Daily Times

Khalid Farhad Dhariwal is a renowned Punjabi Short Story writer from Pasroor, Sialkot, Pakistan.

He has two short story books on his credit. He is also known as Khalid Farhad Sialkoti in literary circles.

Born on July 10, 1978 in a family who did Agriculture on their lands, he kept his interest in studies alive and completed his graduation. He was fond of writing fiction in Punjabi language and his first short stories book ‘Watandara’ was published in 2007 by Suchet Publications. It was written in ShahMukhi script. His second short stories book was ‘Katha Ik Colleague Di’ in Gurmukhi script published by Sangam Publishers, Patiala.

Khalid Farhad also has substantial work done in the domain of Translations. The foremost is novelette ‘Mohan Das’ by Oode Parkash from Hindi to Punjabi in Shahmukhi script. It was published in 2017 by Sangri Publishers, Lahore. He translated Dharam Veer Bharti’s Hindi novel to Punjabi titled ‘Suraj Da Satwaan Ghora’ in 2017. It was published by Qafas Publishers, Faisalabad. Khalid selected Pakistani short stories and got them published as ‘Chonvian Pakistani Kahanian’ from Sangam Publishers, Patiala in 2015.

Khalid Farhad also has substantial work done in the domain of translations. The foremost is novelette ‘Mohan Das’ by Oode Parkash from Hindi to Punjabi in Shahmukhi script. It was published in 2017 by Sangri Publishers, Lahore

Khalid’s under-publications books are ‘Prohat Jahe Nei Machian Paalian’ (Hindi to Punjabi) being published by Punjabi Adabi Board. He is presently working on translation of a novel ‘Khanwada Pascal Dwarta’ (The family of Pascual Duarte) by Camilo Jose Cela’. The writer was Nobel Prize Laureate in 1989 for writing this novel. It is a story of Pascual Duarte, a Spanish peasant born into the cruel world of poverty, hatred and depravity, as told from his prison cell awaiting sentence for the murders he had committed. Despite all this, he retained a childlike sense of the world and a groping desire to understand the blows of fate that led him to the bloody path.

I shall highlight two aspects of this writer. First, his selection of the themes and treatment of his stories by selecting a few and secondly his efforts to promote Punjabi language in Punjab’s educational and official systems.

Short Stories Collection Watandara (exchangeable):

This collection when published was hailed widely in literary circles. Many reviews appeared in the literary sessions and literary journals. Many critics wrote on this collection. In the literary magazine Trinjan, September 2007 issue, Zafar Iqbal wrote that this Suchet Ghar Publication has twelve big and small stories that have used soft language without which no creative piece deserves to be called as such. Even at this age Zafar Iqbal stated that he had not been able to give such a status to the language in his creations.

Zafar Iqbal quotes a story ‘Ik Khaali Khooli Banda’ which according to him, can be considered among the big stories written so far in the world. It revolves around a Christian man namely Joseph whose predecessors were Muslims a century ago and he converted into Christianity under the influence of the British Rule. He was a menial worker and now he decided to convert into Muslim as Yousuf. His wife and four children at that time were on a visit to their maternal parents’ place. Yousuf is welcomed in the new locality and is no longer untouchable. He is however not welcome in ‘Thathi Eisiaan’ where he is forced to spend time in Zamindar’s Haveli where he had worked. On her return the Christian Community the Christian Cleric decides that the younger children shall remain with their mother and the elder two with their father. In this complex situation, the couple is in a dilemma. Disappointed the wife starts living with her parents. He sent her message to see him outside the Haveli. He asked her to return. Upon her refusal he turned into a mad person, such is the intensity of shock he gets as she refuses to leave her religion. He is declared neither Joseph, nor Yousaf but a Pagal (mad) person. The story has been written in such a manner that one does not realize whether the hero is Joseph or his wife! This story has been included in the Master’s syllabus of M. A. Punjabi in Punjabi University, Patiala, India. It has also been translated in Urdu and Sindhi. This story is a part of many anthologies.

