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MUZAFFAR ALI
interviewed at his home in Kaiserbagh, Lucknow, on 26 March 1997
noted film director, bohemian, long-hair bearded, leather
waistcoat; scion of a talaqdar family, and steeped in Lucknowi
culture; magnificent family haveli in Kaiserbagh, well kept, with
b + w photos of his father on the wall; has made filmes about
Lucknow - presebtly making a film about partition and Lucknow, a
love story about a girl whose family is intent on going to
Pakistan and a boy (loosely modelled on his father) who insists on
staying; also organises qawwali festivals; ancestral village in
Samaroh; from a Shia taluqdar family
208 - Lucknowi culture began its decline from 1857; after that
'Urdu was no linked to any kind of econ development' -
lang of econ devt was and remains English
231 - 'the focus of Urdu was really Delhi and Lucknow ... and
there ... I wd say it was a lang of integration ... and
it had a v v beautiful dimension of aesthetics, the
poetry in Urdu, the ghazal', with influence of Persian
imagery
246 - 'after the partn, H replacd U in a v big way, cos India
began to look for a lang of identity, a kind of a lang
which was difft from Urdu; the whole process of Ind'tion
was to weed out the Persian influence from the lang, and
to create a more Indian version of H'stani; this was a
deliberate effort on the lang front, esp after 47'
260 - 'it was more the creation of a lang of Indian identity,
and U became an obvious victim of that; I think this
process started even before partn, which really created
an alienation among the people who spoke Urdu ...
that's what the form of Pak a lot of impetus and
strength'
278 - 'I think it's saddening cos it's the lang of the heart,
it's the lang of the soul, and so much beauty is
there in the lang that its imposs to replace, so my
lamentation is more on the aesthetic side, and also
it's a lang of spirituality ... that it's very sad to
see this lang go down'
288 - but silver lining in that film indu has adopted Urdu
as a lang of romance - and narrowing of cultural borders
300 - 'I'd say [U] was weakened more by the att than by the act
of partn cos people who came from Pak were all U-knowing
people, the entire Punjabi popn that came from Pak ...
and the people who went from here, they didn't go to a
naturally U-sp area, they went to an U-knowing area but
not an U-sp area, so the loss was in a way more there,
cos the U of Pak is v difft from the U of Lucknow'
320 - 'Ms are and were v much part of N I society, you cannot
imagine n I soc without Ms having a part in it ... they
were resp for creating craft ... so many other aspects of
society'
343 - Ms now marginalised politically but v strong in making or
breaking of a govt sitn, and learnt to co-exist with
other comms; 'there is some semblance of integration in |
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