Now, I was no stranger to the character of Tarzan. I knew that he was an extremely strong man, wore just a loincloth, lived in the jungles of Africa, and ruled over animals, even the lion. I also knew that there was this Mazhar Kaleem who wrote Tarzan’s stories and “Yousuf Brothers, Pak Gate, Multan” published them. (Years later, when I finally grew up enough to recognize that there was no genius in Mazhar Kaleem’s pen, I regretted how I was introduced to many fictional characters through his adaptations/plagiarizations. Side note: I really should write a separate post for ranting against Mazhar Kaleem once and for all.) So anyway, those four Tarzan books immediately caught my attention because one, they were bulkier in comparison with other story books; two, their cover designs were in complete contrast with the plastic looking cover drawings of Yousuf Brothers’ stories; and three, I could clearly see the all-familiar Ferozsons logo, and I had always enjoyed reading stories published by Ferozsons.

So I turned to my Nana ji’s friend and asked him about the novels. He told me that those were the Urdu translations, meant for children, of the original Tarzan novels. That was enough for me to start tugging at my Nana ji’s sleeve, and he bought the first two books for me.

The next few days were filled with excitement and surprises. One surprise was knowing that Tarzan’s stories were originally written in English by an American writer, Edgar Rice Burroughs. At that time, I’d read his name as Edgar Rice Bruce, thanks to the transliteration of his name which was ایڈگر رائس بروس. The transliteration of English and French names had played quite some games with my young mind; I remember reading William as Waleem, because that was how it was written: ولیم! I did, however, realize that جان was John and not jaan, but I wondered why the name of Tarzan’s ape-mother was Kala instead of, you know, Kali. And the pronunciation of D’Arnot is still a mystery for me—it was transliterated as ڈارنوٹ, but considering that it’s a French name, I am guessing it’s pronounced something like داخ نو. Do let me know if you know.

Other surprises included knowing the backstory of Tarzan: why he was in Africa in the first place (his British parents were marooned by a gang of mutinous sailors), how he learnt how to swim and hunt, how—in an extremely persevering manner—he taught himself to read and write just by looking at a bunch of books and a dictionary (yep, Tarzan was not just super strong and super athletic, he was also super smart), how he discovered “civilization” when a party of British and American elite were marooned on his jungle, how his friend D’Arnot helped him in adjusting to the ways of the cultured man, and how Tarzan continued his adventures outside the jungle. All of this was so different from the usual Mazhar Kaleem’s Tarzan stories (where Tarzan had no other thing to do except picking fights with wehshi tribes and rescuing some random princess) that I was completely hooked and I soon finished all four books, only to start reading them again.

Time passed, and—cue some sad music—I lost my copies of Tarzan novels. But then I discovered some old tapes of Cassette Kahani that my parents had bought for us siblings, which I had previously ignored.

Cassette Kahani was a series of audio stories in Urdu, and they were absolutely brilliant—amazing voice acting, spell binding narratives, awesome background music, and overall great production. (They actually deserve a whole post of their own, and I found some resources out there for those who are interested.) Anyway, so in that series of audio stories they had presented Tarzan’s story too, and I was overjoyed to hear that the story they were telling was the same as I had read in the first two Ferozsons books of Tarzan. Listening to those stories was always a great pastime, and I with my siblings used to act out the lines of Tarzan and other characters. (One of our most favourite lines was Kerchak’s (leader of the apes) when he was trying to snatch some meat from Tarzan’s ape-mother, Kala: ”دے دے، دے دے۔ یہ گوشت مجھے دے دے، کالا!“)

Time passed, again, and—cue some more sad music—I lost my tapes of Tarzan’s Cassette Kahani too. I didn’t mourn for long; my attention was soon grabbed by Ishtiaq Ahmad’s novels and, eventually, the Imran Series.

A couple of months ago when I was getting bored in the office, I looked for Tarzan on Wikipedia, and found out that Edgar Rice Burroughs had written 26 books about the ape-man. A little bit of reading around the web also revealed that most of his later Tarzan books are seen as “formulaic”. Nevertheless, I just thought to read the first two anyway, because they were my most favourites and I had nothing else to do. So I headed over to Project Gutenberg and downloaded Tarzan of the Apes and The Return of Tarzan.

