Skip to main content

Faizi's Love Story

Manmadin (Kamadev) by Pierre Sonnerat
"The Hindus, unlike any other religious sect, say that every one can get to heaven in their own way, at the same time maintaining that theirs is the most expeditious method.

In the time of Akbar their Vedas, or sacred writings, had not been translated from the Sanscrit; accordingly, Akbar's secretary and great friend, Abul Fusl, the historian, tried by a ruse to investigate the principles of their faith, and sent his young brother Feizi, then a mere boy, to Benares to the Brahmins, in the character of a poor orphan of their tribe. This fraud was practised upon a learned Brahmin, who received him into his house, and brought him up as his own son.

When, after ten years of study, Feizi had perfected himself in Sanscrit, Akbar took measures to ensure his safe return. Feizi, it seems, on attaining manhood, had fallen in love with the Brahmin's only daughter, and her father, seeing the mutual affection of the young pair, offered him his daughter in marriage. Feizi, perplexed between love and gratitude, discovered himself to the old man, fell down at his feet, and with many tears entreated his forgiveness for the deceit which he had put upon him. The Brahmin did not reproach him, but drew a dagger and prepared to stab himself; but Feizi seized his hand and conjured him to say if he could make any atonement for the fraud. The Brahmin answered that he would forgive him, and consent to live, if Feizi would grant him two requests viz., that he would never translate the Vedas, nor repeat the creed of the Hindus."

The above intriguing passage is from  'Our Visit to Hindostan, Kashmir and Ladakh' (1879) by J. C. Murray Aynsley.

I have spent last couple of years gobbling up old books on Kashmir [mini list ]. One of the interesting things about most of these 'Kashmir' books, besides their love bordering on obsession with Lalla Rookh, is the freedom with which the writers of these travelogues quoted, re-mixed, re-used the older works available to them. Say while describing a place or a people, even the adjectives, verbs, adverbs, entire sentences, would be put to use, as the writer tries to squeeze the grist of an experience offered in an older work by some other writer/traveller. There works have passages, sometimes entire chapters, that in today's world would simply qualify for 'Copy-Paste'. These days, no scholarly paper created this way would be called scholarly. These day's even search engines might not pick them up.

Yet, if one thinks about it, these 'Copy-Paste' passages don't seem such a terrible thing. Yes the writer may have been a bit lazy, not too lazy as he or she at least did read the original work, may be the writer had nothing new to add, may be there was a quick buck to be made from the latest exotica, yet what his/her re-use of those works ensured was that a particular piece of information was now available via multiple means; it made a piece of information not easy to lose. If one limits or restricts the means, the chances of loss are higher. Pandits, old and new, should know.

Of course, that must not have been the original intention of the writer but these 'Copy-Paste' passages have often led me to some odd stories. 

The love story of Abu Fazl's (point to note elder) brother Faizi, as offered and indeed credited by J. C. Murray Aynsley,  comes from 'The history of Hindostan', translated by Alexander Dow (1770-72) from  Persian work of Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Astarābādī Firishtah known as Tārīkh-i Firishtah/ Gulshan-i Ibrahim (1560–1620).


Faizi is credited with translating Mahabarata and Bhaskaracharya's Lilavati to Persian.

-0-

Comments

  1. that's an impressively romantic story to concoct for that time. i suppose it comes with the exotic orient package, part of a complete imperialist travel guide?

    ReplyDelete
  2. The entire dramatized version of the story is available in 'Visits and sketches at home and abroad, 3: wìth tales and miscellanies' (1834) by Anna Jameson [Google Books Link] under the title 'The False One'. This story starts with the lines:

    And give you, mix'd with western sentimentalism,
    Some sample of the finest orientalism.

    - Lord Byron

    -0-

    Faizi also translated 'Bija Ganita'. And it turns out 'Lilawati' is a quite a drama about a brilliant astrologer father trying to save his daughter's life using the genius of his maths.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Shukr-i-Khuda ki ishq-i-butan ast rahbaram
    bar millat-i brahman-o bar din-i-Azaram

    (Thank God, that the love of idols is my guide,
    I follow the religion of the Brahman and Azar)

    Abu'l Faiz 'Faizi Fayyazi', Diwan, ed. A.D. Arshad, Lahore, 1962, p.470.

    from 'Language of Political Islam in India' by Muzaffar Alam.

    -0-

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I always like to hear back :)
However, irrelevant comments and irrelevant links will not be published. Needless to say, same goes for abusive comment and spam. Leaving back links related to the topic is encouraged. I know it can be tempting but try not to leave your email ids, phone nos and CVs in the comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Old Faces of Doordarshan

Some people recall the faces and some people recall the names. Here are images of some of the famous readers and presenters of Doordarshan down the years. If you recognize any of them, leave a comment. [ Update 1 : Most of the faces now have names thanks to helpful comments by olio-gallimaufry ] [ Update 2 : Included image of one of the earliest presenters, Gopal Kaul. Send in generously from personal collection by son, Ashutosh Kaul. Sept, 2010.] [ Major Update 3: Got a tip-off about a documentary about the famous faces of Doordarshan from the makers   of     “The Golden Trail , DD@50 :Special feature on Golden Jubilee of Doordarshan ” from which these caps were taken. I managed to catch the incredible documentary and am adding some more faces/name and part of the docu here. New ones can be found after the image of  Narotam Puri. 30th Oct, 2010]  Pratima Puri. Believed to be the first Doordarshan reader.

Indian Cigarette Vintage Ads

He put a cigarette in his mouth and, as a matter of silent routine, offered one to Gwyn, who said ‘No thanks.”Richard looked at him.”I packed it in.”"You what?”"I stopped. Three days ago. Cold. That’s it. You just make the life choice.” Richard looked up and inhaled needfully. He gazed at his cigarette. He didn’t really want to smoke it. He wanted to eat it. Almost the only thing that he still liked about Gwyn was that he still smoked…Paradoxically, he no longer wanted to give up smoking: what he wanted to do was take up smoking. Not so much to fill the little gaps between cigarettes with cigarettes (there wouldn’t be time, anyway) or to smoke two cigarettes at once. It was more that he felt the desire to smoke a cigarette even when he was smoking a cigarette. The need was and wasn’t being met… While it would always be true and fair to say that Richard felt like a cigarette, it would now be doubly true and fair to say it. He felt like a cigarette. And he felt like a cig

Kishore Kumar, Yodel-ay-ee-oooo Songs, A List

*Updated with corrections pointed out by Bart Plantenga , author of some incredible book on Yodeling including Yodel-Ay-Ee-Oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World. -0- Kishore Kumar 's brother Anoop Kumar, who we basically know for the line ' O manu tera toh hua ab mera kya hoga ', used to own lots of Austrian music records. And from these records, Kishore Kumar picked up the art of Yodel singing, an art perfected in bathroom and then introduced by him to the world of Hindi film music. According to his biography 'Kishore Kumar: method in madness‎ ' by Derek Bose, "Kishore was a fan of the Swiss singer Tex Norton [* Tex Morton, an Australian cowboy born in New Zealand who sang  in the gene autry / Jimmie Rodgers style ] and the Australian Jimmy Rogers [* Jimmie Rodgers , perhaps the most American and one of the most famous yodelers in the world, famous for his blue yodels ] as well." Although most of these songs by Kishore Kumar are t