The Mark Twain of Urdu humour

Mujtaba Hussain’s pun-filled one-liners, snappy wisecracks and funny style of writing have become his identity and won him the coveted Padma Shri

Laughter is the shortest distance between two persons. But in his case, it encompasses the sub-continent. For more than half-a-century, he has caught the entire Urdu world in splits of laughter with his special brand of humour – which is wholesome and straightforward.

That’s Mujtaba Hussain for you. For the last 54 years to be precise, he has been tickling the funny bone of Urdu readers. And at 85 when his energy has sapped and limbs are giving way, his sense of humour remains intact. Whatever be the occasion, he can still send you into splits at will. His ready repartee, subtle intellect and scintillating humour are always enlivening.

“Aadmi ko kabhi kabhi peeche mud kar dekh lena chahiye…,” he says and adds that this exercise keeps the neck in shape, if nothing else. But when he looks back at his own life, he can rest content. His writings have brought cheer in the lives of thousands of men and women.

Over the years, Mujtaba Hussain has become synonymous with humour, though by nature he is a sober person. “My position is that of the man who dived into the sea on being pushed to rescue a child. And till now, I am floundering in the ocean of humour,” he says.

Hussain’s plunge into humour writing is well-known. He couldn’t forget the day – August 12, 1962 – when he walked into his Siasat office as usual little knowing what lay in store for him. The Editor, Abid Ali Khan, and his elder brother, Mahboob Hussain Jigar, asked him to write the next day’s ‘Seesha-o-Teesha’ column. It was the popular humorous column written by Shahid Siddiqui. His sudden death the previous day left the newspaper in the lurch. Hussain had never tried his hand at humour writing but the Editor’s order left him with no choice.

He somehow managed to write a witty piece that day thinking it to be just a stop gap arrangement. But, he didn’t know that the Editor had presented him with a fait accompli. The pun-filled one-liners, snappy wisecracks and funny style of writing, which he consciously adopted, have now become his identity and character. So deep has he immersed in humour that where people cry he tends to laugh.

“You can call me an accidental humorist,” he remarks. Today, he stands head and shoulders over everyone else in the world of Urdu humour. Many think he tends to make a mountain out of a molehill. But, he doesn’t agree with this view. “What I write has a touch of reality. I make a judicious mix of both fact and fiction. When you don’t mind enlargement in photography, why do you object to it in literature,” he asks poker faced.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call Hussain the Mark Twain of Urdu humour. Like the celebrated American satirist, Hussain doesn’t need to be in-your-face to get the humour across. He makes one grin from ear to ear without being offensive in the least. Day-to-day incidents and situational oddities, which normally one ignores, come in handy for him to weave a story. He has poked fun at almost everything – right from raids by Income Tax department, meteorological forecasts to pride in having a Swiss bank account. It is difficult to pinpoint any particular article to explain his art as every single piece of his bristles with incisive humour. For racy style, simple language and absence of overlapping themes, his stories remain unrivalled.

Eminent writer-journalist Khushwant Singh was an unabashed admirer of Hussain and considered him among the rarest of Indian humour writers. This purveyor of wit doesn’t believe in sitting on laurels even after 25 books, 13 awards, including the coveted Padma Shri. For decades, he worked tirelessly for his Sunday column in Siasat. Thanks to Siasat, now all his books have been digitalised and can be accessed online. How did the great humorist react when his books were digitised? He simply remarked “Lo aaj hum bhi saheb-e-website ho gaye,” sending everyone into peals of laughter.

Laughter may be the best medicine but for Hussain it is the mother tongue of the entire humanity. “You may speak in English, French, Telugu or any other language but you laugh the same way,” he says.

He says the solution to the problems confronting the world lies not in equitable distribution of wealth but in fair distribution of laughter. The veteran satirist is sad about the treatment meted out to humour writers in society. He wonders why wit and satire are given a second-rate status in literature when writing a fun-filled paragraph is tougher than producing two pages of a serious article. “Humour write-ups are like fast food. They have to be crisp and spicy and produce instant laughter otherwise the writer himself becomes a laughing stock,” he says.

Hussain’s satirical writings have been translated into Oriya, Kannada, Hindi, English, Russian and Japanese languages. From the mundane to the celestial, he has waxed eloquent on every topic under the sun. Astronaut Neil Armstrong was also the subject of his column when he landed on the moon. “Chand ki barbadi hogaee, budhiya gayeb hogayee…”, he wrote referring to the lore of an old woman working the ‘charkha’. His book Japan Chalo, Japan Chalo is a unique addition to Indian fiction for its originality and beauty in the travelogue genre – something unheard of in Urdu literature.

“His humour is laced with a bitter truth which only an honest person can perceive,” says his daughter, Rashida Samdani. Those who have read his Apni Yaad Mein composition will know. It is a masterpiece of self obituary wherein the author highlights his own follies while taking pot-shots at life. When his daughter died in 1963, he came straight to the office after funeral and penned the next day’s humorous piece.

Hussain once feared that more books might be written on him than he himself wrote. And his fears have now come true. Though he stopped writing a year ago, books on him continue to be written. Scholars from the sub-continent come up with newer angles to highlight his unique style of writing. There is also no end to doctoral theses being done on him. Hussain is, perhaps, the only living writer on whom 12 PhDs have been done so far.

But, all this fame and reputation sit lightly on him. Though age and arthritis have slowed him down, his sense of humour remains intact. Even as one chats up with him, one can’t miss his ready repartee and sparkling one-liners. “There is no scope left in me to grow any more older,” says Hussain in his characteristic style.

Behind every successful man, they say, is a woman. In Hussain’s case, Naseera, his wife, has contributed immensely by ‘not interfering’ with his literary work. Hussain, who married his cousin, says once he asked her to stitch the button of his shirt and ended up being stitched to her for life.

“Main zindigi bhar kabhi wo na bun saka jo bunna chahta tha, hamesha wo bana jo log mujhe banana chahte the.” You can’t miss the underlying humour even in this frank admission.

J.S.Ifthekhar,

Hyderabad based journalist.

Article published in Telangana Today

Dated October 20,2019