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Patras Bokhari could have excelled as a writer, had
he chosen not to do a variety of things and achieving the best in all of
them
By Sarwat Ali,
The News International , 12th December 2004
 Ahmed Shah Patras Bokhari was one of the towering figures that
Government College Lahore has produced. He was considered to a legendary
teacher of English, a great actor on stage and the founder of
broadcasting in the subcontinent. At the same time, he was merited as
being one of the best humour writers in Urdu and a diplomat who was
highly regarded by the international diplomatic community due to his
work at the United Nations.
Patras must have cut a very impressive figure, so impressive that people
expected so much of him. In Patras' days it was not very easy for a
Muslim to achieve the position of heading an organization as important
as the radio. Patras had so much talent that his colleagues and junior
contemporaries wanted him to be a super achiever in all the fields that
he was known to be involved in. Any lesser performance was taken as
falling short of those high expectations.
The same theme was played with variation by various people who came in
contact with Patras during the course of his very successful life. The
most damning criticism however comes from Lionel Fielden, the man who
established the radio in the subcontinent and was responsible for the
career shift of Patras Bokhari from teaching to broadcasting. Fielden
initially liked the man and appreciated his qualities but then there
seemed to be a falling out between the two. He criticised Patras for not
being focused enough. He was in search of his vocation and was confused
between what he wanted to do and where his ambition took him. "...he was
much more the don than the impresario, and broadcasting needs the
impresario, which his brother was. I did not really want Ahmed Shah to
succeed me when my contract finished because I thought, despite his
brilliance he was the wrong man for the radio".
But before Fielden it was Iqbal who had been critical of Patras. Before
going to Cambridge, Patras went to Iqbal and requested him for
recommendatory letters to facilitate his stay in England. Iqbal
obviously obliged him and wrote to the people he knew. These person
helped Patras but when he came back and went to pay his respects, Iqbal
found him to be too demonstratively pedant and overwhelmed by what he
had seen and studied during his stay in Europe. Iqbal is said to have
written his poem Aik Falsafazada Syedzaday Kay Naam on his
disillusionment after meeting the Europe-returned Patras Bokhari.
Agha Abdul Hameed, a devoted student of Patras, who was an Indian Civil
Servant and later also worked with him in the All India Radio, was
critical of Bokhari for not having devoted his energies to literature.
Bokhari had a great flair for the language and his knowledge was
phenomenal yet he was not able to write much except Patras kay Mazameen.
Hameed lays the blame on the 'tabeeyat' of Patras which was more prone
to 'majlis'. "He was a 'majlasi aadmi' and loved to be with people.
Perhaps the lonesome existence of a scholar was not in keeping with his
temperament".
But this must have caused him dearly because he left very little for the
posterity to judge him by. We have only Patras Kay Mazameen and nothing
more. Perhaps he had the ability to contribute much more to literature
than he eventually did during his very successful career in various
fields.
Noon Meem Rashed, first a student and then a colleague of Patras at the
radio, is considered one of the pioneers of azad nazm in Urdu. He summed
up Bokhari's life in the following words: "...a great man who missed the
bus. The buses passed by one after the other, while he kept looking
under his feet. For example writing was his forte and among his
countrymen he will always be remembered and respected as a writer,
rather than as an administrator or diplomat, but he did very little to
apply himself seriously to writing and once he sold his soul to the
demons of administration and diplomacy, so to say, he found it even
harder to satisfy his urge to write".
Anwar Dil, who has written the book which contains all the remarks
quoted above, also tends to agree with the assumption that Patras wasted
his life in 'halla gulla' and did not sit down to the task of writing
and criticism or even theatre for which he also had a natural flair. The
same accusation was hurled at M D Taseer but Taseer was not blamed as
much as Patras because he did not have the latter's talent.
Patras did make his contribution. He was the rallying figure round whom
so many intellectuals and writers of his time revolved. He was the
inspiration for Salik, Taseer, Chiragh Hasan Hasrat, Ghulam Mustafa
Tabassum, Noon Meem Rashed, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and many others. He provided
them the environment where they could be provoked to think creatively by
challenging the given stereotypes.
At the radio he performed a similar function where his person was the
main attraction that drew people from all walks of life. His magnetism
must have helped in establishing radio as an institution. "I was
indebted to him for providing me in my early college days, the much
needed encouragement and critical appreciation of my work when I was
experimenting with free verse. Without his encouragement and
appreciation I doubt if I could have brought as much original thinking
to bear on my poetry and literary criticism, as I was able to in the
following thirty years or so. He was no crusader for or against ideas
and beliefs but always stressed upon thought content for poetry. He
however insisted that good writing could not come out of a mind fettered
in the usual conventional bonds -- religion, moral and political," Wrote
Rashed.
Patras was often accused of being too favourably disposed to the
students of Government College, Lahore, recruiting them in the
organization over and above the rest. This may have been justified on
the ground that he was an inspiring figure and students from his alma
mater must have come seeking him for inspiration and guidance. Probably
they were motivated to work with him in the organisation that he was
heading.
His stay as principal of the college for about four years is seen by
many as a very vibrant time. It must have been a challenge too because
the college had lost a large number of teachers due to partition and
subsequent migration of population. He enabled the college to regain its
former glory and that must have taken a fair bit out of him. The
conjoining of creativity and administration may have appeared a happy
marriage on the surface but it must have taken its toll and he must have
preferred one over the other on the basis which one of them demanded his
immediate attention. |