Shafqat Tanvir Mirza in his column ‘Land Root’ on December 25, 2007 in a local daily mentions two other stories from this collection namely ‘Apna Apna Dozakh’ and ‘Mass, Mitti Tei Maya’, both written in rural backdrops. These stories are about the people who leave their homes to carve a better future for themselves. The former story is about a woman who develops illicit relationship with her husband’s friend Wallah Saheb when her husband is away for seeking better horizons. Her new friend gives her the status of his rakhail (keep). When her husband returns on a month’s leave, she is torn into a conflict as to remain with her husband or with her lover. In the latter story when Akhtar is rebuked by his locality because of his poverty, he leaves for England, works hard, earns money and purchases fruit gardens back home. All is done to exhibit his financial strength to the people who had once refused to accept him. His English wife and children also refuse to settle in Pakistan, so he transfers his wealth to his nephew such that his brother and nephew are saved from the sense of rootlessness.

Moazzam Sheikh in his analysis of the two stories mentioned above appreciates the depth off central characters due to psychological investigations. He quotes the most delicate story ‘hook’ which he translates as ‘ache’ of the story of a woman attracted to the blind brother of her friend because of his excellence in music. The affair blossoms and once she asked him as to how did she look. He said the she was pretty and he has dreamt about her. Teasingly she informed him wrongly that she was not pretty whereas she in reality was. He responded that she had a polio leg. She is hurt and thinks of making somebody else her boyfriend. The question however lurks at her as to whom is she going to show all his, the one who can see inner worlds but is blind to the reality around him or to the other one. It is hard to read the man’s character as a metaphor for patriarchy!

Arshad Naeem states that Khalid Dhariwal’s aim is to give happiness to people and in return absorb their sorrows, smilingly. In monthly Pancham, August/September 2007 issue, Maqsood Saqib observed that at that moment among handful of writers three names had emerged namely Khalid Mahmud Nain Sukh (Theekeriyan), Khalid Dhariwal (Watandara) and Malik Meher Ali (Dha Lagi Wasti). All three are true to their language. The choice of vocabulary is in consonance with the way of living of the characters. Stories develop within a story. These are the qualities of strength of a writer.

Khalid Farhad Dhariwal is famous for his story ‘Koonjaan’. He picks up the pots from the rural backdrop he belongs to and transforms it to urbanized form to make its appeal universal. The Black Sheep by Italo Calvino in Punjabi has been translated by Khalid Farhad. Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. His best known works include the Our Ancestors trilogy, the Cosmicomics collection of short stories, and the novels Invisible Cities and If on a winter’s night a traveler.

The basic plot of the story is of a lady travelling in a bus going from Sasural (in laws) to Daska, her Paika (parents’ house), she absent mindedly got off at Sattuke. She realized her mistake when the bus had gone a furlong or two away. She felt like a girl walking in sleep. She was destined for Guranwala but inadvertently she took this route which she used to take years ago. It turned her memories back to the past when she travelled this path when she got married. When she left the bus, she realized that the next bus shall take some time to come. A thought came to visit her Paika Pind that was just a furlong away. She remembered she was a child playing with toys singing ‘Wass Na Badla Kaleya, Aseen Guddi Gudda Sareya’. She had stopped visiting her parents’ house as her brother had stopped visiting hers. Now her village looked different. His brother had died sometimes ago. When she went for condolences she was treated as a stranger. Instead of going to the house now she started walking to her mother’s grave. She recalled her mother allowing her to play as long as she liked. All girls had left one by one and what were left were empty streets. They had flown like Koonjaan’ (demoiselle crane). She left for the bus stop and her eyes started looking for her childhood friends but all she saw was a trail of demoiselle cranes flying in the air.

This story emphasizes the centuries old dilemma of our daughters leaving their parents homes after their marriages. Sudden detachment from their attachments with their parents, brothers and sisters is a deep pain initially till they find solace with their husbands and children, Secondly the picturesque beauty of Daska and surroundings have been introduced from an emotional looker’s point of view.

The Black Sheep by Italo Calvino in Punjabi titled ‘Kaali Bhair’:

The Italian story has been very aptly translated and preserved in audio-visual form by Khalid Farhad. There was a country where all were thieves. So, when a group left its home for a theft elsewhere, on return found its house robbed as well. So, all were living happily. One could reach from the previous thief to its previous one and to the first one that started this system. As the life was progressing this way, an honest person came and settled in a town that did not steel things and instead stayed home and read books. Thieves came, saw the house well-lit, did not enter. The thieves went as a group to him and gave him all the reasons to join hands. They asked him not to stay home all night and instead come with them to steal. He agreed to the former suggestion and not to the latter. He would go on the bridge and see water flowing under in the canal and return home at dawn.

