Mushtaq Ahmad Yousafi, the living legend of Pakistan: Part 1

Mushtaq Ahmad Yousafi, the living legend of Pakistan: Part 1

History bears the names of countless greats but very few of them are acknowledged during their lives especially in subcontinent. Normally people are remembered after their eternal departures and they often complaint about their under estimation and indifference
of the age fellows, when alive. Take the examples of Ghalib, Aatish, Dagh Dehlavi, Mir Taqi Mir and many others are quite obvious in this regard. They had devoted their lives for the literature but very few acknowledged their works. Ghalib, who is an institution
rather than merely a poet, had often expressed his disappointment for the unserious behaviour of readers in general and of power holders in particular.

However, Mushtaq Ahmad Yousafi is one of those lucky literary figures, that have been appreciated, applauded and credited their efforts before they breathed their last. Yousafi, the undisputed champion of Urdu satirical and humour writing, was born in a
learned family of Tonk, Rajasthan on August 4, 1923. His father Abdul Karim Khan Yousufi was chairman of the Jaipure  Municipality, and later Speaker of the Jaipur Legislative Assembly. Yousufi completed his early education in Rajputana and earned B.A. from
Agra University while M.A. Philosophy and LL.B from Aligarh University. After partition of India his family migrated to Karachi, Pakistan.

He has served on various key posts in the banking sector but made his name in a totally separate field of highlighting diverse human complexities in a satirical way and earned world wide fame. He has written four unmatchable books of humour in the history
of Urdu, including Chiragh Talay, Khakum ba Dahan, Zarguzasht and Aab-e-gum.

The most luminous aspect of his scripts is that of describing himself at the difficult situation rather than taking the support of third person on critical times. For instance he writes in one of his books, “.No sooner had I received the salary, I bought
grocery and other items for the household so that the dog I had brought home could guard these items. For my parents I pointed out the advantage of having a dog by stating that after all it was an Englishman’s dog… even an illiterate person in our country
gives an English name to his dog and always calls him or reprimands him in English, therefore, it was obvious that because of this dog our children would learn English”

To be continued……

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Posted by Shahid Nazir on Nov 17 2011. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry