Akhri Aadmi / آخری آدمی

by Intizar Husain

انتظار حسین کا شمار اُردو کے رجحان ساز افسانہ نگاروں میں ہوتا ہے۔ انہوں نے علامتی واساطیری افسانے کے سفر میں تہذیبی شعور سے روشنی حاصل کر کے اس صنف کو نئے امکانات سے روشناس کیا۔ انتظار حسین کے افسانوی مجموعوں ’’گلی کوچے‘‘، ’’کنکری‘‘، ’’آخری آدمی‘‘، ’’شہر افسوس‘‘، ’’کچھوے‘‘ اور ’’خالی پنجرہ‘‘ کو اُردو افسانوی ادب میں وقار اور اعتبار حاصل ہے اور پاکستانی افسانے کی شناخت متعین کرتے ہوئے انتظار حسین کو نظرانداز نہیں کیا جا سکتا۔ ’’آخری آدمی‘‘ انتظار حسین کے نمائندہ افسانوں میں شامل ہے۔ قصص القرآن میں مذکور ہے کہ بعض قوموں کی گمراہی اور نافرمانی کے باعث اللہ تعالیٰ نے انہیں نمونۂِ عبرت بنا دیا۔ سورۃ بقرہ اور سورۃ الاعراف میں بنی اسرائیل کی نافرمانی اور سرکشی اور اس کے نتیجے میں قہرِ الٰہی کا ذکر ملتا ہے۔ انتظار حسین نے مذکورہ واقعے کی روشنی میں افسانے کا تانا بانا تیار کرتے ہوئے اسے جدید دور کے مادیت پرست طبقے پر منطبق کر دیا ہے۔ زر کی ہوس نے جس طرح آدمی سے اس کی آدمیت چھین کر اسے اعلیٰ اخلاقی قدروں سے محروم کر دیا ہے اور جس طرح اس کی جون تبدیل کر دی ہے،اس کے تناظر میں مذکور، افسانہ کسی خاص عہد یا معاشرت تک محدود نہیں رہتابلکہ آفاقیت کا حامل ہو جاتا ہے۔ مذکورہ افسانے کا مزاج علامتی اور استعاراتی ہے۔ افسانے کا مرکزی خیال قصص القرآن سے ماخوذ ہے اور ’’آدمی کو بھی میسر نہیں انساں ہونا‘‘ کی تفسیر معلوم ہوتا ہے۔ ڈاکٹر سجاد باقر رضوی کے بقول: ’’آخری آدمی میں ہوس کاری اور نفس کی موت، انسانوں کو معاشرتی اور تہذیبی سطح سے بندروں کی حیوانی سطح میں اُتار دیتی ہے۔ لالچ اور مکر‘ داخلی طور پر روحانی زوال اور معاشرتی رشتوں کی شکست کی نشانی ہے‘‘۔

Genres: Short Stories

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Intizar Husain (1925–2016) was a journalist, short-story writer, and novelist, widely considered one of the most significant fiction writers in Urdu. Born in Dibai, Bulandshahr, in British-administered India, he migrated to Pakistan in 1947 and lived in Lahore. Besides Basti, he was the author of two other novels, Naya Gar (The New House), which paints a picture of Pakistan during the ten-year dictatorship of the Islamic fundamentalist General Zia-ul-Haq, and Agay Sumandar Hai (Beyond Is the Sea), which juxtaposes the spiraling urban violence of contemporary Karachi with a vision of the lost Islamic realm of al-Andalus. Collections of Husain’s celebrated short stories have appeared in English under the titles Leaves, The Seventh Door, A Chronicle of the Peacocks, and An Unwritten Epic.

Reviews

[Salman Khalid · Rating 3 out of 5]

صاحب کچھ ہے اس کتاب میں۔ ۔ ۔ کیا ہے یہ نہیں پتہ، پر کچھ ہے۔
آخری آدمی، زرد کتا اور کایا کلپ انتظار کے نمائندہ افسانے گنے جاتے ہیں۔ ان کی گیرائی اور گہرائی میں کوئی شک نہیں۔ مگر ان کو ایک طرف رکھ دیں تو باقی مجموعہ تجرید سے لایعنیت کی حد تک ٹھسا ہوا ہے اور اختتام افسانہ تک سمجھ نہیں آتی کہ لکھنے والا کیا کہنا چاہ رہا ہے۔ بات بے ربط رہتی ہے، کہیں سے کہیں نکلتی جاتی ہے اور کوئی سرا ہاتھ نہیں رہتا۔ اب اگر اسی سے انتظار صاحب بڑے لکھنے والے ٹھہرے ہیں تو کیا کہہ سکتے ہیں۔
شاید پھر کبھی دوبارہ پڑھوں اس کتاب کو اور شاید زیادہ حظ اٹھاؤں۔ ابھی تو سر کھجاتے ہی گزری ہے۔

[Osama Siddique · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 1967 volume of 11 stories by Intizar Hussain stands out due to its first two stories, which can be regarded as amongst his very best as well as most characteristic and distinctive.

First, the titular 'Aakhri Aadmi' which epitomizes one prominent dimension of his writing that is imbued with, emulates and advances the narrative style, diction & structure of scriptural stories, great myths and grand epics. Showing through the yes of its narrator Alyasif the harrowing degeneration and metamorphosis of his community into apes for violation of the Sabbath, it is a masterpiece of storytelling. The sense of horror and anguish, the yearning to be spared, the desire for all that is being distorted and irrevocably lost is amazingly palpable. The underlying lesson of not inviting the wrath of the Divine is there but subtle and the main focus is on regret, hopelessness, desperation and panic. The abiding resonance of the story is in its description of growing regret and horror, as one by one the grotesque transformation unfolds. I have gone back to this story several times for its atmosphere, diction and treatment - first introduced to it by my mother - and it has always shaken me.

The second remarkable story is 'Zard Kutta.' The essential idea here is how Nafs-al-Ammarah (the closest translation would probably be 'carnal self') - represented as a yellow dog - misleads one into giving into various worldly appetites, caprices and lusts, to the detriment of one's morals and the erosion of one's soul. Constituted of a series of powerful and connected parables, allegories, fables as well as anecdotes of the spiritually elevated, Intizar Hussain is again at the height of his powers in his use of diction and his employment of the form, style and content of traditional Islamic literature on this theme. The narrative is often surreal and the protagonist Shiekh Usman Kabootar engages in small miracles, such as flying, as a matter of routine to the tamarind tree in his yard. The physical embodiment of the carnal self and its various appearances, growth and diminishings are particularly impactful.

A sense of the supernatural and sinister permeates many of the other stories in this collection. 'Parchain' involves a doppelgänger about whose existence the narrator finds out from various people. It describes a rather unnerving and failed attempt to find and confront the doppelgänger - at the same time, it is a contemplation of the nature of reality and our perception of the same (with references also to Plato's Allegory of the Cave).

'Hadiyon Ka Dhanch' puts forth a Lazarus of its own and his experience upon rising from the dead. His hunger is insatiable so that even those who initially feed him willingly, start resenting his voracious appetite that starts contaminating any food denied to him, and threatens to bring about starvation for the rest. Thereon follow similarly inexplicable episodes and allegories from the past and the experiencing of the same kind of hunger by the narrator in a modern setting. Deeply symbolic, this and some of the following stories tend to tilt towards the obscure.

"Humsafar" is about a person who even knowing that he has taken a wrong bus and that finding a bus back home will not be possible, continues on his journey, listening to random conversations on faith, Partition and miracles. The situation of someone riding the wrong bus, as well as those who get off too early or too late, thus missing their destination, traveling with others for whom it takes them directly home depicts loneliness, alienation, path dependencies and lack of control over one's fate in life where we travel along with so many others. The journey is also like that of nation with people of disparate aspirations, including those not necessarily interested in heading in what is the mandated direction. The bus is headed to Model Town and thus it is a very Lahori story with tidbits about the jungle covering the area in colonial times before it was inhabited as well as Intizar Hussain's usual digressions into and explorations of nostalgia, parables, allegories and fables.

