The kings

The death anniversary of great Pashto poet Hamza Shinwari is being observed on July 17. Born in 1907 Hamza Baba died of kidney failure. He spent last decade of life shifting between his adopted hometown, Peshawar and the native village Landi Kotal. In winter he lived in a small, modest house, inside Aasia Gate and the scorching summers drived him to his village in the comparatively cooler hills. But unlike the rest of the old, retired people who are resigned to their fate, he had a virtual stream of friends, disciples, admirers and well-wishers, calling on him every day. There was hardly any day in his life when a visitor or two are not with him, talking to him with the tongue of the pen as he was too deaf to hear ordinary human voice; and he did not relish the hearing aid either. However, despite all his senility and infirmity he had good eye sight and the most wonderful memory. He remembered almost all his poetry, indeed not only his own poetry but a great deal of god poetry from Urdu, Persian and even Arabic literatures that he might have read long ago. His over-all knowledge of Pashto literature was simply encyclopedic. One felt that he was as much a part of the hoary past as the ultra-modern age of Pashto literature. He claimed with unshakable authority In 1970 he published the memoir of his Sheikh Syed Abduls Sattar Shah. It was written in Pashto but he got it translated in Urdu by Tahir Bokhari. The Pashto version has not been published. Round about the same time he published another philosophical treatise called Taskheer Da Kayenat (conquest of the Universe). In 1970 he published Wajud Wa Shudud (The essence and the apparent) in Urdu. This is a detailed commentary on the letters of Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi commonly called Mujaddid-Alf-e-Sani. In 1976 he wrote his autobiography in Urdu on the repeated requests of a friend, Kanwar Mohammad Azam Ali Khan. It has not been published so far. The original MS. lies with Syed Anis Shah Jilani in Sadiqabad, Punjab. In 1980 he published Ana Aur Ilm (Ego and knowledge) in Urdu, its Pashto version was published in 1982. It was called Insani Ana Au Poha (Human Ego and Knowledge). He also translated the entire Dewan of Rehman Baba in Urdu verse. It was published by Pashto Academy in 1963. Then he did Pashto verse translations of Allama Iqbal's Armoghane Hijaz and Javed Nama. They were jointly published by Pashto Academy, Peshawar and Iqbal Academy, Karachi. The former was published in 1964 while the latter in 1967. When the radio station was opened in Peshawar in 1935, along with Abdul Karim Mazloom and Samandar Khan Samandar, Hamza Shinwari was one of its pioneers in dramatics. Da Weeno Jam (Bloody cup) by Aslam Khattak was the first play to be broadcast. Hamza had played the role of the judge in that play. Soon he wrote his first play, Zamindar (the farmer) for the radio. This was followed by hundreds of plays and features over a life-long association with the radio. According to Farooq Shinwari, Hamza has written 200 plays for the radio. But he himself would cautiously lower the number to about 200. The irony is that most of these plays are now simply lost as he would hand in the original manuscript hoping that the radio people would be keeping a record. But having shifted its premises twice since then the radio organization has simply misplaced, if not actually burnt or sold in junk, all the valuable old record. Saifur Rehman Syed has dug up some 60 names of the plays of Hamza Shinwari, from the old diaries of the radio. But they are just names and no more. However, by a happy stroke of luck the following manuscripts of his plays have been preserved: Ahmad Shah Abdali, Akhtar Mo Mubarak Shah (Eid Greetings), Dwa Bakhilan (two Misers), Fateh Khan Rabia, Guman Da Eman Zyan de (doubt undermines faith), Khan Bahadur Sahib, Khushal Khan Khattak, Khisto, Matali Shair (the poet of proverbs) Maimoona, Muqabilla (competition) Qurbani (Sacrifice), Spinsare Paighla (the spinster), and Jrandagarhe (the miller) There is also the MS of Khukale Bala (the beautiful specter) which is a translation of Agha Hasher Kashmiri's stage play Khoobsoorat Bala. Some of his plays like Da Damano Khar (city of the Professional singers) and Da Chursiyano Badshah (king of the Hashish smokers) were also recorded by a Gramophone company whether by His Master's Voice or some other company we will never be able to ascertain nor probably have those obsolete, round plastic discs called records. This recording was first done at Peshawar and then in Delhi