The Taste of Words: An Introduction to Urdu Poetry (7 page)

Insha Allah Khan ‘Insha’ (1756–1817) symbolized the ways in which one could claim, quite unselfconsciously, that Urdu and Hindi were truly the same language. The felicity with which he moved from his Persianized ghazals to his Hindi-identified poems like ‘
Rani Ketki ki Kahani
’
1
was not only wonderful but, as it were, unremarkable in those times. Unfortunately, he also epitomized the capricious future that lay in store for the poet who depended on royal patronage. Insha’s best poems were written in his final days, as he, spurned by his sponsors and penniless, lost his beloved son to illness and death, and inhabited the twilight zone between grief and madness.

Of the two ghazals I translate here, the famous ‘
Insha-ji utho
’ has been sung beautifully by Amanat Ali Khan, the maestro of the Patiala gharana. Mohammad Rafi sang his even more lugubrious and fatalistic ‘
Kamar baandhe hue
’
as a non-film piece.

Insha-ji utho, ab kuchh karo, is shahr mein jee ka lagaana kya?

Vahshi ko sukoon se kya matlab? Jogi ka nagar mein thikaana kya?

Is dil ke dareeda-daaman ko dekho to sahi, socho to sahi

Jis jholi mein sau chhed hue us jholi ko phailaana kya?

Shab beeti chaand bhi doob gaya, zanjeer padi darvaaze mein

Kyon der gaye ghar aaye ho sajni se karoge bahana kya?

Us husn ke sanche moti ko hum dekh saken par chhoo na saken?

Jise dekh saken par chhoo na saken, vo daulat kya? Vo khazaana kya?

Jab shahr ke log na rasta den, kyon ban mein na ja bisraam kare?

Deevanon ki si na baat kare to aur kare deevana kya?

Arise, Insha-ji, let’s depart

This city’s no place to settle down

We are madmen, we abhor peace

Mendicants have no place in a town.

Cast a glance at your tattered soul

Ponder awhile, with reason calm

Your heart’s but a shroud pierced with holes

Dare you use it to beg for alms?

The night is done, the moon is down

A strong secure chain locks your gate

How’ll you explain to your love now

The reason you’ve returned this late?

Her beauty is a pearl, but I

Can merely watch but dare not touch

Such treasure is hardly worth much,

Eludes the grasp and haunts the eye.

If city-dwellers forsake me

Should I in forests seek respite?

I am fated to insane speech

For such talk is the madman’s plight.

Kamar baandhe hue chalne ko yaan sab yaar baithe hain

Bahut aage gaye, baaqi jo hain, taiyyar baithe hain

Na chhed ai nakhat-e baad-e bahaari raah lag apni

Tujhe ath-kheliyaan soojhi hai, hum bezaar baithe hain

Tasavvur arsh pe hai aur sar hai paa-e saaqi par

Gharaz kuchh aur dhun mein is ghadi mai-khwaar baithe hain

Bhalaa gardish falak ki chain deti hai kise, Insha?

Ghaneemat hai ke ham-soorat yahaan do-chaar baithe hain

My friends stand packed, ready to leave, determined, absolute

Some have left, the rest await departure, quite resolute

Bother me not, be on your way, O fragrant breeze of spring

I am at despair’s door, while you wish to gambol and sing

Prostrate before the cupbearer, with thoughts that reach the sky

The drinkers sway to strange rhythms, while I silently sigh

Insha, seek no solace in this mad whirlpool of the fates

Be grateful that, in this strange land, you’ve found a few soulmates

Mir Babar Ali Anees (1803–74) bestrode Urdu poetry like a colossus in the early nineteenth century, which is remarkable considering the fact that his poetry dealt nearly exclusively with religious themes and more specifically with the passion play of Karbala which dominates the religious narratives of Shia Islam. His contribution to the marsiya (or elegiac poetry) genre was so breathtaking that it informed the entire broader corpus of Urdu poetry. The marsiya is an epic poem with between 100 and 200 stanzas of six lines each, where, typically, the first four lines rhyme, as do the last two.
1

