The Death of Shaikh Burhanuddin Expounded
What I had previously posted was a story written by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas in Urdu I believe and was then translated into English by the popular Indian writer, Khushwant Singh. I changed some portions of the text to coorect what I feel were a few grammatical and stylistic errors but the text that I presented is largely Mr. Singh's own and due credit goes to him.
Set during the partition of the Indian Subcontient; this story takes places Delhi and depicts the common sentiments at the time of the partition of both the Muslims and Hindus & Sikhs. It is a well known fact that two provinces suffered greatly due to the partition, the Punjab and Bengal. Parts were given to Pakistan and the rest stayed in the new nation of India of course as history took its course the East Pakistan province of Bengal seceded to form their own independent nation; Bangladesh. If one looks closely then one can see that the Brits did a great disservice to these people by splitting the same people, linguistically and culturally speaking, on either side of what was to be a hostile border. No other provinces suffered such an excruciating punishment at the hands of the imperialists.
Back to the story though; what we have here is a very down to earth record of what could have been (after all it is a fictional expose) but nonetheless serves to show us many things all at once, hence its power as a short story. It shows how an Urdu-speaking (please people let's not get ahead of ourselves here, I am using the epithet merely to show the common prejudices at that time which sadly linger on to this day as well) clerk by the name of Shaikh Burhanuddin despises the Hindus and Sikhs and you can be assured that there were many Hindus and Sikhs who despised the Muslims as well so this was quite a common phenomenon at that time where people feared and hated each other based on nothing more than conjecture. It is interesting to note that Shaikh Burhanuddin hates the English too but found his ways to be more civil; now that is a completely subjective observation on his part because he finds them to be civil because that is how he was brought up. Had he been brought up in Sikh or Hindu ways of civility then he would have found the English way strange! It is true too because by and large the present day Pakistani community shows traces of Hindu culture in many of their ceremonies such as marriage and when they see an English wedding they are shocked at how someone can carry out a wedding in a few hours and not over three days!
Burhanuddin also dislikes Muslim Punjabis in general because he cannot fathom their culture and language as well, though not as much as the Hindus and Sikhs. We can see how one's training and brainwashing can lead one to make stupid mistakes in their lives as Burhanuddin starts giving ridiculous explanations to many of the happenings at that time. He states how the Sikhs would have murdered their own kind to vilify the Muslims whereas such a thought is pretty stupid and he also shows that the Muslims were some kind of brave warriors who wooed and wowed the maidens of the enemies to live with them. Laughable at best but the fact is that such beliefs have been present in many human communities for a very long time just so that the world of lies that one lives in keep standing on its weak structures and foundations! His world of lies lies in tatters and ruins as the good Sardarji gives his life in order to protect this one man. Burhanuddin is shocked and dumfounded at this moment and questions the Sikh why he did that. The good Sikh replies that he had a debt to pay and that a man named Ghulam Rasul, who was a mutual acquaintance, did the same.
Now it is very interesting to note that the writer did not give an account of how Ghulam Rasul saved the life, who like the writer happens to be a Muslim. So why was the writer giving an account of the other side? My feeling is that he felt it was his duty to show to the world that not everyone is like the stereotypes they project and that there will always be someone who goes against the grain of his society to stand up for what is right. The story was titled as "The Death of Shaikh Burhanuddin" by Singh, whereas its real title is "Sardarji" when written by Abbas, but I think it should be renamed to "The Birth of Shaikh Burhanuddin" because like the birth of a child, Burhanuddin's inception into the cruel and cold world was very violent indeed and like a slap on his face (as a doctor does to wake up the baby from its sleep) he too woke up and saw his hate was baseless.
Very powerful what words can do.
Set during the partition of the Indian Subcontient; this story takes places Delhi and depicts the common sentiments at the time of the partition of both the Muslims and Hindus & Sikhs. It is a well known fact that two provinces suffered greatly due to the partition, the Punjab and Bengal. Parts were given to Pakistan and the rest stayed in the new nation of India of course as history took its course the East Pakistan province of Bengal seceded to form their own independent nation; Bangladesh. If one looks closely then one can see that the Brits did a great disservice to these people by splitting the same people, linguistically and culturally speaking, on either side of what was to be a hostile border. No other provinces suffered such an excruciating punishment at the hands of the imperialists.
Back to the story though; what we have here is a very down to earth record of what could have been (after all it is a fictional expose) but nonetheless serves to show us many things all at once, hence its power as a short story. It shows how an Urdu-speaking (please people let's not get ahead of ourselves here, I am using the epithet merely to show the common prejudices at that time which sadly linger on to this day as well) clerk by the name of Shaikh Burhanuddin despises the Hindus and Sikhs and you can be assured that there were many Hindus and Sikhs who despised the Muslims as well so this was quite a common phenomenon at that time where people feared and hated each other based on nothing more than conjecture. It is interesting to note that Shaikh Burhanuddin hates the English too but found his ways to be more civil; now that is a completely subjective observation on his part because he finds them to be civil because that is how he was brought up. Had he been brought up in Sikh or Hindu ways of civility then he would have found the English way strange! It is true too because by and large the present day Pakistani community shows traces of Hindu culture in many of their ceremonies such as marriage and when they see an English wedding they are shocked at how someone can carry out a wedding in a few hours and not over three days!
Burhanuddin also dislikes Muslim Punjabis in general because he cannot fathom their culture and language as well, though not as much as the Hindus and Sikhs. We can see how one's training and brainwashing can lead one to make stupid mistakes in their lives as Burhanuddin starts giving ridiculous explanations to many of the happenings at that time. He states how the Sikhs would have murdered their own kind to vilify the Muslims whereas such a thought is pretty stupid and he also shows that the Muslims were some kind of brave warriors who wooed and wowed the maidens of the enemies to live with them. Laughable at best but the fact is that such beliefs have been present in many human communities for a very long time just so that the world of lies that one lives in keep standing on its weak structures and foundations! His world of lies lies in tatters and ruins as the good Sardarji gives his life in order to protect this one man. Burhanuddin is shocked and dumfounded at this moment and questions the Sikh why he did that. The good Sikh replies that he had a debt to pay and that a man named Ghulam Rasul, who was a mutual acquaintance, did the same.
Now it is very interesting to note that the writer did not give an account of how Ghulam Rasul saved the life, who like the writer happens to be a Muslim. So why was the writer giving an account of the other side? My feeling is that he felt it was his duty to show to the world that not everyone is like the stereotypes they project and that there will always be someone who goes against the grain of his society to stand up for what is right. The story was titled as "The Death of Shaikh Burhanuddin" by Singh, whereas its real title is "Sardarji" when written by Abbas, but I think it should be renamed to "The Birth of Shaikh Burhanuddin" because like the birth of a child, Burhanuddin's inception into the cruel and cold world was very violent indeed and like a slap on his face (as a doctor does to wake up the baby from its sleep) he too woke up and saw his hate was baseless.
Very powerful what words can do.
posted by rehanmalick | 1:48 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home