By TwoCirels.net Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: The Sahitya Akademi (Academy of Letters) has conferred its translation award for the year on Ather Farouqui, a distinguished intellectual, prolific writer-activist and General Secretary of the Anjuman Taraqqi-e Urdu (Hind) for his Urdu and Hindi translations (Babur ki Aulad) of Sons of Babur, an English play scripted by Union External Affairs Minister, Salman Khurshid.
Speaking to TCN Farouqui express his happiness. He added, “the book is important for it highlights the fact generally put aside by writers in Urdu, like no Mughal Emperor performed hujj, or many a times they did not marry their queen.”
Ather Farouqui
Farouqui has not only translated the play but has also been its producer. The play has rung up 30 very successful performances in India and abroad. It was first staged in 2008 at an unusual venue—Saudi Arabia—and the silver jubilee performance was staged at FICCI auditorium on September 15, 2012 in New Delhi.
In addition, there was a command performance of the play for the former Honourable President, Pratibha Patil, at Rashtrapati Bhawan. It was also performed in London on 10 October 2012.
Ather Farouqui, who has a Ph.D from Jawaharlal Nehru University, was born in 1964 in Sikandrabad, where he did his schooling. Later he came to Delhi and joined JNU, first for a part-time diploma in mass media in 1986, then for his M.Phil in 1988. He went on to do his Ph.D there, with the degree conferred on him in 1996.
Farouqui did his doctorate under the guidance of the celebrated Professor Imtiaz Ahmad and worked on the socio-political study of Urdu in post-partition India for both his M.Phil and Ph.D degrees.
While he has no literary pretensions, Farouqui has written extensively on various aspects of Urdu, Urdu-related politics and Muslims in contemporary India. Apart from his prolific output in newspapers and academic journal, Farouqui also has six books to his credit – two of these are in English and have been published by Oxford University Press: Redefining Urdu Politics in India (2006), and Muslims and Media Images (2009).
The remaining are in Urdu: Azad Hindustan Mai Urdu Siyasat Ki Tahfim-e Nau; Urdu Zaban, Talim Aur Sahafat; Guftagu unki,Na-Mukammil and a book each on leading Urdu writers Rashid Hasan Khan and Makhmoor Saidi.
Some 15 years back, Farouqui also rendered the Kulliyat of noted Urdu poet and dialogue writer, Akhtar-ul Iman, into Devnagari script; this too was published. He has also made a very successful two-part documentary on Akhtar-ul Iman.
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