And boy, did that bring back memories. I never knew that after all this time, the abridged translation of Tarzan’s stories that I had read and listened to in my childhood was still buried deep inside my mind. As I continued to read on, I surprised myself by recalling many details, which only increased the pleasure and joy as I read again how John Clayton’s son became Tarzan. But the biggest surprises came when I read the plot elements that were censored by Ferozsons (rightly so since they were targeting children), including the details of the romance between Tarzan and Jane Porter.

Let me show you the love letter that Tarzan wrote to Jane in the jungle. (Keep in mind that he learnt to read and write English on his own, but couldn’t speak a word of it.)

I am Tarzan of the Apes. I want you. I am yours. You are mine. We live here together always in my house. I will bring you the best of fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats that roam the jungle. I will hunt for you. I am the greatest of the jungle fighters. I will fight for you. I am the mightiest of the jungle fighters. You are Jane Porter, I saw it in your letter. When you see this you will know that it is for you and that Tarzan of the Apes loves you.

Getting straight to the point, our dear ape-man. Burroughs preceded the letter with “While [Tarzan] waited he passed the time printing a message to [Jane] [...] in which he was not so uncivilized after all.”

I personally liked Olga de Coude—another romantic interest of Tarzan who, I believe, was completely omitted in the Ferozsons translation—better than Jane Porter. But since Burroughs was American, I guess he preferred an American girl over a Russian for his hero. *shrug*

Also removed in Ferozsons translations were the comparisons that Burroughs made between the jungle and the civilization (through Tarzan, of course). As a kid, these would have bored me to death (“Civilization held nothing like this in its narrow and circumscribed sphere, hemmed in by restrictions and conventionalities. Even clothes were a hindrance and a nuisance.” and “Who would go back to the stifling, wicked cities of civilized man when the mighty reaches of the great jungle offered peace and liberty? Not he.”), but reading them as an adult was amusing.

And then there was the wicked and cowardly Rokoff, who was an absolute pain in the ass. Of all the fiction I have ever read, there have only been two negative characters who have managed to get on my nerves. One is Dolores Umbridge, and the other is Nikolas Rokoff. I had decided not to read past the 2nd novel (because although I didn’t remember the details of the 3rd and 4th novels from my childhood, I did remember that my real favourites were only the first two), but when I read on Wikipedia that in the beginning of the 3rd novel (The Beasts of Tarzan), Rokoff escapes from the prison he was thrown into at the end of the 2nd novel, I just had to read it. And after Rokoff meets his absolutely hideous end, I didn’t read any further—even the remaining four chapters. (It might be the fact that I was getting bored of how Burroughs was stretching the story; in my opinion, Tarzan’s adventures should have ended with the 2nd novel. And it also might be the fact that I didn’t care much about Tarzan’s son.)

In the end, here’s a favourite excerpt of mine from the first novel. It happens after D’Arnot succeeds in making “Tarzan of the Apes a polished gentleman in so far as nicety of manners and speech were concerned.”

“There would be little pleasure in hunting,” retorted the first speaker, “if one is afraid of the thing he hunts.”

D’Arnot smiled. Tarzan afraid!

“I do not exactly understand what you mean by fear,” said Tarzan. “Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to harm him. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt.”

“Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king of beasts,” laughed the other, good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.

“And a piece of rope,” added Tarzan.

Just then the deep roar of a lion sounded from the distant jungle, as though to challenge whoever dared enter the lists with him.

“There is your opportunity, Monsieur Tarzan,” bantered the Frenchman.

“I am not hungry,” said Tarzan simply.

The men laughed, all but D’Arnot. He alone knew that a savage beast had spoken its simple reason through the lips of the ape-man.

“But you are afraid, just as any of us would be, to go out there naked, armed only with a knife and a piece of rope,” said the banterer. “Is it not so?”

“No,” replied Tarzan. “Only a fool performs any act without reason.”

“Five thousand francs is a reason,” said the other. “I wager you that amount you cannot bring back a lion from the jungle under the conditions we have named—naked and armed only with a knife and a piece of rope.”

Tarzan glanced toward D’Arnot and nodded his head.

“Make it ten thousand,” said D’Arnot.

“Done,” replied the other.

Tarzan arose.

Naturally, Tarzan wins the wager.

(Click on the images to view them in full size.)

