In the realm of Urdu humour, the name of Ahmed Shah Bokhari Patras (1898-1958), commonly known as Patras Bokhari, holds the same stature and prestige as the names of Ghalib and Iqbal in the realm of Urdu poetry.
However, despite Patras’s huge fame, literary gatherings are not often organised in Karachi to commemorate him. One does not find sessions on him at various literature festivals that have been held in the city over the years.
Perhaps organisers of literature festivals and arts bodies do not deem it necessary because Patras is still famous, and his only humour book, ‘Patras Kay Mazameen’, continues to be sold and kept in home libraries.
Against this backdrop, it was a delight to see the Arts Council of Pakistan’s announcement of holding an event in memory of Patras on Friday.
It was revealed at the event that the show was instigated by Patras’s grandson Ayaz Bokhari, son of Patras’s younger son Haroon Bokhari, and also the chief speaker.
Ayaz explained the extraordinary literary, academic and diplomatic achievements of Patras, along with veteran music composer and actor Arshad Mahmud, who informed the attendees that he had come to know a great deal about Patras through his mentors like Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Sufi Tabassum as well as Patras’s elder son Mansoor Bokhari, who became like a father figure to him when he worked for the recording company EMI.
It was a well-planned programme that must have made many in the audience realise how much more Patras should be commemorated because of his unparalleled mastery of Urdu humour, his efforts in maintaining the rich intellectual and literary environment in Lahore that helped create poets like Faiz and encouraged Imtiaz Ali Taj and Sufi Tabassum to pen some of their best works, his services for broadcasting and how he brought respect for Pakistan as a diplomat at the United Nations.
The event also touched upon the controversy surrounding the pen name ‘Patras’. Whereas Ayaz and Mahmud continued pronouncing it as ‘Patras’, a video clip of the legendary Zia Mohyeddin shown at the event had Mohyeddin calling him ‘Pitras’.
Ayaz maintained that Patras and his family pronounced the name as ‘Patras’, but some like Mohyeddin did not follow it and insisted that the name be pronounced as ‘Pitras’. Ayaz remarked that one cannot be cured if they choose to be stubborn.
He explained that ‘Patras’ is actually the Urdu or Persian version of the name ‘Peter’. He said Patras was inspired by his English teacher in Peshawar, Peter Watkins. When he first started to write in English, he adopted ‘Peter’ as his nom de plume. Later, when he started to write in Urdu, he adopted the Urdu version of the same pseudonym.
The audience was informed that ‘Patras Kay Mazameen’, the only humorous work of Patras in Urdu that has made him a seminal figure in the canon of Urdu prose, was published in 1929, when he was around 30 or 31 years old. He also wrote some poetry and critical pieces on writers and poets like Iqbal, Noon Meem Rashid and Ismat Chughtai.
Regarding Patras’s broadcasting services, Ayaz said he joined the All India Radio in 1937, a year after his younger brother ZA Bokhari. Patras realised the power of radio at that time as a means of influencing and shaping the lives of people, so he consciously started inducting literary personalities into radio. Due to Patras, poets and writers like Noon Meem Rashid, Miraji, Upendranath Ashk and Shaukat Thanvi worked for the radio.
After Partition, Patras was asked to join his alma mater, the Government College of Lahore, as the principal. There he became a focal point of literary and intellectual gatherings. In 1950 he left the college and went to New York as Pakistan’s first permanent representative to the UN.
The attendees were told how Patras earned respect and fame at the UN for his eloquent speeches brimming with humanitarian perspective. Some of his most famous speeches at the UN were made for supporting the independence of Tunisia.
After the independence, Tunisia recognised Patras’s efforts and named an avenue after him. During a debate on Tunisia at the UN, a world-famous British diplomat and orator called Patras the “diplomat’s diplomat”.
Ayaz also informed the audience about Patras’s role in the creation of Unicef. He said the organisation was initially formed to serve children of the ravaged Europe after World War II.
However, as Europe stabilised, it was proposed at the UN to abolish Unicef. At this point Patras spoke and highlighted the plight of children in other parts of the world, calling for continuing Unicef. Patras’s arguments won, and soon Unicef was made a permanent organ of the UN.
The speakers also highlighted how Patras continued artistic pursuits during his stay at the UN. He would invite Greta Garbo to his home and befriend Robert Frost.
In a letter to him, Frost included a couplet (“Nature within her inmost self divides / To trouble men with having to take sides”), and suggested that he inscribe it on a wall of his room or make it part of his epitaph. On a slide Ayaz showed the grave of Patras in New York with Frost’s couplet inscribed on the tombstone.
Ayaz said Patras fell ill in New York and died on December 5, 1958. Two days later, on December 7, the New York Times published an editorial to pay tribute to him with the title ‘Citizen of the World’.
This editorial and other information about Patras can be found on the website patrasbokhari.com. Ayaz said the idea of creating a website about his grandfather came to him when his daughter was given an assignment on Patras in school. He said he was able to actualise the idea, and the website was dedicated to the students of Urdu all over the world.
A sublime moment at the event came when Ayaz read out excerpts from a letter that Patras wrote to his son Haroon (Ayaz’s father) when the latter had gone to the UK for education.
Patras came out as a wise, compassionate and empathising father in the letter who understands the changing dynamics of human society but also realises that some limits set by tradition need to be upheld. This letter can also be read on the website, where it is titled ‘A letter from a father to a son’.
The event also featured a dramatic rendition of ‘Cinema Ka Ishq’, one of the 11 humorous essays in ‘Patras Kay Mazameen’. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the performance by Faraz Chhotani and Hamza Ranjha, who narrated an unpleasant cinema-going experience in a humorous way.
