Jhootay Roop Ke Darshan [Vision of a False Form]

By: Raja Anwar

Narrated by: Fawad Khan

Raja Anwar is a Pakistani journalist, writer, and former PPP political activist. He belongs to the Bhakral Rajput clan. He was born in Kallar Syedan Tehsil.

Anwar was appointed as an adviser on Students and Labour in Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government (1974-1977). He escaped to Afghanistan after Bhutto was toppled by a right-wing military coup led by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.

In Kabul, Anwar joined Bhutto's elder son, Murtaza Bhutto, and formed Al-Zulfiqar, a leftist insurgency committed to toppling the Zia dictatorship. Raja Anwar had a falling with Murtaza over the latter's controversial terror tactics in 1980 and wanted to return to Pakistan and help Murtaza's sister, Benazir Bhutto's political struggle against Zia. Anwar was imprisoned in a Kabul jail, the Pul-e-Charkhi, but was released in 1985 after Murtaza shifted his operations to Syria.

He came to attention for his book Jhootay Roop Ke Darshan, which is based on his love letters to his secret girlfriend KANWAL(The daughter of a high rank retired army officer), and her replies, during their tenure at Punjab University from 1970 to 1972.

'All minors stand to one side and hold your ears!' The hall was filled with excitement, this phrase was strange to all of us, it had been a long time since we had crossed the walls of puberty so we looked at Dishekre standing in front of us in amazement. Dishakre laughed devilishly and said, "He who has recited 'Jhootay Roop Ke Darshan' is an adult and he who is still deprived of it is a minor, so quickly decide which of you is the minor and the adult." 'Who?' We were all unfamiliar with this puberty test, so we quietly held our ears and Dashakara along with his companions went through our rituals in great detail.

This incident took place in 1989 in the 9th hostel of Punjab University. I was a fresher in LLB, when I went to the hostel, the senior students started ragging on us on the first night. The leader of the seniors, Mandi Bahauddin, was a chadhar, looked and sounded like a bully, while all of us were small children. Dishekre Chadhar's only criterion of puberty was that any student who had read the book Jhote Roop Ke Darshan was an adult in his eyes and the rest were minors. Bahauddin, Phalia and Gondal, Ranjhe and Chadhar of Sargodha kept playing the tabla all night at our ceremonies. I bought "Jhote Roop Ke Darshan" from the university bookshop first thing the next morning and was the first adult before evening.

This was my first introduction to Raja Anwar, Raja Anwar was the name of a talismanic figure. He got admission in the philosophy department of Punjab University, he was intelligent and well-educated, he was also good-looking and he was also appointed as a block holder, so he became famous in the whole university. He fell in love with a girl named Kanwal of the Education Department, both of them used to write letters to each other, the love ended but the letters survived. Raja Anwar published this letter in the form of a book called "Jhote Roop Ke Darshan" and this book created a stir in the whole country. In our times, this book used to be part of the extra-curricular curriculum of students, it was not possible for a young person to enter Punjab University without reading this book.

Raja Anwar is now in Pakistan, lives near my house, I meet him occasionally. These are very wonderful people, Allah Almighty has blessed them with the three blessings of vision, experience and feeling. I have not seen a better prose writer than him in Pakistan, he does not write with words, he writes with emotions and he does not write with pen, he writes with clarinet, flute and harmonium, Allah Almighty has given him immense fluency. I claim you just start writing one of them, it won't let you look left or right after that. Whenever I read his writings, I think if there was no Raja Anwar, how these echoes of the past would have reached us, how would we have known them, so thank you Raja Sahib! You are great.

Please note: This audiobook is in Urdu.

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