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Introduction

Introduction A L O K B H A L L A Every people has its tolerant path, its religion and its temple. nizamuddin auliya Before I met Intizar Husain in Lahore, I was told that he was a simple man of gentle wit and great learning who was always willing to travel miles to pay homage to an old banyan tree or an ancient village well. Since I was familiar with his stories, I recognised that his search for a many-rooted banyan tree or a well resonating with the uncanny was not a strange eccentricity. In his stories, a well with a parapet or a banyan tree with its spreading shade were sites of a soul-saving pilgrimage his wanderers felt compelled to make to places of continuous replenishment and generous shelter. The well, in his fictional mythos, was connate with the sacred foundations of a human settlement, and the banyan was a privileged village-centre under whose shade all claims about the innate differences between the sage, the beast, the parrot, and the jinn were inadmissible and unsustainable. The well and the banyan were, for him, the abiding and organising symbols of an older cultural faith of the subcontinent, which http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Manoa University of Hawai'I Press

Introduction

Bhalla, Alok
Manoa , Volume 27 (1) – Sep 29, 2015
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University of Hawai'I Press
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Copyright © 2008 University of Hawai'i Press.
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1527-943x
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Abstract

A L O K B H A L L A Every people has its tolerant path, its religion and its temple. nizamuddin auliya Before I met Intizar Husain in Lahore, I was told that he was a simple man of gentle wit and great learning who was always willing to travel miles to pay homage to an old banyan tree or an ancient village well. Since I was familiar with his stories, I recognised that his search for a many-rooted banyan tree or a well resonating with the uncanny was not a strange eccentricity. In his stories, a well with a parapet or a banyan tree with its spreading shade were sites of a soul-saving pilgrimage his wanderers felt compelled to make to places of continuous replenishment and generous shelter. The well, in his fictional mythos, was connate with the sacred foundations of a human settlement, and the banyan was a privileged village-centre under whose shade all claims about the innate differences between the sage, the beast, the parrot, and the jinn were inadmissible and unsustainable. The well and the banyan were, for him, the abiding and organising symbols of an older cultural faith of the subcontinent, which

Journal

Manoa – University of Hawai'I Press

Published: Sep 29, 2015

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