April 1946

India Wins Freedom - pg. 166

Sardar Patel asked me whether the Central Government would be restricted to three subjects alone. He said that there were certain subjects like currency and finance which must from the nature of the case belong to the Central sphere. He held that trade and industry could be developed only on an all-India basis and the same thing applied to commercial policy.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 164

I came to the conclusion that the Constitution of India must, from the nature of the case, be federal. Further, it must be so framed as to ensure autonomy to the provinces in as many subjects as possible. We had to reconcile the claims of provincial autonomy with national unity. This could be done by finding a satisfactory formular for the distribution of powers and functions between the central and the provincial governments. Some powers and functions would be essentially central, others essentially provincial and some which could be either would be provincially, or centrally exercised by consent. The first step was to devise a formula by which a minimum number of subjects should be declared as essentially the responsibility of the Central Government.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 131

Then came the third phase in the League's program during World War II. Congress had gained immensely in prestige and strength. It was now clear that the British Government would have to recognize Indian freedom. Mr. Jinnah had now become the leader of the Moslem League and felt that he must take advantage of every difference between the Congress and the Government. Whenever there were discussions between the Congress and the Government for the transfer of power, Mr. Jinnah would begin by remaining silent. If the negotiations failed, he issued a milk-and-water settlement, there was no need for the Moslem League to express any opinion on the British offer. This is what he did during the August offer in 1940 and the Cripps proposals of 1942. The Simla Conference presented him with a situation that he had never faced before.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 109

I think Gandhiji's approach to Mr. Jinnah on this occasion was a great political blunder. It gave a new and added importance to Mr. Jinnah which he later exploited to the full. Gandhiji had in dact adopted a peculiar attitude to Jinnah from the very beginning. Mr. Jinnah had lost much of his political importance after he left the Congress in the twenties. It was largely due to Gandhiji's acts of commission and omission that Mr. Jinnah regained his importance in Indian political life. In fact, it is doubtful if Mr. Jinnah could ever have achieved supremacy but for Gandhiji's attitude. Large sections of India Moslems were doubtful about Mr. Jinnah and his policy, but, when they found that Gandhiji was continually running after him and entreating him, many of them developed a new respect for Mr. Jinnah. They also thought that he was perhaps the best man for getting advantageous terms in the communal settlement.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 105

The quadrangle was quite bare when we came. Jawaharlal proposed that we should prepare a flower garden as this would keep us occupied and also beautify the place. We welcomed the idea and asked the superintendent to write to Poona for seeds. We then prepared the ground for flower beds. Jawaharlal took the leading role in this. We planted some thirty or forty kinds of seeds, watered them every day and cleaned the beds. As the plants began to sprout, we watched their growth with fascinated interest. When the flowers started to bloom, the compound became a place of beauty and joy.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 89

Apart from Jawaharlal, who often agreed with me, the other members were generally content to follow Gandhiji's lead. Sardar Patel, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and Acharya Kirpilani had no clear idea about the war. They rarely tried to judge things on their own, and in any case they were accustomed to subordinate their judgment to Gandhiji. As such, discussion with them was almost useless. After all our discussions, the only thing they could day was that we must have faith in Gandhiji. They held that if we trusted him he would find some way out. They cited the example of the Salt Satyagraha Movement in 1930.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 85

The Government had also decided that, in case of a Japanese attack, something like the scorched earth policy must be followed. They had also prepared measures for the blowing up of important bridges and the destruction of factories and industrial installations in order to deny them to the Japanese. Plans for the destruction of the Iron and Steel Factory at Jamshedpur [which was owned by the Tata Company] had somehow become known and there was great anxiety and unrest in the whole area.

ابن الوقت - صفحہ نمبر144

کوئ ساڑھے پانچ بجتے بجتے کچہری سے سوار ہوا تو سیدھا میرٹھ کی سڑک کو ہو لیا۔ آفتاب تھا پس پشت اور ٹھنڈی ٹھنڈی پورا ہوا سامنے سے آرہی تھی۔ شاہ درے سے بھی کوئ کوس ڈیڑھ کوس آگے نکل گیا تھا کہ آفتاب نیچے لٹک آیا۔ چاندنی رات کے خیال سے دل تو ابھی لوٹنے کو نہیں چاہتا تھا مگر جمنا پر کشتیوں کا پل تھا؛ یہ تصوّر ہوا ایسا نہ ہو تاریکی میں گھوڑے کا پاوں کہیں کسی گھڑے میں جا رہے۔

India Wins Freedom - pg. 79

Jawaharlal's nature is such that, when there is some tension in his mind, he talks even in his sleep. The day's preoccupations come to him as dreams. When I came out, Shrimati Rameshwari Nehru told me that for the last two nights Jawaharlal had been talking in his sleep. He was carrying on a debate and was sometimes muttering and sometimes speaking loudly. She had heard Cripps's name, sometimes references to Gandhiji and sometimes my name. This was added proof of how great was the strain under which his mind was working.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 77

I may also mention that Jawaharlal has always been more moved by international considerations than most Indians. He has looked at all questions from an international rather than a national point of view. I also shared his concern for the international issues, but to me the question of India's independence was paramount. I preferred the democracies to the fascist powers but I could not forget that, unless the democratic principle was applied to India's case, all professions of democracy sounded hollow and insincere. I also remembered the course of events since the First World War. Britain had then declared that she was fighting German imperialism to protect the rights of the smaller nations. When the United States entered the War, President Wilson formulated his Fourteen Points and pleaded for the self-determination of all nations. Nevertheless the rights of India were not respected. Nor were the Fourteen Points ever applied to India's case. I, therefore, felt that all talk about the democratic camp was meaningless unless India's case was seriously considered. I made all these points in an interview I gave to the News Chronicle about a week later in Calcutta.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 74

"... It is manifest that the present Government of India as well as its provincial agencies, are lacking in competence, and are incapable of shouldering the burden of India's defence. It is only the people of India, through their popular representatives, who may shoulder this burden worthily. But that can only be done by present freedom, and full responsibility upon them.
The Committee, therefore, are unable to accept the proposals put forward on behalf of the British War Cabinet."

-- response to Cripps in a Congress Working Committee Resolution

India Wins Freedom - pg. 55

From India, Sir Stafford Cripps went as a nonofficial visitor to Russia. Soon after, he was appointed the British Ambassador to Russia. Soon after, he was appointed the British Ambassador to Russia. It is sometimes held that he was responsible for bringing Soviet Russia nearer to the Allies. When finally Germany attacked Russia, a great deal of the credit for this break between Hitler and Stalin went to him. This gave him a great reputation and increased his standing in British public life. I have my doubts if he really had any effective influence on Soviet policy, but, in any case, his reputation soared high. When he returned to the U.K., many people even expected that he might replace Mr. Churchill as the head of the Government.

ابن الوقت - صفحہ نمبر123

ایک بڑا خطرہ یہ ہے کہ جو شخص دین کی باتوں میں عقل کو بہت دخل دیا کرتا ہے، شروع کرتا ہے جزئیات سے، فروغ سے، متشابہات سے اور آخر کو جا پہنچتا ہے کلیات میں، اصول میں، محکمات میں جیسا کہ ابن الوقت کو پیش آیا۔