The first novel of Ibn-e-Safi’s Imran Series that I ever laid my hands on was Khooni Fankar. It was given to me by a class fellow of mine — I was in class VI or VII at that time — and I couldn’t get past its first couple of pages. One reason was that Khooni Fankar was the second part of a storyline that had started in an earlier novel, Mona Lisa Ki Navasi. Another reason was that I was spoiled by reading the trash written by Mazhar Kaleem. Third reason was that I was just a kid.

I had first read the name “Ibn-e-Safi” in some trivia in Aankh Micholi, in which it was stated that he was the pioneer of detective fiction in Urdu. I was also surprised to learn that the characters of Ali Imran and Colonel Faridi were created by him. At that time, I had become quite a nerd of Ishtiaq Ahmad novels, and was beginning to become a Mazhar Kaleem nerd, a fact that I now deeply regret. The only good that I gained from reading Mazhar Kaleem’s books was that I was able to truly appreciate the originals once I started reading them.

So what’s this Imran Series, anyway?

For those of you who do not know, Imran Series is a series of novels written by Ibn-e-Safi about a fictional detective and spy, Ali Imran. Ibn-e-Safi started writing these novels somewhere in the 1950’s, and continued to write them till his death in 1980. This series, along with the Jasoosi Dunya (another series of novels written by Ibn-e-Safi and which featured the character, Colonel Faridi), is one of the best-selling works of fiction in Urdu. Strangely, I have never read any book from the Jasoosi Dunya, nor do I feel the urge to read them. I sometimes wonder why that is the case, and some of my speculations about it follow later in the post.

So, the Imran Series. In my opinion, the whole appeal of the series lies in its central character, Ali Imran. Here’s a character who is bright, handsome, strong, clever, and ruthless… and a moron.

Yes, I know that’s confusing — or even silly, if you are a new comer to Imran Series. But that’s the real genius of Ibn-e-Safi’s pen; he created a character whose personality is such a paradox that the readers always keep guessing, and enjoying. Imran’s most apparent characteristic is always described as his foolishness (combined with his very good looks), and it is emphasized many times that his goofy behaviour is sort of his second nature. Here’s an excerpt from the novel Mona Lisa Ki Navasi, in which two girls describe his appearance:

”میرا خیال ہے کہ ذرا سی دیر میں یہ رونا شروع کر دے گا۔!“ ڈرائیو کرنے والی ہنس کر بولی۔

”میری جان تو جل رہی ہے۔۔۔!“ دوسری بولی۔

”کیوں جانِ من۔۔۔!“

”اتنا ہینڈسم ہے۔۔۔ لیکن چہرے پر کیسی حماقت طاری ہے۔ ذرا تصور کرو اگر سمارٹ بھی ہوتا تو کیسا لگتا۔!“

”واقعی اتنے دلکش چہرے پر چھائی ہوئی بیوقوفی گراں گذرتی ہے۔!“

[۔۔۔]

”تو کیا تم کئی دنوں سے اس کے پیچھے ہو؟“

”نہیں صرف کل سے۔۔۔ کل میں نے اُسے ریالٹو میں دیکھا تھا۔۔۔ اپنی میز پر تنہا تھا۔ ویٹر نے اس کے قریب پہنچ کر سلام کیا اور وہ سلام کا جواب دے کر بوکھلائے ہوئے انداز میں اٹھ کھڑا ہوا اور اُس سے نہ صرف مصافحہ کیا بلکہ شاید سامنے والی کرسی پر بیٹھنے کی بھی استدعا کر ڈالی۔ ویٹر ہونقوں کی طرح اُس کی شکل دیکھے جا رہا تھا۔ پھر اچانک ایسا لگا جیسے اُسے اپنی حماقت کا احساس ہو گیا ہو۔ شرمندہ سا ہو کر بیٹھ گیا۔!“

Imran himself admits in one story that he is a fool of 1st degree in times of peace. However, his comical exterior serves as the perfect cover for his clandestine role of X-2, Chief of the Ministry of External Affairs’ Secret Service. As Ali Imran, he is a foolish young man, acting as an opportunist, police informer, blackmailer, and occasional detective. As X-2, however, he is ruthless, harsh, extremely diligent, and a sign of terror for his subordinates. During the whole course of the series, only three other people know that Ali Imran is actually X-2, and the way he guards his secret identity is highly entertaining.

What else does the Imran Series offer?

