Review of the book “Allah Ki Lathi”, Urdu translation of the Sindhi short stories, authored by Muhammad Ali Pathan
- “Allah ki Lathi” is indicative of the Divine Retribution or the Justice awarded by Him, as the writer firmly believes in Justice.
By Gul Mohammad Umrani
This is the latest book of Mohammad Ali Pathan – “Allah ki Lathi”; it is pretty over fortieth plus in number, envy of his enlightened colleagues and pride of his friends over the quintessential vistas he has achieved, even during his precarious and mercurial ups and downs in the health and economic status. These are Short Stories in Urdu translation of his original Sindhi version, by various writers of contemporary times, of individual good reputation per se. It’s actually a very distinguished cultural, literary, and syntactical style with the intellectual contribution via an integrated transformation towards two greater inspirational literary traditions, and a much more positive attitude now, extremely important for us for mutual linguistic benefit and understanding too. Linguistic ethnic chauvinistic Era is gone with the wind with immense dominant advantage of Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence. Let us look at the spirit of the compendium of these stories.
As it seems these short stories were penned during the Covid’s cataclysmic Epidemic period of immense excruciating and pitiable despondent years. He is indubitably conscious of his indebtedness to the great Sindhi Short story writers like Jamal Abro ,Ghulam Rabbani Agro, Naseem Kharral , Hameed Sindhi and Amar Jaleel who in fact were inspired by the Masters and had copiously borrowed plots and the themes from the archetypal European literature of France and Russia during their Progressive Writers Association Era of their inevitable fascinating inspiration and intellectual cognitive guidance. Rest is history of Sindh before and during the One Unit days of struggle against the oppression and horrendous suppression inflicted upon the masses.
These translations here are excellent replications of the original Sindhi language version and represent the problems and vicissitudes of the ruthlessness of the inexorable Sindhi Society. More than fifty intensity oriented Short Stories obviously tell despondently those abysmally darker tales of true events ,sufferings and the very heart rending tearful sorrows of the people, not unlike our Mohammad Ali Pathan himself, their everyday pathetic existence and saddened experiences, in complex situations where, there is no evidence of mercy or human compassion for one another. Characters are based on short episodes, so that they can be read in one continuous reading. Effectively impactful and striking translation works as if written in original Urdu by eminent group of scholars who have earned laurels here. Perfectly redoubtable renditions are here.
Nothing of the sort of gross hyperbolic rhetoric or anything in plots around the supernatural weird behavior or imaginary phenomenon of the archaic legends of the concocted cock and bull narratives or the romanticism of the past. The book reflects sensitivities of the Poetic genius of the writer and his cultural professional attitude towards life and its trials and tribulations, encountered by him. “Allah ki Lathi” is indicative of the Divine Retribution or the Justice awarded by Him. The writer firmly believes in Justice.
The writer’s characters are complex and well designed and thoroughly unorthodox with realistic questions and denouement in the end of the story, comprehensive genre of contemporary art. The book is the nostalgic tale of the 19th-20th century Artistic content with the flair of the aesthetic Movement that began in France in 1850ties, representing life and modern literature truthfully and in a very much popular matter of fact way, based on true ordinary events. The book is an excellent outstanding representation of this historic stupendous overwhelming genre of French Maupasssnt and the Russian story writers like Gorky, Chekov in its Sindhi Urdu form. Remarkable is the good reading of this book, absolutely fine with an amazing achievement in the Urdu translation of the original Sindhi work of indefatigable writer.
Thanks to his credit for his passionate, fluent, colloquial typical phraseology in the modern Sindhi Literature with his inquisitive inimitable dialogues and down to earth techniques for learners. Many more springs of literature will sprout in future with the prolific multi- dimensional pen. Keep your pen busy in making hay while the sun shines on your head now MAP aka people’s Writer.
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