Zubair’s Grieving for Pigeons

Contemporary short story tradition in the Punjab evolved quite slowly, a lot slower compared to other sub-continental linguistic regions like Malayalam and Bangla, where Vaikom Muhammad Basheer and Rabindranath Tagore shaped the genre profoundly in their respective mother tongues. However, the traditions of Punjabi qissa, vaar and dhola poetry, thousands of years old, were always there to inspire Punjabi writers. These genres are essentially lyrical modes of telling an entire story with all ingredients of modern-day storytelling. This lyrical, poetic prose tradition has inspired Zubair Ahmad’s diction. He has organically expanded the tradition and themes to an urban setting or, if I may say so, a quintessential Lahori setting.

Ahmad is a poet, essayist, critic, Punjabi language activist, short story writer and one of the most credible names in contemporary Punjabi fiction. He has authored two books of Punjabi poetry, three short story collections, a book of translations and a collection of essays. Two of his short story collections were finalists in 2014 and 2020 for the Canada-based Dhahan Prize for Punjabi Literature. He started his journey as a political worker associated with the Marxist movement of the ’70s. He also worked as a sub-editor at the Punjabi daily newspaper, Sajjan. He managed and ran the first Punjabi-only bookshop and publishing house, Kitab Trinjan, for over a decade before it was closed in 2009. The bookshop has recently reopened at Temple Road, Lahore. He retired as an associate professor of English at Islamia College, Lahore, in 2018. His first book of short stories Meenh, Boohay tay Baariaa(n), established his diction and inimitable use of time and space that gradually evolved into a craft of using places as characters – turning text into a piece of visual art.

Grieving for Pigeons is the first book-length translation of Ahmad’s Punjabi short stories, including twelve short stories from his published books, i.e. Meenh Boohay tay Baaria(n); 2001, Kabootar, Beneray tay Galyaa(n); 2013 and Paani di Kandh; 2019. Earlier, Ahmad’s short stories have been translated into English and appeared in many anthologies; Booha Khulla Aye was published in A letter from India: Contemporary short stories from Pakistan (edited by Mozzam Sheikh; Penguin, 2004), Meenh, Boohay tay Baariaa(n) was featured in Stories of the Soil (edited by Nirupama Dutt; Penguin, 2010) and Sweater appeared in South Asian Ensemble (a Canadian Quarterly 2010, Vol.2, Number 3).

Grieving for Pigeons has been translated by Anne Murphy, an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia. This is her first book-length translation. As part of the translation process, Ahmad would do the first draft and send it over to Murphy, who then worked on that draft, making this book collaborative. Even though Murphy understands Punjabi, her vocabulary and language learning is based mostly on the heavily Hindiised/ Sanskritised East Punjabi experience and Sikh scriptures rather than the literary idioms and expressions of West Punjab. Therefore, she needed support to complete this important anthology, as she confirms in the introduction: “It was a collaborative process. We used Skype, in those days before Zoom, and exchanged emails full of drafts, discussions, and redrafts.”

Murphy has described Ahmad’s themes and stories in her introduction. She writes: “The stories of Zubair Ahmad invite us into a world of remembrance. Ahmad’s stories position the post-colonial state of Pakistan within a framework of loss – the loss of a once shared culture, of ties to places now out of reach. Yet they speak to the losses of our moment as well, when the neo-liberal state and corporate values have prevailed, and our responses to them are constrained by our sheer powerlessness to resist. Perhaps, memory is all we have, in the face of the relentless march of the current global economic and political order…”

Ahmad’s unique art of storytelling becomes more evident when you read his stories in their original form, i.e., in Punjabi. His enriched and stylish poetic prose and glossy phrases give life to every ordinary place, person and idea he picks up during his free-flowing first-person narration. The reader feels the soft sadness and subtle sense of loss in his stories, but it never creates lofty heaviness and an unwarranted eco-system of bitterness.

Any work of translation faces the dilemma of how native speakers of the language will react to it when they compare the translation with the original text. Will they conform to the Latin disdain for translations and translators (Traduttore, traditore translator is a traitor) or to Susan Sontag’s belief that “every language is part of Language, which is larger than any single language”?

I had mixed feelings while reading these translations. I have known Ahmad since he first started writing fiction and have always been one of the first readers of his original Punjabi drafts. This background and Punjabi nativity did create some difficulty for me in relishing these much-diluted conversions. Those who have read original short stories in Punjabi may feel a similar plainness. It will be fair to say that the Punjabi language may still have to wait for its Gregory Rabassa.

These translations are intended primarily to introduce Ahmad’s art to English-speaking readers and the Punjabis who cannot fully comprehend and read their mother tongue. As far as I know, Grieving for Pigeons is one of the first book-length translations of any West Punjabi writer published by an international university press. For this, Murphy needs to be credited and appreciated. This year has been good for Punjabi literati as Amna Ali and Moazzam Sheikh have recently translated the late Nadir Ali’s Punjabi short stories in a collection titled Hero and Other Stories.

Grieving for Pigeons was a much-needed effort as West Punjabi writers haven’t received the international recognition they deserve compared to their East Punjabi siblings. The most exciting part of these translations is that there was no forced effort to translate a few of the original Punjabi words, which have no correct or matching English alternative. Waliullah is Lost, Bajwa has nothing more to say now, Dead Man’s Float, Pigeon, Ledges and Streets, The Door is Open, and The Wall of Water are some fascinating short stories in this collection.

Grieving for Pigeons was first published by Athabasca University Press, Canada. However, Readings, Lahore has recently published a Pakistani edition of the book, making it accessible to the local readership in local currency.

Grieving for Pigeons

Author: Zubair Ahmad (translated by

Anne Murphy)

Publisher: Ilqa

Publications (Readings, Lahore), 2022

Pages: Paperback, 167

Price: Rs 699