To start with, Imran Series is full of many, many interesting characters. From Ali Imran’s family to the Secret Service Members to the villains to the minor supporting characters — each and every one of them is a great joy to read. Unlike Mazhar Kaleem, who transformed almost every character into a pseudo-intellectual giant, Ibn-e-Safi kept his characters closer to real life. For example, Sulaiman, Imran’s personal chef, is an illiterate villager in the original Imran Series, and his dialogues and actions superbly portray his mindset. Mazhar Kaleem, on the other hand, glorified Sulaiman’s character to an extent that he even played X-2 in some books!

Next comes the story. Some of the early stories in the Imran Series are simple whodunit mysteries, in which Imran can be seen making new contacts and learning new tricks. In one of such stories, he helps Sir Sultan, a high ranking government official, who in return realizes his potential and offers him the secret position of X-2. Thus start Imran’s adventures as a secret agent, and that’s where the series begins to gain its momentum.

And then there’s the beautiful use of Urdu, which really makes for a very enjoyable read. The narration and the conversations just keep flowing smoothly, and even though the language is not overly nastaleeq, I often wonder if we are capable of speaking such Urdu these days, i.e., without overusing English. (Just take a look at the previous excerpt and see if you use words like طاری,‎ گراں,‎ مصافحہ, and استدعا in your everyday conversation.) And then there are dialogues that immensely helped me in pretending that I am an Urdu geek. For example, the following conversation, taken from Khair-andesh:

”آخر ہم کہاں چلے جا رہے ہیں۔“ جیمسن تھوڑی دیر بعد بڑبڑایا۔

”بس کچھ دور اور چل کر ہم گاڑی کا انتظار کریں گے۔“ عمران بولا۔

”کیا عالمِ بالا سے آئے گی۔“

”کہیں میں پھر تمہارے چہرے پر ڈاڑھی نہ اُگا دُوں۔“ عمران اسے گھورتا ہوا بولا۔

”اس غریب الوطنی میں میری تشویش حق بجانب ہے۔“

”مجھ سے زیادہ گاڑھی اردو نہ بولنا۔۔۔ اچھا۔۔۔ بیگل سے فون پر کسی کو ہدایات دے چکا ہوں۔ گاڑی ابھی پہنچ جائے گی۔“

”دیکھا آپ نے گاڑھی اردو کا کمال۔ آخر میری تشویش دور ہو گئی نا۔“

”میں تمہارے وجود کو منصۂ شہود سے نابود کر دوں گا۔“ عمران اسے گھونسہ دکھا کر بولا۔

”ارے باپ رے۔ اتنی گاڑھی حلق سے نہیں اتری یور میجسٹی۔“

”کان پکڑو۔ میں ظفر الملک نہیں ہوں۔“

”یہ لیجئے!“ جیمسن اپنا کان پکڑ کر بولا۔ ”مطلب بتا دیجئے۔“

”میں نے کہا تھا کہ میں تمہیں جان سے مار دوں گا۔“

”ایسی شاندار اردو میں مارنا ہے تو میں تیار ہوں۔“

I am guilty of using the manassah-e-shuhood sentence a couple of times in order to show off my Urdu skills. *wink*

Prefaces that Ibn-e-Safi used to write for every novel have always been very interesting to me. Mostly, they contained letters from readers and Ibn-e-Safi’s witty replies to them, or his take on readers’ reactions to some earlier novel, but sometimes they also included lighthearted commentary on any social issue. Here’s an excerpt from the preface of Mahaktay Muhafiz:

تیسرے صاحب نے بہت ہی بیڈھب سوال کیا ہے۔ وہ مجھ سے سچے مسلمان کی تعریف پوچھ رہے ہیں۔ میری سمجھ میں نہیں آتا کیا عرض کروں۔ ویسے اپنے آس پاس جس قسم کی باتیں سنتا رہتا ہوں اُس سے یہ نتیجہ اخذ کیا ہے کہ سچا مسلمان وہی ہے جس کی بیوی کو چشمِ فلک نے بھی نہ دیکھا ہو۔۔۔ واللہ اعلم بالصواب۔۔۔

Don’t judge a book by its cover

Specially if it’s a book from the Imran Series.

