Mirza Hadi Ruswa

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Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa (Urdu: مرزا محمد ہادی رسوا) (b. 1857 - d. October 21, 1931) was a renowned Urdu poet and writer of fiction, plays, tracts, and treatises on religion, philosophy and astronomy. He is famous for writing the Urdu novel, Umrao Jan Ada, based on the life of a renowned Lucknow courtesan and poetess and the basis for two Bollywood films: one in 1981 and the other in 2006. He was a versatile genius and one of the pioneers of the Urdu novel. He was well-versed in Urdu, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, English, Latin, and Greek.

[edit] Life

Accurate details of the life of Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa are not available and there are material contradictions between the accounts given by his contemporaries. Ruswa himself mentions that his ancestors arrived in India from Persia and that his great-grandfather became an adjutant in the army of the Nawab of Awadh. The street on which the family home was situated is to this day known as Ajitun Ki Gali (Adjutant's Lane). He had not much to say of his grandfather and father, except for that they were both keenly interested in arithmetic and astronomy.

Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa was born in 1857 in the city of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh where he also received his early education. His parents passed away when he was sixteen years old and he became a ward of his maternal uncle, who relieved him of much of his inheritance. A man who befriended Ruswa was Haider Baksh, a renowned calligraphist of his time. He not only taught Ruswa the art of penmanship but also gave him money when he was in need. Haider Baksh made a considerable fortune by counterfeiting revenue stamps. He was soon arrested and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Amongst many people who aided Ruswa in his writing career was the Urdu poet, Dabeer. Ruswa studied at home and passed his matriculation and Munshi Fazil examinations. Thereafter, he received an Overseers diploma from Thomas Engineering School, Roorkee. For some time, he was employed in the railways, laying tracks in Balochistan. All through these years, he continued to write and study; his passions were chemistry, alchemy and astronomy. After a short term of government service, he returned to Lucknow to teach and write. He found a job as a teacher in the Local Mission School and then as a lecturer at the Christian College where he taught mathematics, science, philosophy and Persian. He left Lucknow for Hyderabad and worked in the Bureau of Translation of the Osmania amit University for a year. He returned to Osmania University again, in his seventies and he died of typhoid fever on October 21, 1931 at the age of 75.

[edit] Writing Career

Ruswa's first work was published in 1887 when he was thirty years old. This was a long poem recounting the romantic tale of Laila and Majnu. Sadly, it was not well received. His versification was amateurish, his wit unwitty, and his satire stale and flat. Portions of the work were condemned by critics as commonplace and vulgar. The criticism did not, however, dampen Ruswa's ardour to write poetry: he continued to compose mediocre verse till the end of his days.

The first part of his Afshai Raz was published when Ruswa was forty-five. No sequel is traceable. Three years later came Umrao Jan Ada. It was an immediate and thunderous success. Critics acclaimed it at once as the best narrative of the life and culture of Lucnow and praised Ruswa's mastery of Urdu prose. Several editions of the novel were sold out. The theme, no doubt, contributed to its large sale, but it was its language that made it a steady seller for all time. Two other novels, Zat-i-Shareef and Shareef Zada did not do as well, but Akhtari Begum was again applauded by the Urdu-speaking intelligentsia. It is still considered by some to be better than Umrao Jan Ada.

Ruswa wrote a large number of tracts on religion and philosophical subjects. He had a deep and abiding interest in religion and Greek metaphysics. He was the head of the literary department at the All India Shia Conference and wrote twenty volumes on the Shia religion.

Despite the name that Ruswa made for himself in literary circles, these novels and works of philosophy and religion did not give him much money. His sustenance came from the worst kind of penny dreadfuls which had titles like The Loves of Satan, The Bleeding Lover, The Murderous Dame etc. Ruswa was an excellent example of a dual literary personality - an earnest-minded Dr. Jekyll burning the midnight oil writing sublime prose, working out a system of Urdu shorthand or studying the movements of the stars - and the vulgarian Mr. Hyde, doing the rounds of the city's brothels and churning out cheap trash to bring in much needed filthy lucre.

[edit] Personality and Appearance

Ruswa's eccentricities made him a legend in his lifetime. He could be so single-minded in his devotion to work as to forget the world about him. There is a story of his having refused to go to the funeral of his own child because he was busy with some experiment. When something fascinated him, he could go on working twenty hours at a stretch for weeks on end, bathing in ice-cold water at midnight to keep himself awake. He was vain and convinced of his genius. He had ability for sustained work combined with a prodigious memory.

Among his other interests were astronomy, higher mathematics, hydraulics, metallurgy, and chemistry. He considered nothing beyond his keen. When the bicycle first appeared in Lucknow, he was sure that since it took other people some hours to learn to control the machine, it should not take him more than a few seconds. He rode without any assistance, had a nasty fall, and fractured his collarbone. Undaunted, he walked home, set the bone himself, and proceeded with his work.

Ruswa was a man of amorous temperament. The only affair which seemed to have moved him and became the subject of a mathnawi was with a young lady of Anglo-French parentage by the name of Mlle. Sophia Augustine. If Ruswa's own version of the affair was to be believed, Mlle. Augustine insisted that Ruswa become the manager of her estate. The impecunious Ruswa turned this business into good account and soon became her lover. He accompanied her on a trip to Bombay where they stayed in the same hotel. She disappeared from her room one morning leaving a note saying that she was going to France to claim her inheritance and would return as soon as the business was settled. She never came back and the disconsolate Ruswa found comfort in successive marriages and the company of courtesans.

Ruswa's dress was as eccentric as his way of living. When he had the money, he stepped out like a Lucknow dilletante wearing a thin muslin shirt, finely creased pyjamas, an embroidered cap on his head, and velvet slippers on his feet. But most of his time he spent in his undershirt and lungi. In these sparse garments, he did all his writing or dictating sitting cross-legged on a mat with his books littered about him on the floor. Ruswa was a tall and powerfully built man of light-brown complexion with a bushy moustache and a neatly-trimmed beard. He had a broad forehead but narrow eyes. He had a high-pitched, wheezy voice but enjoyed excellent health all his life.