“Begum” by Ibn-e Sa’id (1924 – 2005)
Translated by Shama Askari
M.H. Askari alias Ibn-e-Sa’id was a veteran journalist and a political analyst. He was born on 12 December 1924 in Ludhiana, in undivided India. His father Professor Mirza Mohammed Sa’id, was a distinguished scholar serving as the principal of Government College Ludhiana, at that time. M.H. Askari wrote under the pen-name Ibn-e-Sa’id from 1945-58. His work was published by leading literary magazines such as Saqi, Naya Daur, Mah-e Nau among others. He passed away in 2005 in Karachi.
Ibn-e-Sa’id’s work was largely forgotten. It was under the aegis of Dr Asif Farrukhi that I embarked on a journey rediscovering Askari’s writings, and discovered two manuscripts of his unpublished novellas as well as numerous short stories in several magazines. A compilation of his Urdu short stories titled Intiḳhāb Series, and his novellas Mehvar and Raushnioñ kā Sheher were published by Oxford University Press, Karachi, in 2017.
Works cited
Translated from “Begum” Māh-e-Nau, Karachi, December 1954 (pp.29-42)
Translated from “Intiḳhāb Ibn-e-Sa’id;” Urdu Afsāne, Tartīb aur Intiḳhāb: Asif Farrukhi, OUP, Karachi, 2018 (pp. ذ)
Shama Askari has been associated with the performing arts for the last twenty years. She started her acting career in theatre in 1999, with Tehrik-e-Niswan, and then moved on to television, film, and dramatized readings, performing all over Pakistan as well as India. In 2021, Shama was selected to be a part of the Transforming Narratives – Cultural Leadership Programme supported by the British Council, which provided a platform for collaboration between creatives from UK, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. She completed a project ‘Producers of the Future: From Keighley to Karachi’, led by the Bradford Literature Festival 2021. She worked with the Adab Festival Pakistan and was the Project Director of the festival in 2022. She has worked with Dr Asif Farrukhi compiling and collecting Ibn-e-Sa’id’s work, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. A collection of Ibn-e-Sa’id’s work titled, ‘Hiroshima and Other Stories’ was translated into English and published by Lightstone Publishers in 2022. She was the runner-up for the translation award, Jawad Memorial Prize, 2022. She is looking forward to exploring the realm of translations as a means of connecting and communicating with a wider readership.
“Begum” by Ibn-e Sa’id (1924 – 2005) © 2023 by Shama Askari is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
