Fasana-e-Azad


Fasana-e-Azad , sometime spelled Fasana-i-Azad, is an Urdu novel by Ratan Nath Dhar Sarshar. It was serialized in Avadh Akhbar between 1878 to 1883 before it was published in four massive volumes by the Nawal Kishore Press. The story follows a wandering character named Azad and his companion, Khoji, from the streets of late nineteenth-century Lucknow to the battlefields of the Russo-Turkish War in Constantinople and Russia. Though the work does not fulfill the technical requirements of a novel, it is considered by most scholars to be one of the first novels in Urdu, or an immediate precursor to the novel.
Sarshar conceived the idea of writing Fasana-e-Azad after the success of the articles he contributed to Avadh Akhbar under the rubric Zarafat. Perennially popular with readers, Fasana-e-Azad has, ever since its publication, been a constant object of study among literary critics both due to its status as the first Urdu novel and for the impact it exercised on the later development of the novel. The book is noted for its colourful description of Lucknow city and its people and culture.

Background

Pandit Ratannath Sarshar was a school teacher in Kheri District of Uttar Pradesh, and then joined Nawal Kishore Press at Lucknow, as an editor of Avadh Akhbar. In this magazine, he wrote a column about Lucknow's feudal culture, which eventually spurred him to write Fasana-e-Azad.
On 8 August 1878, Sarshar was appointed the new editor of Avadh Akhbar. The Zarafat series appeared regularly after the first column was printed in the issue of 13 August 1878. The column, whose title refers to a piece of writing characterized by wit and humour, was an immediate success, and the popularity it gained led its author to write Fasana-e-Azad, which also included some of these articles. In one of these pieces, issued on 23 September, Sarshar revealed his purpose in writing the series with a programmatic statement of intentions.
In it Sarshar stated that their aim was to employ a comic vein whose tenor would allow the Avadh Akhbar readership to familiarize themselves with a quality of social culture, characterized by proper conversational style and an idiomatic fluency suited to a variety of social occasions, so that they might be prepared to adapt their manners to any number of social gatherings. Such an improving education regarding the human community would, he added, be a blessing to the country, enlightened manners, and 'the radiance of good thoughts', would clean people's minds of the seductiveness of corrupt ideas and their behaviour of vulgar traits. Such moral improvement would come from the pleasure in reading humorous articles whose attractiveness would also encourage discursive refinement and an exposure to elevated thinking.
The work changed over the course of publication. For about the first five hundred pages, Fasana-e-Azad gave a satirical account of urban life, usually centering on a wandering figure such as Azad or some minor character. This was in keeping with the inspiration its author gained from reading both Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers and the Miguel de Cervantes novel Don Quixote. As the story progressed and gained popularity, Sarshar decided to transform the episodic narrative into a longer work, serialized over six years, between 1878 and 1883.

Characters

The principle characters of the novel are:
The novel take place in Lucknow, and in imaginary middle east during late 19th-century. The novel's theme follows the pattern of the Miguel de Cervantes novel Don Quixote. Azad, the protagonist of the novel, is shaped after Don Quixote. Azad's faithful friend, Khoji, is shaped after Sancho Panza from Don Quixote.
Azad, the eponymous hero, is a man with no family history, who, at the start of the narrative, is given to wandering around the city, encountering all sorts of people and observing the changing urban milieu of the late 19th-century Lucknow. He also has a keen eye for feminine beauty. Eventually, Azad meets two sisters and falls in love with the elder, Husna Ara. She also loves him too, but sets a condition for their marriage: that Azad must go to Turkey to fight on the side of the Turks in their war with the Russians. Azad takes the challenge and sets off for Turkey with his sidekick, Khoji, a dwarf of a man, fond of opium and given to delusions about his own manly beauty and martial prowess. The two meet with a number of adventures in Turkey and Russia and several noble women fall love with Azad, who more or less remains honest to his love for Husn Ara.
Eventually, Azad and Khoji, together with two European female admirers, return to India in triumph. Azad marries Husna Ara, while the two European ladies take up social work in India. After his marriage with Husna Ara, Azad becomes the father of twins, and become a well-known and respected person, and devotes much time to the propagation of new ideas, and to education, commerce and industry. When war breaks out against Afghanistan, he is asked by the government to join the war and help. He goes, and again proves himself to be very valiant soldier. Then he comes back home and lives a very happy and useful life, devoted to the advancement of his country.
With this main-plot, there are many sub-plot are intertwined, including the story of Husna Ara's sister, Sipahr Ara, her princely lover, Humayun Far, and his mysterious rival, the Shahsawar.

