From K.K. Aziz’s Coffee House: Visiting a 4-Anna Film Stall at Bhati Gate with Zaheer Kashmiri

Posted on November 20, 2010
Filed Under >Adil Najam, Books, Economy & Development, History, People, Society
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Adil Najam

This installment of excerpts from K.K. Aziz’s The Coffee House of Lahore (read book review by Raza Rumi, here) presents a portion of his profile of Zaheer Kashmiri (photo on right).  The book is organized as a series of these portraits of what Aziz calls the ‘habitués’ of the Lahore Coffee House. Earlier in passage K.K. Aziz describes Zaheer Kashmiri as

“a flamboyant personality, consciously outrageous, bent upon having his say on the subject of his choice, and colourful in his deportment and dress. but all this served as an outer cover (perhaps a disguise) for a heart palpitating on the plight of the oppressed and a soul full of fellowship in sorrow… As an Urdu poet his reputation stands high. Unlike other ‘progressive’ and leftist poets he did not allow his political commitment to make a preacher out of him. The romantic element in his poetry shrugs off the pedantic and the didactic.

… He could be reticent when he was thinking or was uninterested in the subject under discussion. But when he was moved or wanted to make a point his passion rose like a glittering sun emerging out of a grey cloud. Then nothing could stop him. Quoting poets and philosophers he would build his case brick by brick, mortaring every joint, strengthening his argument, and not letting his critics interrupt his foaming flood of words. He spoke often in Punjabi and sometimes in Urdu, but when he wanted to overawe the company he switched to English in which he was unexpectedly fluent and accurate. For a boy who emerged from a lower-middle class background and grew in the lanes of Amritsar in vernacular company and attended a local Muslim college his command of spoken English surprised his friends. He found no difficulty in understanding and digesting obtuse and difficult texts like Hegel and Spengler. I once asked him how he had managed to tackle the Decline of the West. ‘By reading the entire text five times with concentrated attention,’ he replied.”

For ease of reading, as before, we will not indent the selected excerpt as quoted text; everything beyond these lines is in K.K. Aziz’s words (as are the two paragraphs above).

One day in 1946 [Zaheer Kashmiri] met me in the Coffee House and asked me casually, “Have you ever watched a film from the 4-anna stalls?”

Let me first describe the hierarchy of seating arrangements in Lahore’s cinemas of those days. The screen end of the hall has pits with hard uncomfortable chairs and each seat cost 4 annas (25 paisas of today). After that was the second class, the largest in the hall, with reasonable chairs with arms, the seats costing one ruppee and two annas each. Above it at the back was the first class, with soft cushioned chairs, and here the fare was two ruppees and four annas. The hall ended here. But above the first class was the balcony where the seats were luxurious and the price three ruppees and six annas. College students with identity cards enjoyed the concession, applicable to all classes except the pits, of paying half the ordinary price of a seat. In other words, they paid 9 annas for the second class, one ruppee and two annas for the balcony. As a student of Government College with a generous pocket allowance and with the half-price concession, I had never contemplated watching a film in the pits.

I replied to Zaheer’s inquiry in the negative, and when he proposed that I should accompany him to a Bhati Gate cinema to watch a film along with the ‘sweating humanity’ (his words) I did not protest.

We met at 5.45 P.M. outside the Gate, he bought two 4-anna tickets, and we entered the hall. Everything inside disgusted me. The benches were of hard wood without a back so that I could not lean back. There were few fans and the place was airless. The audience around me consisted of labourers, street vendors, tonga drivers and the louts of the locality, who talked loudly, often lacing their sentences with obscene but biologically accurate Punjabi abuses, which were so explicit that nothing was left to imagination. Most of them smelt and I felt nauseated. Had Zaheer not been chaperoning me I would have left.

