Ibn - e - Insha: Take on his contribution to Urdu Literature

Sadd rang meri mauj hay, main tab’ey rawaa’n hoon

This verse Of Allama Iqbal always comes in my mind whenever the name of Ibn-e-Insha is mentioned. A poet, columnist, humorist, and travelogue writer loved for past five decades by Urdu language readers around the globe.

I still remember the first time I got introduced to Ibn Insha’s witty writings. Twelve or thirteen years back while going through my sister’s Urdu text book, I came across a passage taken from a strangely named book “Urdu Ki Aakhri Kitab”- (last book in Urdu Language). The name of book was catchy enough for me; I read the whole lesson and longed to read the book. From then on, there was no stopping to the admiration nurtured within me for this unique writer. Being a writer from Pakistan and all his books were published there and its hard to find a copy in India. He is a great influence in my attempts to present satire through simplicity. Few of his acclaimed works are Awara Gard ki Diary, Duniya Gol Hay, Ibn e Batuta kay Taa’qub May, Chaltay ho to Cheen ko Chaliyay and Nagri Nagri Phira Musafir.

He wrote for masses to make them understand to bestow them with a unique class.

Interestingly, I find his prose and poetry starkly opposite to each other. The poet of famous ghazals as “Insha Ji utho Abb kooch karo” and “Kal chaudhween ki raat thi, shab bhar raha charcha tera” kept the gloom and dark side of life in his poetry ... filled with unexpected turns of life, flavors of love added in: A roller-coaster ride of emotions. A poet of unique placement in Urdu Literature but when you open the prose, you will find yourself in an altogether different world. He touched common topics from our lives, left us to laugh for few minutes and ponder for hours.

In Nagri Nagri Phira Musafir, Ibn-e-Insha’s last of the books, his letter to the readers is also included. Khalid Hasan, one of his friends and renowned Urdu columnist, shares it like this: “The other day, we had barely had that tube they have stuck in our nostrils taken out, when in walked Faiz sahib who is in London. If there was to be some certainty that Faiz sahib will come to look you up, that is reason enough to undergo an operation … There is nothing to surgery these days. Even if you don’t need it, doctors perform it out of a sense of fun. There was this gentleman with a cough who went to pick up a linctus. The doctor operated his calf instead. And while it is true that the pain in his calf became a permanent feature thereafter, the cough disappeared completely … There is an array of buttons at the bottom of our bed about whose precise use we remain in the dark. Whenever we have attempted to push one of them, the result has invariably been contrary to what we intended. Often, by mistake when we press something, a machine comes to life. Result? The head gets lowered while our feet point skywards. This is a veritable devil’s workshop. In our hospitals at home, all they have is a simple winding mechanism. Even more surefire is the method whereby a couple of bricks are placed under the feet of the end that needs to be raised. In the event that no bricks are at hand, books can do nicely. Under one foot of the bed you have ‘Behishti Zaiwar’ and under the other ‘Alipur ka Aili’. Obviously books have their uses.”

It’s utter hard for anyone to do justice with his poetry and prose in one post. His humor with a unique flavor of satire, undoubtedly, moves your heart in a strange way. Richness of his thoughts and sheer simplicity to reflect them makes Insha what he was and what he became. Following is a snippet taken from one of his passage, I thank my senior and friend Daver Ali Bhai for sharing it with me.