Since I have always seen and bought the re-prints of Imran Series novels, I have no idea what the covers of the original books looked like. (If any of you know anything about them, do let me know.) The very first novels that I’d bought had the same cover, and it looked like this:

Pretty simple and, well, dull. I have always wondered, by the way, if the black figure in this drawing should have yellow eyes instead of white. I mean, the red figure is on a blue background and has blue eyes; the yellow figure is on the red figure and has red eyes; so the black figure, which is on the yellow figure, should have yellow eyes. It’s only logical, no?

But anyway. Regardless of the choices of eye-colors for the weird looking armed figures, the cover is not that horrible. Yes, it’s clumsy, and a rather bad attempt to use abstract art for a spy novel series, but it, sort of, works… somehow.

Some years ago, Asrar Publications, the regular publishers of Imran Series, started publishing the novels in a new format. They took all the novels in a multi-part storyline and combined them in a single volume, so instead of 120 books, we now have 37 volumes. Now that’s a pretty smart decision, and it helps the readers to maintain their collection with less hassle. I, however, do have a problem with these volumes and — yep, you guessed it — it’s the covers.

Take the following cover, for example:

You might want to ask: what the hell is Catherine Zeta-Jones doing on the cover of an Imran Series volume?

But before you even try to think for an answer, I invite you to take a look at the following cover:

Now what the bloody hell is Robert De Niro doing on the cover of an Imran Series volume?

And that’s not all. I have seen Steve Buscemi, Nicolas Cage, Jackie Chan, Harrison Ford, and Jack Nicholson… all of them “featured” on covers of different Imran Series volumes. Combine them with that brilliant design work (which seems to be done by a Photoshop enthusiast who possessed only the mechanical knowledge of photo-editing) and you have an absolute masterpiece. And don’t get me started on the horrible typography (but then, most publishers of Urdu books don’t care much about typography anyway).

If you ask me, I would prefer that bland, old cover of three seemingly burqa-clad, armed figures any day over the new and glossy Hollywood-inspired paste jobs.

What else?

Honestly speaking, I’d be very surprised if someone makes it this far into the post.

I wanted to write about why I hate Mazhar Kaleem novels, why I’ve never bothered reading a Jasoosi Dunya novel, and why I sometimes shake my head at the science fiction presented by Ibn-e-Safi. Don’t get me wrong, Ibn-e-Safi’s science fiction is not that absurd. Sometimes, however, he does use terms which show his lack of research on the topic, but that’s very rare. He once stated that a writer’s task is to review all possibilities, and with the exception of few cases, he does that job very well.

But anyway, since this post is already much longer than I had planned, I think I should stop now. I’ll save the rant against Mazhar Kaleem for a future post.

“What if you walk along and everything that you see is more than what you see—the person in the T-shirt and slacks is a warrior, the space that appears empty is a secret door to an alternate world? What if, on a crowded street, you look up and see something appear that should not, given what we know, be there? You either shake your head and dismiss it or you accept that there is much more to the world than we think. Perhaps it really is a doorway to another place. If you choose to go inside you might find many unexpected things.”

—Sigeru Miyamoto (creator of the famous video game character, Mario)

When I was buying a copy of Game Over, I didn’t know it would become one of my favourite books. I was just scrolling through the shelves of an old book shop, and this book caught my eye. It was about a Japanese company, Nintendo, and told the story of its success in America’s video game industry. I am not a ‘regular’ player of video games. I like them, but I like making them more (read: dream about making them. Well, someday I might join this field professionally, who knows. But they also say that if you want to make good video games, you have to play good video games first. I say that that would suppress my creativity! But anyway, I didn’t want to talk about my dreams when I started writing this).

I still don’t know what made me buy this book. I bought it about two years ago, and still remember the details. I had held the book in my hands, read the author’s name (David Sheff), checked its binding, skimmed through some of its pages, guessed about its weight, and decided to buy it. It costed me Rs. 75. (The book’s back cover says U.S. $13.00, though). I had thought that it would make a good decoration-piece for my book shelf. It sure did, but when I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. It’s almost as absorbing as a great video game, and for me, a great source of information and entertainment.

Now this seems like I am writing a review. Actually, I was thinking about what to write, when I decided to post some of my favourite lines from some of my favourite books. I started with Game Over, and then ended up writing about it. I guess it proves that I am a great mind-changer. But even if it’s a review I am writing, it’s a bad review. Doesn’t say much about the book.

Or perhaps it does. But I don’t want to figure out. I have an apple to eat.