Dareechah-e-Nigaarish

Upon reading my extended excerpt from Abdullah Hussein's novel "Baagh" Mohtarama Fahmida Riaz commented thus:
ویسے مصنف نے اس ناول میں کہنا کیا چاہا ہے ، آپ کو کچھ اندازہ ہوا ؟  ۔ . ۔ سانس کی بیماری اورجنل سمبل نہیں ہے یہ ٹامس ماں کی میجک ماونٹین سے لیا معلوم ہوتا ہے ویسے میجک ماونٹین کا ہیرو بھی ایک پہاڑ پر علاج کرانے جاتا ہے ۔۔
Translation: What did Abdullah Hussein want to say in this novel... do you know? The protagonist in this novel has trouble breathing but this is not an original symbol... it seems to be borrowed from Thomas Mann's "Magic Mountain" where that novel's hero also goes to a mountain resort to cure his breathing problem.... Fahmida Riaz.

In Reply to Fahmida Riaz :
Mohtaram Fahmida Apa: Many thanks for your comment... my personal opinion after reading ALL of Abdullah Hussein's writings as well as those of Quratulain Haider is that Abdullah Hussein did NOT use symbolism as his dominant story telling method... his writings may have symbols (such as the penniless vendor who stops his bicycle at every road crossing and yells out "Chor Ucchakka Chaudhry tay Ghundee Run Pardhaan!" but they are secondary in his style of story telling... so whether a reader like you is reminded of Thomas Mann's symbols when reading Abdullah Hussein's "Baagh" is immaterial.

Abdullah Hussein may have read Thomas Mann's creation which you refer to (Magic Mountain) and it may have resonated within him to such an extent that he ended up using it in his own work... speculative but possible. However, it has no relevance to the main thrust or main message of Baagh... Abdullah Hussein meant Baagh to be read as a Love Story (that was the sub-title he typed out below the main title "Baagh"; he wanted Udaas Naslein to be read as a love story too).

Personal, palpable, soul fulfilling love between man and woman is the theme of "Baagh" and he wants to show us a very "up close and personal" portrait of such love and how it is thwarted by the Evil (hence the Tiger or Baagh) lurking within human society. In Baagh, the evil is in the shape of the scheming Pakistan Army ISI official who recruits Asad for espionage in Indian Occupied Kashmir and who is the ultimate assassin of Asad at the end of the story. If you do want to drag symbolism into this then the Tiger or Baagh is the Pakistani Establishment and the prey or "shikaar" are the Pakistani people!!

Abdullah Hussein shows a radiant and living, breathing portrait of human love to us at many places in Baagh and especially in its last scene where Yasmeen clings desperately to Asad during their last night together !! The same can be said of many scenes in Udaas Naslein between Naeem and Azra and also for many scenes depicted in his last novel, Naadaar Loag. Abdullah Hussein's use of the Urdu language is humanistic, warm, palpable and direct (you won't find too many cold, calculated "symbols" in his writings) ... this sort of story telling is what Nobel Laureate Chinese novelist Gao Xinjiang called "the actualization of Language!!"

Symbols may be present in Abdullah Hussein's works but they play a secondary role (in my humble opinion) in the story telling art of Abdullah Hussein. Otherwise, his writings would have remained obscure and would be read by only a few critics who focused on Symbolism in Art. However, the general Pakistani reading public immediately welcomed and embraced Abdullah Hussein's writings (they couldn't have cared less if he used symbols or not) and he became an overnight success in 1963 after publication of Udaas Naslein .... he won the prestigious Adam Jee Award for it and his fame has been spreading to India and to the world ever since!!