Daily Times

I remember a smart and graceful lady with grey hair namely Parveen Malik accepting my invitation for a Mushaira at my residence a couple of years ago.

Despite that she lived at a far distance in Valencia Town, she graced the occasion. The other guests too were related to literature. She was already famous for her fiction writing like her Punjabi short stories collections ‘Ki Janaan Main Kaun’ (1984) and ‘Nikke Nikke Dukh’ (2004) and for the promotion of Punjabi language and literature at Punjab’s grass root level; in syllabi in schools and colleges. Then she was seen distributing flyers for promoting this cause at World Punjabi Congress inviting young and old alike to come and attend the rally on mother language day scheduled for February 21, 2020.

Parveen Malik is a bilingual writer. Her novel Aadhi Aurat in Urdu was also noticed and acclaimed. She has taken pains to translate famous novels into Urdu and Punjabi languages. She selected Qurat ul Ain Haider’s famous novel ‘Agle Janum Mohe Bitiya Na Kijo’ for its Urdu translation and Arundhati Roy’s English novel ‘God of small things’ into Urdu language. Both these works were a gigantic task to achieve. At the same time she was involved with State Radio and Television where she continued writing her popular column ‘Punjabi Rut’ for Radio for eleven years and literary Programme ‘Likhari’ for Pakistan Television Corporation. She was awarded national award for best writer by PTV for her series ‘Nike Nike Dukh’.

Afzal Ahsan Randhawa in his introduction to the book ‘Ki Janaan Main Kaun’ has very rightly give parlance of a young girl trying to put thread into needle’s hole to take over burden from her mother. Sometimes her fingers bled in the process. Being the only off-shoot she was aware of her responsibility at a very young age. She started drawing straight and askew lines on a piece of paper. It was at a very young age she started writing stories like ‘Dinga Waja’ (skewed horn) and ‘Budhi Mochiani’ (old female cobbler). The former is the story of a poor girl Miskeena whose parents did labour all day long but still could not meet their ends. One day her mother gave opium to the girl so that she would sleep below a tree till they returned, only to find on return that her mouth had turned towards one side. She was started being called as skewed voice. The story deals with the pain of living with this deformity. As a matter of fact Parveen has started writing at a very young age but she used to destroy her writings as she was not satisfied by their quality. Her first Punjabi story was published in 1970s. She was noticed by Asif Khan, Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, Anwar Ali and Farkhanda Lodhi and due to their encouragement her future stories revolved around her culture and environment,

Parveen Malik writes in Pothohari Punjabi dialect. Parveen Malik was born on August 08, 1946 in Sheen Bagh Khurd, District Attock. Her father Malik Fazal Dad from Swaan area worked in District Board and her mother namely Noor Bhari was head mistress of a school (she was originally from Pindi Ghaib). Parveen’s parents had to wait for fifteen years before she was born. She was therefore darling of her parents; she studied in her village till matriculation and then moved for bachelors to Degree College, Attock. There was co-education in this college where Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, Munnoo Bhai and Fateh Muhammad Malik had also studies. Her parents did not impose their wishes on her for her future. She went for Masters in Journalism from Punjab University; she desired to become investigative reporter. She worked for the paper ‘Azad’ for a while where she learnt a lot from I. A. Rehman, Abbas Athar and Hameed Akhtar. She was not drawing any salary there. Finally she got a job as Assistant Information Officer in the Federal Information Department.

She retired from the Department of Films and Publications, part of Ministry of Information, in 2006 as the chief editor of Mah-e-Nau and Pak Jamhooriyat. She is currently working as Secretary of the prestigious Pakistan Punjabi Adabi Board in Lahore. Earlier this year she was awarded with Tamgha-e-Imtiaz by the Government of Pakistan.

Afzal Ahsan Randhawa in his introduction to the book Ki Janaan Main Kaun has very rightly give parlance of a young girl trying to put thread into needle’s hole to take over burden from her mother. Sometimes her fingers bled in the process. Being the only off-shoot she was aware of her responsibility at a very young age

KassyaaN Da Paani (Water flowing through lands enclosed in a ravine)