I can’t recall which film it was, but it was an English movie. Whenever a woman appeared on the screen the 4-anna audience squirmed in their seats and passed lewd remarks. When the hero kissed the heroine in a close-up shot there was bedlam around me with catcalls, whistlings and saucy comments like “Oé” and “Haé” and “Mauj Kar gya.” The crowd was exclusively male. Even if I could ignore these problems and concentrate on the film I found that I could not see the figures moving on the screen. Sitting so close to the screen my eyes failed to adjust to the short distance between the viewer and the viewed. What was visible to me was huge men, women horse and wagons (it was probably a Western film) whose abnormal size distorted the picture. Every close-up shot filled the whole screen. There was a disturbing contrast between visual distortion and audio clarity. The picture was enormous and blurred, the dialogue was clear and distinct. I sat through the performance not as a pleasure but as a painful novelty.

When we came out Zaheer insisted that we visit a nearby tea stall, which we did. But it added to my loathing. The shop was filthy, the tables and chairs dirty and rough, and the few customers were brethren of the cinema crowd. After a boy in soiled clothes had slammed two ready-made cups of tea before us with a bang and we had lit our cigarettes, Zaheer immediately embarked upon a lecture on our experience of watching a film in teh pits. He talked in English for about ten minutes. I can’t recall at this interval of time his words or the order in which he piled one argument upon another. But I remember the gist of what he said because it affected me deeply.

“I know how uncomfortable you felt there. New surroundings. Strange people. Yes, strange, because they were not the people you meet or talk to. How surprising that you have till today not met these people. They are the unwashed whom you have never met. They are the people for whose freedom the Congress, your Muslim League and my [Communist] Party are struggling. And you have never before met these people whom the whole problem is about. You talk about the independence and the future of the country, but you don’t know the people who live in the country. They smell, but they are the salt of the earth. I am not asking you to mix with them, but at least to be aware of them. I am not asking you to join the Communist Party. I am not a preacher. I demand your sympathy and compassion for these people. They deserve that and as a human being this is the least you can do for them. And I brought you to this apology for a tea house with that purpose in view. I know you don’t like the ambience, the milieu, the quality of the tea, the demeanour of the waiter, the condition of the furniture, the noise and the bustle of the bazaar. But that is where and how people live. Don’t share this condition with them, but be cognizant of it.”

… I often heard my Leftist friends in the Coffee House talking about the poor but their emphasis was political rather than economic and social. Their vocabulary was full of “Marx says,” “the proletariat,” “the economic theory of history,” “exploitation by the rich,” “trade unionism” and such words, but they hardly mentioned the poor, the individual who suffered, the amelioration which was needed, the practical steps which were required. The “socialist revolution” monopolized their debates, not the realities and practical details of raising the level of the poor. They sold Soviet tracts and pamphlets and regurgitated Marx and Lenin. They did not expound the creed of human sympathy and the dogma of natural compassion.

That is why Zaheer’s words struck to my mind and I can reproduce them today, after 61 years. It was a welcome reminder of what I had felt when my consciousness was still an infant.

Also see:
K.K. Aziz (1927-2009): History Shall Miss Him
Books: K.K. Aziz’s The Coffee House of Lahore
From K.K. Aziz’s Coffee House: Lahore as it Used To Be

18 responses to “From K.K. Aziz’s Coffee House: Visiting a 4-Anna Film Stall at Bhati Gate with Zaheer Kashmiri”

  1. HarOON says:

    One of Zaheer Kashmiri’s most famous ghazals was sung by Ustad Amanat Ali Khan – ‘Mausam badla, rut gadlai, ahl-e-janoo bay-baak hoaye’

  2. Daktar says:

    Absolutely brilliant.
    I have to get hold of this book. What vivid and powerful writing. No wonder it makes the drawing room warriors uncomfortable reading it. It exposes their own hypocrisy.

  3. Watan Aziz says:

    Yes, strange, because they were not the people you meet or talk to. How surprising that you have till today not met these people. They are the unwashed whom you have never met. …..but you don’t know the people who live in the country. They smell, but they are the salt of the earth. I am not asking you to mix with them, but at least to be aware of them. …. I demand your sympathy and compassion for these people. They deserve that and as a human being this is the least you can do for them. ….But that is where and how people live. Don’t share this condition with them, but be cognizant of it.”

    Yes, the “gitter-mitter” crowd of yesterday had contempt for Pakistanis.