In less than a week, the honest man found himself with no money and no food in a house which had been stripped of everything. But he had only himself to blame. The problem was his honesty: it had thrown the whole system out of kilter. He let himself be robbed without robbing anyone in his turn, so there was always someone who got home at dawn to find his house intact- the house the honest man should have cleaned out the night before. Soon, of course, the ones whose houses had not been burgled found that they were richer than the others, and so they didn’t want to steal any more, whereas those who came to burgle the honest man’s house went away empty-handed, and so became poor. Meanwhile, those who had become rich got into the habit of joining the honest man on the bridge and watching the water flow under it. This only added to the confusion, since it led to more people becoming rich and a lot of others becoming poor.

Now the rich people saw that if they spent their nights standing on the bridge they’d soon become poor. And they thought ‘Why not pay some of the poor people to go and steal for us?’ Contracts were drawn up, salaries and percentages were agreed (with a lot of double-dealing on both sides: the people were still thieves). But the end result was that the rich became richer and the poor became poorer.

Some of the rich people were so rich that they no longer needed to steal or to pay others to steal for them. But if they stopped stealing they would soon become poor: the poor people would see to that. So they paid the poorest of the poor to protect their property from the other poor people. Thus a police force was set up, and prisons were established. So it was that, only a few years after the arrival of the honest man, nobody talked about stealing or being robbed any more, but only about how rich or poor they were. They were still a bunch of thieves, though. There was only ever that one honest man, and he soon died of starvation.

Site Hungry Writers observe that the characters in the story include the thieves (inhabitants) and the honest man. As seen in the plot, the society changes depending on how people live. While the setting is in a particular city with no specific time, since one man came and chose not to follow the norms, the people had to change and eventually society follows suit. The story’s point of view is third person- omniscient. The author clearly tells the story in different perspectives from the honest man to the thieves of the city. No matter how absolute a system is, it will always adapt to the way people change. It emphasizes “change” as an important thing from the “standard” way of living.

Simile can be found in Pakistani politics where some elements of the police, judiciary, establishment and bureaucracy have been bought by the rich politicians who continued with money laundering and hoarding, for these institutions to bail them out when caught. Khalid Farhad has chosen an opportune story for translation and brings the contents in front of poor masses to confront the bitter truth.

Dharam Veer Bharti’s Hindi novel to Punjabi titled ‘Suraj Da Satwaan Ghora’ in 2017:

The title literally means ‘Seven horses pulling chariot of the Sun’. The gist of the story is that a man in a small town comes across Manik Mulla, a railway worker with lot of time at his disposal and in that time he knits stories. He puts to test five friends to come out with five stories in six days. As the luck would have it, these five stories turn out to be a single story. In a narration style, Manik Mulla narrates stories of his three failed loves, the girls belonging to middle class families; Jamuna, a homely girl, Leela or Lilly, an intellectually strong independent girl and Satti, a low class girl. All three were in love with Manik Mulla. Jamuna did not marry her lover Tanna as he is a coward person and marries an old man instead, who dies soon. She opts for an extra marital affair with a tongawala. Leela gets marries to Tanna, former lover of Jamuna but remains unsatisfied due to the cowardice of her husband. The evil father of Tanna rapes Satti. The stories refer to the poverty, greed, caste, creed, unfulfilled desires, and unmatched marriages in a typical Hindu society today. The ending full of hope shows that the Sun God is travelling in a chariot driven by seven horses of dreams, aspirations and future. Six horses are injured and the seventh one takes the Sun to a hopeful future.

Khalid Farhad Dhariwal is the editor of ‘Tamahi NeelKanth’ Online Punjabi Literary Webzine. Neelkanth is a Punjabi webzine dedicated to literary translations. It features poetry, prose, non-fiction and interviews from around the world. He is recipient of Razia Farrukh Kahani Award in 2006, Masud Khaddarposh Award in 2007, and Pakistan Writers Guild Award in 2007. He visited India in 2004. He is member of Pakistan Writers Guild, Afro-Asian Writers Union, Progressive Writers Council, Punjabi Adabi Sangat, Lahore, Punjabi Sahet Academy, Ludhiana, World Punjabi Congress, Lahore, World Author Catalogue, Advisory Board Monthly Mehkaan and Sahiwal Literary Magazine.

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