Recollecting novels and stories written in the backdrop of Partition till as late as 2018, journalist-writer Shazi Zaman and Urdu author Khalid Jawed on Sunday sent across the point that the memories of the "unfortunate event" will live on for years through literature.
Speaking at a session during the seventh edition of Jashn-e-Rekhta here, they cited writer Yashpal's "Jhutha Sach" (1960), Bhishm Sahni's "Tamas" (1973), Kamleshwar's "Kitne Pakistan" (2000), and Geetanjali Shree's "Ret Samadhi" (2018) -- books on the subject of Partition -- to say that a "terrible moment in history lives on in one way or another".
Jawed gave the example of Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies" and Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children".
"That terrible moment may find an end in our lives but it survives through fiction. It deposits itself as a drop of blood and doesn't let go. If you look at Manto's stories, even if they weren't written in the context of the Partition, they would still be relevant through the existential dimensions they depict," the 2022 JCB Prize winner said.
He added that in Manto's stories like "Khol Do" and "Thanda Gosht" the Partition is just a context.
"After becoming part of a story, history becomes dynamic and we can feel it living and breathing," he said.
However, Jawed added that only those stories survive the test of time that go beyond imbibing the theme of that history.
"If you are putting history into fiction through the act of documentation then it may have some immediate value. But in a different time and space only those stories and fiction survive that go beyond that theme despite having absorbed it," the author of "The Paradise of Food" said.
Zaman added that Partition is a "living calamity".
"Yashpal's 'Jhutha Sach' was the first big novel written on Partition after it had happened. 15 years later Shaani's 'Kala Jal', then Rahi Masoom Raza's 'Adha Gaon' and 50 years later Kamleshwar's 'Kitne Pakistan'. At that point I thought this series had ended.
"But it is not something that happened and ended. It was a calamity that happened and continued happening. 70 years after Partition, Geetanjali Shree wrote 'Ret Samadhi' and she hasn't even seen Partition," Zaman said.
He added that Kamleshwar in "Kitne Pakistan" has said Partition is a "symbol" that is far bigger than the change in a map.
"Those who witnessed it and those who didn't like Geetanjali Shree Partition and what happened after remains a wound. That symbol and that tragedy has survived and grown. It had never disappeared from the conscience.
"Our generation didn't see Pakistan, but we saw what has happened. Those who didn't witness it are still writing about it. And I believe even a 100 years later people will still be writing about Partition," the author of "Akbar" concluded.