    And the “gitter-mitter” crowd of today has contempt for Pakistanis.

    And how long is long enough? Is there any difference between these columns and Lahore of today? How long is long enough?

    And people are complaining because someone is pointing out the missing? People, people, get hold of yourselves. Oh, the pomposity in pompousness of pompous “gitter mitter” crowd.

    Your human rights associations, your ngos, your meetings, your blogs, your interviews, your consultancies, your position papers mean nothing if a single new judge is not appointed. Not that it will change things overnight, but it sets the direction for equity and justice.

    If you live in one of the 3 cities or visit them when you fly to Pakistan, not matter what you say or do, it is not good enough, it is not fast enought and it is not fair enough.

    Equity and Justice for Pakistanis.

  4. Watan Aziz says:

    “keeray nikalna”?

    Well, I was going to wait until the last of the series, but, please.

    The Lahore is depicted in the first of this series, where all is pristine and lovely. That is was true.

    What was omitted and not characterized was that vast majority of the population of Lahore could not share that experience. Muslims were almost completely shut-out. Lesser Hindus and Sikhs could only be in that part of Lahore as “servants”.

    If you want a good contemporaneousness account of that Lahore, I suggest you read “An American Witness to India’s Partition”, by Phillip Talbot.

    The Lahore you will discover through the eyes of Talbot is not the varnished Lahore depicted in these columns. It matches closely with the Lahore that our fathers knew.

    Yes, it is this legacy of the “gitter-mitter” crowd of that era, that gave birth to the “gitter-mitter” crowd of this era who looks at Pakistani with contempt. As their servants, as their drivers, as their chokidars. Not as co-equal Pakistanis.

    And that is if you live in the 3 big cities. Mai Jori Jamali has no prayer with this “gitter-mitter” crowd. That is why these columns wrote that she “travels” 2 miles to get water. Travel? Travel? Hell no, she slogs, she walks, she toils, she plods, she beats, she tramps, she clobbers, she thwacks and yes, she cries with pain when she carries the water on her head. Ever tried carrying a gallon of water on your head for even a few feet?

    And yes, there is anger.

    Because I am helplessly watching one brain-dead group of people trying to kill the other brain-dead group of people. Both in the name of saving Pakistan.

    And the middle has be silenced and told to shut up.

    Do not speak up in “our” policy meetings. Do not speak up in “my” masjid.

    This “gitter-mitter” crowd does not know a thing about Qur’an or Islam. They do not know a thing about democracy.

    I am watching one ignorant group of people argue with other group of ignorant people. The resident ignorant has got everyone busy because he is full of ignorance. And to his most delight, those who are responding are equally ignorant. If ignorance could be sold, these columns could pay off the debt of Pakistan!

    They both join at the hip as we have seen ample times with usurpers evil and enlightened. They bully the civil society. They trample the judiciary. And they destroy the peace and tranquility of the middle.

    One wants to force you to get naked. The other wants to force you to wear a tent.

    Pakistani were never like this. Pakistanis will never be like this. Pakistanis are middle of the road good people.

    And these both brain-dead groups are determined to loudly proclaim their bigoted positions. Neither are true to the ideals because neither know them or believe in them.

    And both are determined to “sell” Pakistan to line up their pockets. It is a money game at the end of the day. One is raising it in the masjids through terror. The other is skimming the treasury and getting paid by promising to “keep these people in line”.

    And so, if I do not bow at your altar and say, yes master; it is not meanness. I am not part of the “wawa” crowd. I will not ask where is the hose for Koolaid and what flavor should I drink.

    And I will not do this, because the Pakistan that is being depicted by both of these groups is not true.

    Pakistanis are good people. Pakistanis are honest people. Pakistanis are hard-working people. Pakistanis are decent people.

    Pakistani are middle of the road people. Don’t sell them short.

  5. iftikhar says:

    By the way, the honesty I referred to was his honesty in depicting his own feelings and accepting his own failings (read his description of how he felt in the cinema) instead of acting all pious. May all of us be granted the ability to be self-critical.

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