Publication history

Fasana-e-Azad consists of four volumes, spanning about 3,000 pages running to roughly two and a quarter million words. The publication history involved multiple formats over the years.
Volume 1 came out serially in Avadh Akhbar from August 1878 to 5 January 1880, and was issued in book form in January 1881 under the imprint of the Nawal Kishore Press, which would also publish the rest of the volumes in the quadrilogy. The first instalment of Volume 2 appeared in the magazine on 1 July 1880, and it was here that the title of Fasana-e-Azad was first used. After 30 July, further instalments were published as special monthly supplements to Avadh Akhbar which were sold by subscription and separately priced. The book edition appeared in July 1882. The third volume was serialized monthly from February 1882 to January 1883, and was issued in a book format, with an initial print run of 200 copies at 3 rupees each, in June 1883. Whether the final volume was serialized or not is unknown, but the fourth book came out in 1883.

Further edition

A chapter of Fasana-e-Azad of over 15 pages was separately published by Nawal Kishore Press in 1906 under the title Range Siyar. A new edition of the book appeared in 1934.
The character of Khoji became so popular that Muhammad Ahsan Farooqi collected the excerpts about Khoji from the novel, compiled them as a book under the title Khoji, and published in 1952 from Raja Ram Kumar Press, a successor of Nawal Kishore Press. New Delhi based Jamia Book Dept. published abridged version in 1970 under the title Fasana-e-Azad . Saraswati Press of Banaras published an abridged Hindi version in 1947, covering 550 pages.

Scholarship

The scholarship on Fasana-e-Azad began after Sarshar's death with the publication of the articles by two of the contemporaries of Sarshar: Brij Narayan Chakbast and Bishan Narayan Dar.
The scholarship on Fasana-e-Azad has focused largely on its uncertain status as a novel. Sarshar declared his work a 'novel' in 1879. Almost all the scholars, including Ralph Russell and Vaqar Azim, have considered it an early novel, or if not the first novel proper, a significant work that introduced some of the novel's elements into Urdu.
The main criteria that Urdu scholars used to disqualify Fasana-e-Azad from novel status were plot and character. The main problem with its plot, according to the scholars, was that it consisted of too many subplots and storylines, with little attention to the relation between these stories and the overall construction. Muhammad Ahsan Farooqi attributed this to Sarshar's 'carelessness', commenting, "Sarshar had no plan and stuffed in any story wherever he wanted and ended it whenever the mood struck." He finds that the love between Azad and Husn Ara is the only thread running through the work from beginning to end. Bishan Narayan Dar wrote: "Fasana-e-Azad is not a proper novel, since its plot was not conceived according to any plan. It has neither beginning, nor middle, nor end; rather, it is a collection of unconnected snapshots of the society and culture in which Sarshar lived."
Chakbast questioned how Azad's character, which he decried as "uncontrollable, carefree, itinerant, and sometimes even sinful man", could suddenly become "so chaste and refined". He found this progression of protagonist to be abrupt and "against the law of nature".
The author Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah finds the plot of the novel 'extremely poor', and observes that 'the events are very loosely knit and contribute nothing towards the Dénouement'. She remarks that the character also do not develop consistently; they act and re-act in an unexpected manner.

Reception

Fasana-e-Azad was the first serialized Urdu fiction to be successfully introduced in an Urdu newspaper. It became a landmark in modern Urdu fiction, and met with an unprecedented public interest. It helped Avadh Akhbar to solidify its reputation as one of the first commercially viable Urdu daily in South Asia. During and after the publication of the novel, Sarshar became one of the most popular figures of the day.
The novel is regarded as one of the first modern Urdu novels, or an immediate precursor to the novel. Firoz Hissain notes that the success of Fasana-e-Azad is legendary in the history of Urdu literature; it was read and enjoyed by every section of society. Since its publication, Fasana-e-Azad serves as an encyclopedia of culture of Lucknow.
The scholars praised Fasana-e-Azad for its portrayals of Lucknow's marketplaces, fairs, cultural settings, and diverse social classes, all presented with a liveliness and accuracy that they claimed was unprecedented in Urdu literature. The historian Ram Babu Saksena also noted the novel for its realistic depiction of Lucknow's life. He considers the "faithful and vivid portrayal of life and manners of Lucknow society" and Sarshar's "brilliants humour" as the outstanding features of Fasana-e-Azad. He calls Sarshar's humour "full-blooded, healthy and unrestrained", and argue that none of his contemporaries excel him or even approach him in his "fund of humour".
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah calls the character of 'Khoji' Sarshar's remarkable achievement. According to her Khoji is amongst the immortal characters of Urdu fiction. Ram Babu Saksena describes Khoji as "an unique character in the whole range of Urdu literature" and as "the most original and wonderful creation of humorous art".
In 1984, a television series Wah Janaab was adapted after this novel on DD National.

Citations