پا به پای صادق هدایت در هند

Sadegh Hedayat visited India and was back to Tehran in September 1937. But his exact date of arrival in India is still a mystery. However, it is confirmed that he visited many cities of incredible India like Bombay, Bangalore, Hyderabad etc. in the years 1936-37. Hedayat’s tryst with India was quite friendly and his later writings covered a great deal of depiction of that country. The stories that he had written in the post period of his visit to India consists of beautiful tapestry of Indian believes, culture, customs and tradition and his seminal work The Blind Owl can be seen as one of the finest pieces of Indo Persian literature where he made a fusion of Iranian plot with the elements of Indian customs and culture. It was the article- Hindustan Dar Aieneh-i-Buf-i-Kur, written by Dr. Syed Akhtar Husain which made the world realize that, a writer who had spent around two years in India and infused India in his Persian writings, ironically, remained unnoticed by the Indians. Hedayat who depicted the history and culture of India in his writings at the time when India was witnessing the twilight of Persian literature in the sub-continent. Dr Hussain believes that Indian scholars must come forward to write details of Hedayat’s footsteps in India in order to pay him their debt. Being a student of Indo Persian literature and of Dr. Syed Akhtar Husain, I deem it my duty to write in this article about the foot prints of Sadegh Hedayat in India through his letters and stories. This article is a result of my visit to the places where Hedayat was moving during his stay in India, his friends and hosts in India and ups and downs he faced in the country- all has been covered in this paper along with the photographs.