Typical Shafiq ur Rehman,some beautiful lines,here and there. Short stories about love,which is not always attainable.Occasionally funny,but not particularly memorable.
In Shaitan, Shafiq ur Rehman has created a quite uncomparably funny character who has dwarfed his all other fiction. Through him and other characters like Maqsood Ghora, Shafiq ur Rehman takes his readers into the idyllic romances of hill stations in India and sometimes Europe. One of the best forms of light escapism from hard realities of life available to Urdu readers.
This is the third Shafiq ur Rehman's book that I read. I started reading him after coming across his short story "Neeli Jheel" - which is part of Hamaqatien - in a textbook. This book had a different taste than both Hamaqatien and Mazeed Hamaqtien, but nonetheless, I found it a delight to read it like any other book by him. The characters are as innocent, adorable, and funny as ever and the stories as bittersweet. I really liked that he didn't forget to include his usual characters, like Shaitan, in some of his stories in this book too.
شفیق الرحمان کے افسانے اکثر دلچسپ ہوتے ہیں کیونکہ ان کو کرداروں اور روز مرہ کے حالات کی تصویر کھینچنے پر مہارت حاصل ہے۔ البتہ مجھے ان کے رومانوی قصے کچھ خاص پسند نہیں آئے کیونکہ ان میں صاف ظاہر تھا کہ مصنف کو عورتوں کے احساسات کے بارے میں بہت خوش فہمیاں ہیں۔ حالانکہ ان کے مضاحیہ مضامین بہترین تھے۔
These series of short stories are vaguely connected and narrate mundane dalliances and routines of upper-middleclass to elite Pakistanis. They remind me of Jane Austen, but without the narrative irony. There is little else to Austen so these stories disappoint. There is commentary on love, human nature, and all stories tug against the "samaj"- social values and other people as enemies of love. But there is little engagement with classism and gender- so these stories are idyllic, detached and escapist even in their light yearning. Detached and escapist is fine and at times beautiful in these stories, but there is little meat, little to root for.