Parveen Malik is one of those rare writers who wrote her autobiography in Punjabi language. KassyaaN Da Paani (Water flowing through lands enclosed in a ravine – mountain streams) is Malik’s autobiography in Punjabi, the others are Amrita Pritam and Ajeet Kaur on our side of the borders and two notable Punjabi autobiographies Afzal Tauseef’s Mann DiyaaN WastiaaN and Raja Rasalu’s Laa Preet Ajahi Muhammad published by Pakistan Punjabi Adabi Board in 2008. Parveen says that water flowing inside the earth sometimes desires to be seen above the lands. It looks for some opening from where it can screech out and starts paving its way drop by drop on the land. Such water does not desire to encounter any obstacles and just desires to flow. Such water is called water of a ravine. Parveen feels that life of middle class like hers is like such water. That is why she chose this title for her autobiography. In one of the reviews published in a local daily, it is observed “Ms Malik is not, as one would normally expect, a self-proclaimed feminist but surely she looks at the world with a woman’s eye and experiences it with the female antennas. She, shunning sloganeering, depicts the reality of individual and social life without using the worn out tools of ideology and anachronistic artistic conventions. She is generally neither pretentious nor ideologically abrasive which in no way means she has no worldview. Her literary and social vision inspired by personal experiences has a humanistic perspective. Her rural background has indelibly imprinted on her mind a strong sense of cultural identity and her life in metropolis exposed her to urbanity born of contemporary liberal and secular values, the mainstay of the modern world. Parveen Malik’s socio-cultural milieu enabled her to employ an idiom of language that communicates all across Punjab. She uses standard dialect in her narrative punctuated by dialogues in Chhachhi, Ghebi and Pothohari creating magical effect with its vigorous freshness. KassyaaN Da PaaNi starts with Malik’s life in Attock that spans from her birth until her graduation. This is the most beautiful part of the book. She has given extraordinary details of the rural setup, local customs, landscape, culture, and the way of life. Her narration in this section is fluid, juicy and authentic. The innocence and wittiness with which she narrates her childhood doesn’t create any feelings of heaviness or boredom. She is not pretentious; neither in life nor in her prose and this free-flowing act of accessibility immediately connects readers to her life story”. This book is the image of hard working and resilient women born out of Punjabi culture. Parveen says that despite her command over the Ghebi and Chachhi dialects of Punjabi she has simplifies her language according to how it is spoken in urban areas. She has thus made its tone and dialect more central and neutral on later pages of the book and by providing meanings of difficult Punjabi words. This is also evident from the fact that this book was first titled as KassyaaN Na PaaNi but later the title was changed to KassyaaN Da PaaNi. Parveen gives partial credit to writer Jameel Paal for constantly reminding her to write her autobiography which was first published in his Punjabi journal ‘Saver’, now discontinued.

Nikke Nikke Dukh, Parveen’s short stories book revolves around the pains and sufferings of girls and women in their everyday lives. Mahmud ul Hassan wrote in his dialogue with Parveen Malik that she was impressed with Hajira Masroor’s story ‘Bandar Ka Ghao’ (monkey’s injuries) in which a frail monkey was alone and the other monkeys are waiting to scratch his injuries. The character feels the same with her brother who is a vagabond, her father who is drug addict. Her parents and sibling beat her after accusing her of an affair with a neighbouring lad. Parveen therefore always wanted to raise her voice against tyrannies and that is why she chose Arvin Dutt Roy’s English novel ‘The God of Small Things’ for translation in Urdu and gave it the title ‘Sisakte Log’ (sobbing people). Parveen Malik has knack of going along with the original writer and just not remain a translator. She did justice to Qurat ul Ain Haider’s novel Urdu ‘Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Na Kijo’ as her Punjabi book ‘Maye Ni Main Kinnu Akhaan’ a line taken from Shah Hussain’s Kafi.

Parveen Malik as a leading linguistic and cultural activists:

Above all Parveen Malik is one of the leading linguistic and cultural activists. In 1849 when the British consolidated its rule in Punjab, it abrogated Punjabi language from schools syllabi and replaced it with Urdu language. Punjab’s population mostly lived in villages, so learning and studying in Urdu was a difficult proposition for them. So the moment a child held Urdu booklet in his hand, his attachment with his mother tongue was finished as he had listened, conversed, read and wrote in Panjabi language since he was born. So a linguistic divide was created deliberately by the British that had not existed earlier and was not the need of the day. When three generations underwent this treatment, a few Punjabi scholars joined hands to protest against this oppression. Initially a few voices were raised and the government did not pay any heed to them. In 1970, a movement came into being to save Punjabi culture and language. It included top scholars namely Masud Khaddarposh, Shariff Kunjahi, Muhammad Asif Khan, Ainul Haq Fareedkoti, Sibtul Hassan Zaigham, Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, Eric Cyprian and Munnoo Bhai etc. As a result of this movement, Pakistan Punjabi Adabi Board came into being in 1976. This movement was joined by youngsters such as Parveen Malik. As per the Constitution of this Board, each district has nominated its member in the Board for decision making.

In 1994 Parveen Malik submitted a Writ in Supreme Court for adoption of Punjabi in schools and colleges at grass root level. Honourable Court ordered all the provinces to take all measures to promote their mother tongue in their respective provinces. All provinces jumped to this opportunity and implemented their local language in their education system. Punjab did not probably due to the way their language was projected as a low cast language as Urbanite Punjabis spoke in Urdu with their children or their adversaries did not desire Punjabis to take pride in their culture, language, traditions and centuries old civilization. Since Punjab Government did not initiate any action in this regard, another writ was made in the High Court in 2015. Its decision came on February 12, 2019 ordering Punjab Government to take measure to implement Punjab language. Still there is no debate in Punjab’s Parliament on this issue and now all the major cities in Punjab take out Rallies on February 21 every year asking government to implement Court’s decisions. There seem to be warmth in their demands and protests.

The writer is the recipient of the prestigious Pride of Performance award. He can be reached at doc_amjad@hotmail.com