"Kaya Kalap" is a grippingly told fairlytale about a prince given refuge by a princess held captive by a Dev. Ostensibly to save him she turns him into a fly whenever the Dev visits so that he cannot sniff him out and destroy him. But gradually and quite menacingly the prince discovers that he finds it harder and harder to metamorphosize back into his human form (it is also unclear whether he wants to anymore) - a symbolic story open to multiple interpretations but in the style of traditional fairytales.

"Tangain" involves a dialogue between the narrator and a loquacious tonga wallah, full of anecdotes about miracles, supernatural encounters, Partition violence, social issues, international politics, famous singer, references to Data Durbar, changing times and falling moral standards, popular superstitions and urban legends (Pichal Pairi and goats with elongating legs), and, an unknown and unknowable figure who briefly shares the ride but also underlines the unknowability of all humans. The story gets more and more abstract and cross references other stories as it progresses. Perception of reality, its nature and the at times unreality of reality are themes throughout, causing the narrator eventually to question his own reality.

"Second Round" contemplates the theme of war as various characters both remember events and miracles from 65 war and speculate about the imminence of another conflict.

"Sooyan" is another dark fairytale employing the trope of the main character allowed license to do/visit anything/anywhere but prohibited one thing/place and the consequences of doing or visiting the forbidden. In this case, it is again a princess kept captive by a Dev and the place is the seventh room, the first six leading to fantastical gardens of great beauty. A prince, riddled with needles, whom she finds in the seventh room turns out to be a character from another story where he is the captive of a Dev and violates his orders to not hunt in one particular direction. The story within a story is nicely woven - we don't quite know who is in whom's story and also who is rescuing whom. There is also the fateful choice that she faces to fully revive the prince or not. The role of doubt in our lives and the consequences of irresoluteness.

"Shahadat" starts with a scriptural tone and makes reference to the three denials of Jesus by Peter. The underlying idea is the nature of religious identity, prejudice, and the extent to which one ought to take risks and face danger to preserve that identity - these thoughts torture the narrator anxiously journeying in a bus during which he fears retaliation due to his identity. "Soot kay Taar" is perhaps the most abstract story in the collection and combines elements from "Sooyan" (the needle riddled prince regains consciousness) and "Second Round" with its uncertainty and speculations about war.

Aakhri Aadmi is to my mind the most powerful and memorable of Intizar Hussain's short story collections. Ranging in style from the scriptural and mythological to fairy tale and fable and finally the abstract, modernist and post-modernist. Examination of inner states of consciousness, exploration of the idea of identity, fragmentary narrative and character construction, chaotic nature of life, existentialism, modernity and loneliness, the unknowability of reality and self etc., all figure prominently here. But then so does a moral code, the existence of Divinity, the possibility of miracles, and the need for humankind to remain within prescribed bounds, as well as an ascetic and self-abnegating ethos to stay away from worldly caprices and desires. This is a rich, diverse and complex work that needs to be examined from multiple perspectives, especially given its often abstract, symbolic and ambiguous nature.

[Zain Ul Hassan · Rating 4 out of 5]

کہتے ہیں کہ ادب صرف موجودہ نسل کے لیے ہوتا ہے لیکن اگر کسی تخلیق کار کی کوئی تصنیف آنے والی نسل اتنی ہی اپنائیت سے محسوس کرے تو تخلیق کار امر ہو جاتا ہے اور اس کی تخلیق عالم گیریت کا درجہ حاصل کر لیتی ہے۔ انتظار حسین کا یہ افسانہ بھی کچھ ایسی ہی نوعیت کا ہے جس سے آنے والے کسی بھی زمانے کا شخص بھاگ نہیں سکتا ہے کہ یہ انسان کی کہانی ہے۔

[Ubaid Talpur · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a short but meaningful one,he describes the people 's behavior in different times what they look like when they are Happy, angry, astonished, sad etc, author wants people should not be changed because of feelings

[sohail bhatti · Rating 3 out of 5]

میں پہلے بھی کہہ چکا ہوں کہ افسانے ہر کسی کی سمجھ کے لئے نہیں ہوتے۔ اور میرا شمار بھی ان کج ذہنوں میں ہوتا ہے۔ کتاب یقیناً بہت اچھی ہو گی لیکن میں ان کو سمجھنے سے قاصر ہوں۔

[Sultan Rasheed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every lover of short stories must read this book.