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Tilism e Hoshruba: Intikhab / طلسم ہوش ربا
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1953
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December 18, 2020
Tilism e Hoshruba is Urdu's great fantasy epic.Google tells me that the original version was over eight thousand pages long.
It is an Urdu Game of Thrones,to use a rough analogy.It began as oral storytelling in the Muslim parts of India,and was later patronised by some Mughal emperors as well.
There are evil villians,magic,sorcerers,non stop battles and conquest and the inevitable triumph of good over evil.
When I was a kid,I read its simplified version in ten volumes.It was good fun for that age group.
But,it had been massively sanitised for a younger audience.
I did want to read the original version,but its sheer length and lack of availability put me off.Besides,the Urdu used is of an ancient variety which I found difficult to read at times.
I found this book online,it includes brief selected passages from the original.
This time,the language used in the original version surprised me. It is very erotic,meant to titillate the audience with rather graphic descriptions of females.
I couldn't help thinking that Urdu storytellers could get away with such things in the centuries gone by.If such a thing were to be published today in Pakistan,all hell would break loose and it could create all kinds of controversy.
Despite its classic status as a fantasy epic,there is a lot of repetition of the same kind of events in Tilism e Hoshruba,which gets tiresome quickly.And I certainly wouldn't be able to slog through the whole original version.
It is an Urdu Game of Thrones,to use a rough analogy.It began as oral storytelling in the Muslim parts of India,and was later patronised by some Mughal emperors as well.
There are evil villians,magic,sorcerers,non stop battles and conquest and the inevitable triumph of good over evil.
When I was a kid,I read its simplified version in ten volumes.It was good fun for that age group.
But,it had been massively sanitised for a younger audience.
I did want to read the original version,but its sheer length and lack of availability put me off.Besides,the Urdu used is of an ancient variety which I found difficult to read at times.
I found this book online,it includes brief selected passages from the original.
This time,the language used in the original version surprised me. It is very erotic,meant to titillate the audience with rather graphic descriptions of females.
I couldn't help thinking that Urdu storytellers could get away with such things in the centuries gone by.If such a thing were to be published today in Pakistan,all hell would break loose and it could create all kinds of controversy.
Despite its classic status as a fantasy epic,there is a lot of repetition of the same kind of events in Tilism e Hoshruba,which gets tiresome quickly.And I certainly wouldn't be able to slog through the whole original version.
Displaying 1 of 1 review