‘This project was a very personal one for me’
On his English translation of Khan Mahboob Tarzi’s Urdu novel which is set in 1857
1 Why does historical fiction excite you?
Historical fiction makes historical characters come alive in ways that are difficult to execute in academic monographs. Aaghaz-eSahar, which I’ve translated as The Break of Dawn, is interesting because it was released exactly a century after 1857. 1857 represented a significant historical moment as it could be used to build a foundation for an Indian nationalism that was inclusive, and brought communities together. From the historian’s point of view, that is problematic. In 1857, people rose up to fight the British for their own reasons. They were not a united front. There was regional politics, caste and class politics. When Jawaharlal Nehru was writing The Discovery of India in the Ahmednagar jail, he dismissed 1857 as a failed feudal uprising. In 1957, when he stood at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi to celebrate the centenary of 1857, he realised the power this event holds. And therefore, he called it the First War of Independence. This official recognition gave it a certain kind of importance. It was in the same year that Aaghaz-e-Sahar was published. It is fiction but it archives how people of that time were imagining the nation.
2 How did translating it help you reconnect with your family history, especially with your great-great-greatgrandfather Muqeem-ud-Daula Raja Nawab Ali Khan?
This translation project was a very personal one for me. This project grew out of the anger I felt when my family members were called traitors in Parliament in 2017. It was a twisting of historical facts, making it seem that my ancestors sided with the British in 1857. This happened in an environment where the broader history of India’s Muslim pasts was being questioned, changed or eradicated. In reality, Muqeem-ud-Daula died while fighting the British. My translation is a homage to him. Even though the book is a work of fiction, not history, and he is only one of the many characters in what is essentially a love story between Riyaz and Alice, I really wanted to do something. And I did it.
3 Tarzi wrote science-fiction and erotica too. Tell us more about him.
It was erotica but not by today’s standards. A major source of information about Tarzi’s life was Umair Manzar’s book, Khan Mahboob Tarzi – A Popular Novelist from Lucknow (2020). I also reached out to people in the Urdu departments at universities in Lucknow and Allahabad. I learnt that Tarzi was looked down upon. The erotica was written under a pseudonym and was a way to earn his livelihood. I want to translate his sciencefiction next.