Chronicler of a divided reality

Today’s Pasts is a significant addition to the genre of writerly autobiographies in India. In the iconic first Urdu novel, Umrao Jaan Ada, the eponymous protagonist wonders whether she should recount what happened to her as an individual (aapbiti), or events that were happening around her (jagbiti), and ultimately ends up doing both. In Today’s Pasts there is a fine balance of both, as a good autobiography should have. A certain sense of vanity is associated with the genre of autobiographies, because of the assumption that other people should be interested in knowing what has happened to the subject personally. But good autobiographies step beyond mere narcissism and provide important insights into the life and times of their subjects. The volume under discussion fulfils this criterion. As the blurb states appropriately, in Bhisham Sahni’s Today’s Past “one life bears witness to the tale of a nation”. It is also noticeable that though Bhisham Sahni is the protagonist, he is rarely at the centre of things. Most often he seems like a bystander watching and observing, rather than being the initiator or propeller of actions. In fact, his elder brother, Balraj Sahni, the famous actor, sometimes appears to be the hero and Bhisham seems happy to cast himself in a subservient position. Today’s Pasts recounts Sahni’s life in a linear fashion, from his birth and early life in Rawalpindi to his education in Lahore, return to Rawalpindi and taking over the family business, his involvement with the stage and working for the Congress Party. He vividly recounts his brief stint at a gurukul that didn’t seem very enlightening and both the brothers, he and Balraj, were withdrawn from there and put into an Arya Samaj school. “My character began to show signs of influence of the values of the Arya Samaj,” Bhisham Sahni recalls. It was the period when the new reformist movement, Arya Samaj, was gaining ground in Punjab and Sahni’s father was an office-bearer of the movement. Bhisham Sahni describes the rivalry between the Arya Samajis and Sanatan Dharmis through several interesting incidents. But the real enemies for the Arya Samajis were Muslims who were blamed for many ills in the Hindu society. Sahni candidly chronicles the gradual souring of relationship between Hindus and Muslims prior to India’s freedom, which would become the theme of several of his stories and novels in the years to come. One can get a glimpse of what these stories and novels particularly, dealt with from the following extract from Today’s Pasts:

I also remember that a young Sikh whom I met standing next to the well in Thoha Khalsa where around 40 Sikh women, including his wife and child, had drowned themselves to avoid falling into the clutches of the rioters The young Sikh was half-crazed with pain and distress. He repeatedly gestured towards the well and said to me, “Sir, that’s my wife carrying our child, Harnam, between her legs. Sir do you see that gold bangle on her wrist I had it made for her. Sir, can you get it out for me Sir ”

It goes to Sahni’s credit that despite growing up in this communally charged atmosphere he remained untouched by the vitiating effects of communalism in his personal relationships and his artistic preoccupations. His higher education in Lahore was fulfilling in the sense that it broadened his vision and let him explore himself as a hockey player. From the rather staid tenor of life in Rawalpindi, he was thrown into the vortex of great events following the Partition of the country. Sahni describes how he travelled from Rawalpindi to Delhi to witness India’s Independence and could not go back and how members of the family were reunited in Delhi. In this part, the bulk of the space is taken up with his activities in the Progressive Writers’ Association, Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), Afro-Asian Writers’ Association and his stay in Moscow for seven years as a translator of Russian literature. A dedicated Congress volunteer before India’s Independence, Sahni was gradually drawn towards the ideals of communism and IPTA, which remained primary vehicles for his creative talent. He describes this in his own words:

The general mood in any given period of time influences our cultural movement and our literary productions IPTA was a product of that tumultuous time. On one side was the blaze of the national independence struggle, and on the other side was the contradictory tension that could be felt within the society, a fierce determination to struggle against reactionary forces. It was a kind of awakening, and IPTA’s intensity was generated by such feelings.

He also actively participated in the Nayi Kahani (New Story) Movement in Hindi literature and offers readers interesting vignettes of that movement, bringing out the literary and cultural politics of the time. As an extension of his general commitment to humanism and Left-wing political ideas, he became the head of Afro-Asian Writers’ Association and travelled extensively around the world meeting fellow writers, intellectual and political leaders. His meeting with Yasser Arafat brings out the essential humanity of both. Snehal Shingavi’s English translation is lucid, readable and close to the original. His occasional footnotes and corrections (of facts and quotations) are helpful and speak of his scholarly interest. However, there is at least one serious glitch that the editor should have taken care of — there are two footnotes on Namvar Singh within a span of six pages, with different birth years. This is not all. While the first one suggests (rightly) that he is alive, the second one talks about him in the past tense (God forbid!) suggesting that he is no more with us!

The writer is a professor at the department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia