Bhisham Sahni won laurels as a novelist notably with Tamas and Mayyadas Ki Marhi; he made hismark as a playwright particularly with Hanoosh and Kabira Khada Bajaar Mein; he stood out as anactor even in his few brief appearances in films like Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho and Mr & Mrs Iyer;but he was at his best in his numerous ‘masterly brevities’, if I may use these two felicitous words ofHenry James for the short story. He orchestrated what Frank O’Connor termed "the lonely voice" andproduced an astonishing number of unforgettable and often haunting stories about ordinary people enduringextraordinary hardships and humiliations. He portrayed the dignity of their endurance without, however,romanticising their plight or glossing over it or offering any simplistic panaceas.
His commitment to Marxism and socialism never degenerated into lachrymose humanity or a loud purposiveness.His irony and humour saved him from sentimentality on the one hand and messianic overposturing on the other.He did not allow his ideology to blind him to the intricacies of the human condition. As a writer, he can beclassified among those who draw their inspiration primarily not from their own interior mindscapes but fromexternal reality. For an effective rendering of this reality, a mastery of the observed details of humanbehaviour and the material world is indispensable. But without the quickening touch of a richly creativeimagination, the mass of observed details can result in a heap of dead information. Bhisham Sahni had thatrich creative imagination in abundance. He also had a tragi-comic vision which gives his ostensiblyconventional ambience a modernistic aura.
Bhisham Sahni’s last published book, an autobiography with the quiet title Aaj Ke Ateet (The Pastsof the Present), is a beautiful culmination of a lifetime of excellent writing. Apart from giving us anintimate account of some of the salient phases of his life, it epitomises his literary qualities. It is fullof fun and insights; it is variegated; it is fair; it is unsmug; it is absorbing; it is also his farewell tohis family, his milieu, his readers, and his friends.
He begins at the beginning and ends very near the end. The book glows with the sense of ending without,however, any trace of morbidity or self-pity. The early part, where Bhisham tenderly evokes his earliestmemories and records his childhood in an affectionate middle-class family in Rawalpindi, is for me the mostmoving part of this self-portrait. With characteristic elegance and an unfailing eye for the significantdetail, the elderly author looks back with nostalgic longing at the world of his childhood and achieves asmall but brilliant portrait of the artist as a little child. As we read further, we see the development of avery engaging ambiguity, if not ambivalence, between Bhisham and his elder brother Balraj, the future greatactor. Even though it covers only a few pages of the book, this important relationship is etched on ourconsciousness. Balraj was perhaps the most overwhelming presence in Bhisham’s life. It reminded me ofanother pair of illustrious brothers, Henry James and William James, and of the autobiography Henry Jameswrote, Notes of a Son and Brother.
Though extremely interesting, this exquisite book has an unevenness of proportion, though not of quality,among the various sections. The sections devoted to Lahore and Moscow could have been more detailed. HadBhisham more time, I am sure he would have delved deeper into his experience as a young man in GovernmentCollege, Lahore, and as a translator in Soviet Russia. Towards the end of the book he offers us a bouquet ofhis favourite lines from various sources—the mellifluous Gayatri mantra, a few lines from the Bhagvad Gita,a few lines from Surdas and Kabir, and two verses from the great Urdu poet Iqbal. With these he builds asecular altar to his faith in life and humanity. It is a gesture of piety performed with consummate grace andhumility typical of my dear departed friend.
