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Friday March 29, 2024

Good addition to stock of reality on Josh

‘Josh Malihabadi: Malihabad sey Islamabad Tak’ is a memoir written by Josh’s grandson, Farrukh Jamal, who has no claim to being a literary figure himself. Nonetheless, it’s a startling account of Josh’s love and pain, hurt and recovery phases in an intensely challenging but not so intellectually engaging manner.The narrative

By Ibne Ahmad
May 12, 2015
‘Josh Malihabadi: Malihabad sey Islamabad Tak’ is a memoir written by Josh’s grandson, Farrukh Jamal, who has no claim to being a literary figure himself. Nonetheless, it’s a startling account of Josh’s love and pain, hurt and recovery phases in an intensely challenging but not so intellectually engaging manner.
The narrative evolves as a collage of memory, not chronological but associative. A jagged succession of facts lie juxtaposed against heart-rending situations. Each memory jolt reveals a heart in tumult.
For years, Josh has been in and out of favourable treatment by the governments, friends and family members. At times it seemed he was going to die if things didn’t change. Zia proved unfavourable to him. Only Zulfiqar Bhutto brought comfort to his life. In a vivid voice, Farrukh Jamal recounts these events, finding meaning in the hurt, humour in the horror, and grace in the struggle. This book is a testament to the binding ties of love and feeling between the grandfather and the grandson.
The book is more than an attempt at filling the gaps in the biographical story of Josh jotted down so far. It shows how time put the family in and out of prosperity over a span of years and how they were forced to find strength from within when all the sources of support ended up.
There is also a sort of wonder and gnawing grief at what really happened to them. Yet underneath the tenderness and wonder, another level of meaning winds through the book. It’s a memorial to the greatness of Josh admired for achieving his dream of becoming a self-reliant literary figure even as his life started to crumble, and how he slowly built it against odds and forgave the indifferent attitude by his close friends in time of need. It’s also an admonitory epitaph on lives lived on false, ugly notions with their own aspirations as Aish Tonki, a friend of Josh, had.
It is not a powerful and terrific account of the outstanding literary status of Josh and its impact on contemporary literary environment as one could hope to read, but of the deliberate neglect into which Josh seemed to be sliding. The writer does not sensationalise this sad but wildly unjust approach, only seeks to understand it. He has more to tell us about the minds and lives of people he came across while living with Josh than anything else.
Farrukh’s book is absorbing and transporting, one of the best windows we have to the magical time of literary marvel like Josh. It is Farrukh’s position as an observer which helps make his book as rich as it is. Discerning, often probing, and remarkably free of rancor, the book is worth-reading as Farrukh depicts Josh as he understood him very well at close range. He has added a good deal to the stock of available reality on Josh.
To call the book a quote from Yadon Ki Baraat and other sources would underplay its craft and exactitude. The power of Farrukh’s narrative is in its volubility and the very vibrancy of his presence, unvarnished and vulnerable.
The haunting cadence of his voice pulls one through times one doesn’t want to see close up but must, to know more of Josh.
Farrukh writes feelingly of the sunny days and dark nights of Josh’s life. I found his final benediction on Josh at the end to be extremely touching.