Saturday, January 19, 2013

Gratitude to Dr. Barbara Daly Metcalf


Dear Dr. Sahiba,
Asalam-o-Alekum اسلام و علیکم .Your plentiful exposure of subcontinent and my previous correspondence with you helped in shaping my perception in way that I now presume that you are well acquainted with Urdu language. I want to quote an Urdu couplet in Roman script. It goes as:
کس قدر قحطِ وفا ہے تری دنیا میں ندیم
جو ذرا ہنس کے ملے اُس کو مسیحا سمجھوں

If at all you don’t understand the language, a crude elucidation of that couplet in English can be; ‘how much famine of virtue is here in my world Nadeem; consider her/him saviour (knight in shining armour) who meet you with a smile.’
Now, through an email-intrusion by a stranger from remote area of tarnished nation you have been put in a state of bother ever since my couple of enquiries. For nothing, you took pain of responding positively and subsequently providing the desired material, but virtue. This resulted, in the first place, as a depiction of exact figure of an educator whose spread of ilm علم  is not limited to any border and not prone to any restriction. The one we call as ustad  استادand is rightly termed as spiritual parent in our culture and religion that complements the character of a disciple(you also referred about a study of student-diciple relationship in subcontinent that describes it more as affectionate one). Secondly, it elevated me to the point of honour where a person of high intellectual repute and stature Dr. Barbara Metcalf by herself took pain of all that for nothing in return. If I empathize the similar situation for myself; let alone assisting, I would not have cared of even responding to the unknown.
Ma’am... I yearn to explicate the motive behind my fervour to that document etc’. As I mentioned earlier that I am an aspirant of central superior services exam. In this respect one of my idol is a high profile commoner of the past, late ICS officer Qudratullah Shahab. For he- according to few- in terms of success has conquered both the world and hereafter, given his key postings in bureaucratic high offices and his humble and pro-poor policies as a manager. Howsoever, mystical promotions made by him and his acolyte Mumtaz Mufti in their repertoires have been in question ever since. In my contention there could be three possibilities  for these mystical disclosure;( 1) they intentionally gave their manuscripts taste of fiction for seeking fame, (2) they underwent some psychological quiver, (3) all that they reported was factually correct. On that account my point is: discarding their scrolls as just fiction and equating their pointers to “fifth axis” as mere ploy for popularity would be harsh. Especially when, when we keep in mind the conviction, integrity and truthfulness of the two. Since former as an officer and a down-to-earth person was highly regarded and is widely accepted (beyond scope of my discussion). The latter as writer is known to be nastily candid in his style and had gained fair turf in the writers’ union earlier than he started contemplating on mysticism in his writings. Specifically, if one analyse ‘Alipur ka Aealy’  علی پور کا ایلی .First part of his biography written when he was not mysticized. The book had gained reasonable success and was nominated for Adamjee Prize .In this book he spoke truth to that level of cruelty and libel for himself and people closely related to him and had not spared anyone. In this context it is somewhat hard for me to reduce it to plain trick of attractiveness and distortion of fact.
Notwithstanding that fact that I personally believe them to be actual. The questions remains: what the two underwent was the product of psychological resonation, hallucination as being termed by renowned officer, writer and US base columnist of Daily Times and Friday Times Mr. Khalid Hassan. Or, was it a stroke of mysticism. Opinion of the leading analyst cannot be just ignored and ought to be lent credence as he along with many others has his methodical arguments otherwise. So... its is for the purpose of attaining synthesis of all these theses and antitheses I am dwelling in to all those related readings and opinions. Essentially trying to reconcile with that phenomena scientifically. I don’t know to what extent I will succeed. Nonetheless it would- yet again- be a laurel for me if I could have your take and piece of advice on this matter.
Albeit, I revere you as my Ustad استاد , since I learned a lot through your essay and it has opened new vistas of deliberation to my mind, and according to the saying of our fourth pious caliph Hazrat Ali: One who taught me a single word is my master. If in our society teachers were elevated to their deserved position we would be indifferent form what we are today. I wish to put across my profound gratitude for your help to a “alien” for nothing. I would reiterate that if anything whatsoever I could do in my capacity is of any meaning for you then please let me know any time. It would be a matter of great satisfaction for me.
Gratefully

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