The ‘heptula’ continues

As India and Pakistan commemorated their Independence Days, a recent Global Southasia article about cross-border love and friendship reminded this writer about a meaningless word for absurdities, coined by Manto

Come let us talk about your visit now that you have come to me
Now that you have come to me, what should I present to you
As besides my love and loyalty I have nothing else to offer
Except for a forlorn hope, nothing else to offer.

These are lines from a poem by great poet and humanitarian Ali Sardar Jafri, written after meeting his old friend Faiz Ahmed Faiz, another poet and humanitarian in 1966 in Cairo.

This was probably the first time they had met after the 1947 Partition. 

Their meeting took place a few months after the 1965 Pakistan-India war, at a literary event both were attending in Cairo. 

They had known each other for 30 years and had been comrades-in-arms during the pre-partition days of Progressive Writers Movement. Now they were citizens of different countries who had fought wars in which soldiers from both sides had killed each other. 

Here are the lines in Urdu, followed by a transliteration:

آؤ آنے کی کریں باتیں کہ تم آئے ہو

اب تم آئے ہو تو میں کون سی شے نذر کرو

کہ مرے پاس بجز مہر و وفا کچھ بھی نہیں

ایک خوں گشتہ تمنا کے سوا کچھ بھی نہی

(aao aane kī kareñ bāteñ ki tum aa.e ho
ab tum aa.e ho to maiñ kaun sī shai nazr karo
ki mire paas ba-juz mehr o vafā kuchh bhī nahīñ
ek ḳhūñ-gashta tamannā ke sivā kuchh bhī nahīñ)

Both poets never wavered from their principles that we need a fairer world, always hoped that Pakistan and India would one day live in peace.

Indo-Pak mushaira

When they met in Cairo, the atmosphere between their countries was still tense. When Faiz Sahib was invited to an event at the Indian embassy he declined. However, when local students asked him to be part of an Indo-Pak mushaira he agreed, as did Ali Sardar.

It was on this occasion that Ali Sardar recited this poem which stole the show and became forever associated with Faiz Sahib.

The poem creates a perfect blend of melancholy and happiness. It is about separations and meetings and the fact that sometimes those who live far away from us are closer to us than those who we see every day.

I was reminded of this incident and of the poem after reading a moving article on the friendship between Syed Babar Ali and Sardar Harcharan Brar by Beena Sarwar,  published by Global Southasia (formerly Sapan News).

The relationship between Syed Babar Ali and Sardar Harcharan Brar was another such friendship. They became friends during their boyhood in Lahore, and although Harcharan Brar had to leave Lahore in 1947, their friendship endured and its legacy remains, long after Brar Sahib passed away in 2009.

I was reminded of another such friendship, that between the iconic writer Saadat Hasan Manto and the actor Shayam Sunder. Of course, Manto and Shayam were not friends during their boyhood — that was when Manto lived in places which later became India, while Shayam lived in places that became Pakistan. 

The two met much later in Bombay where they had relocated to seek their fortunes in the film industry, Manto as a script writer and Shayam as an actor. 

Shayam became famous soon after partition but tragically died in 1951 in a horse-riding accident while shooting a film. His wife Mumtaz Qureshi known as Taji, moved to Pakistan with their son and daughter. The daughter Sahira Kazmi is a famous television actor and director. 

The friendship between Manto and Shayam had survived the Partition but as Manto wrote in the obituary he penned on Shayam’s passing, it was never the same after 1947.

When he read about Shayam’s death in the newspaper, Manto was confined to an asylum in Lahore for detoxification. He wrote an article titled, ‘Murli key Dhun’ (Rhythm of the flute) as an obituary, republished in the digital Urdu archive Rekhta.org. 

Shayam and Lahore

Shayam had briefly visited Lahore the year before his death. Manto wrote about his visit: 

‘Shayam was in a strange state of mind. He was very aware of his presence in Lahore. The Lahore, whose various streets used to be sprinkled with his romances. The Lahore whose distance from Amritsar had suddenly become several thousand miles, and where was his Rawalpindi, where he had spent his days of boyhood? Lahore, Amritsar and Rawalpindi were all where they used to be, but those days and nights that Shayam had left here were no longer there. No one knows where the mortician of politics had buried them.’ 

These words resonate with the closing lines of Ali Sardar’s poem written after his meeting with Faiz, shared above.

Manto ends his obituary of Shayam with these lines: 

“Today is 15th of August, the day India and Pakistan got their independence. On both sides there are celebrations, and at the same time preparations for war. I ask the soul of Shayam, ‘Dear Shayam, I left Bombay Talkies, can Pandit Nehru not leave Kashmir…  Isn’t it a heptula situation!’”

‘Heptula’ was a meaningless word that Manto had coined to use for something rather absurd.

One wonders, isn’t this the reason for all conflicts? That people take a stance and refuse to budge from it, regardless of how much suffering and pain this causes. Isn’t this obstinate behaviour that is responsible for the ongoing animosity between India and Pakistan?

To me, it all feels very heptula.

Aamir Butt is a UK-based retired medical professional from Pakistan and the author of two books, ‘Lahore: Places, People, Stories’ (2024) and ‘Evolution of Progressive Urdu Poetry in Lahore’ (2025), both published by Aks, Lahore. Parts of this piece were originally published on his Facebook page

This is a Global Southasia (formerly Sapan News) syndicated feature available for republication with due credit to sapannews.com. 

Why ‘Southasia’ as one word? Because our histories entangle, our struggles intersect, and our futures are bound together.

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