For this volume, I have chosen to translate from two of Anees’s poems, both regrettably brief. I began by translating a six-line verse from a marsiya that I placed in the introductory discussion on poetic form
.
The second piece that I have placed below comprises five verses of a marsiya, which is quite regularly performed at Shia religious gatherings called
majalis.
I have heard this poem since my childhood, and can never read or hear it without tears spontaneously welling up in my eyes. The verses I have chosen provide a unique tableau, where the unfolding drama of Imam Husain’s sacrifice is being narrated to angels and prophets by God (indeed, to me it is metaphorically symmetrical that Anees has a God-like command over his language). God instructs his audience to see this moment of martyrdom as the ultimate expression of closeness between the creator and the subject. The last verse shifts the action back to the desert of Karbala, where Husain is on the ground, and his executioner readies himself for the final blow. In a few short verses Anees moves from grandeur to pathos, from the depiction of Husain’s power and stature to that of his helplessness, from his exalted position in the eyes of God to the utter hatred his killers exhibited toward him and his family.

Readers may please note the similarities in language and scene construction of Anees’s and Dabeer’s work to Brij Narain Chakbast’s verses about the Ramayana. The power of the musaddas shines in the work of this triumvirate, even more than in the hands of other exponents like Hali and Iqbal.

Jab pareshan hui maula ki jamaa’at ran mein

Har namaazi ko pasand aayi iqaamat ran mein

Qibla-e deen ne kiya qasd-e ibaadat ran mein

Shakl-e mehraab bani tegh-e shahaadat ran mein

Ghul hua, is ko Imam-e do-jahaan kehte hain

Teghon ke saaye mein Shabbir azaan kehte hain

Qudrat-e Haq se dareeche hue firdaus ke vaa

Daf-atan khul gaye dar-haa-e falak sar ta paa

Ek-ba ek uth gaye sab parda-e arsh-e aala

Ambiya-o-malak-o-hoor ko pahunchi ye sada

Qadr-daan is ka main hoon, mera shanaasa hai ye

Kyon na ho? Mere Mohammad ka navaasa hai ye.

Ye vo taa’at hai, ke tanhaa hi adaa karte hain

Mere aashiq tah-e shamsheer raha karte hain

Sar qalam hota hai, vo shukr-e khuda karte hain

Sadiq-ul vaada yoonhi vaada vafaa karte hain

Hum namaaz is ke janaaze ki jo padhwaaenge

Tum bhi jaana ke rasoolan-e salaf jaayenge

Saakin-e arsh-e bareen karne lage naala-o-aah

Shah takbeer yahaan keh chuke, Allah Allah

Aur iqaamat mein hue sarf shah-e alijaah

Jaan-e vaahid pe gire aan ke laakhon badkhwaah

Soora-e hamd nabizaada padha chaahta thha

Shimr khanjar liye seene pe chada jaata thha

When fate scattered Husain’s congregation in that desert

The pious ones did praise his devotion on that desert

To pray, the Godhead showed his intention on that desert

A sword was raised, it sought execution on that desert.

A cry arose: indeed he is the leader of both worlds

Watch my brave Shabbir’s call to prayer made in the shade of swords.

By his power, the Almighty bared heaven’s great window

Suddenly the sky opened up its doors from head to toe

All curtains of the firmament opened to that scene’s glow

Prophets and angels were summoned: ‘Watch, and you need to know

That I am his admirer, to know me is in his blood

And why not? He’s the grandson of my dear Mohammed.

‘This is the sort of worship that is done only alone

Those who love me contend with swords, not with the kingly throne

They are beheaded and yet they prostrate to the One

They fulfil their promises, and then with this life are done.

When I convene the funeral prayer of this creation bold

You’d best attend, for you would join legions of prophets old.’

Heaven-dwellers began to weep at this great twist of fate

Husain composed himself to pray, proclaimed ‘Allah is Great’

Alas till he finished his prayers, the killers refused to wait

Millions attacked that single soul, so vicious was their hate

As the Prophet’s son read
soorah
s and repeated God’s word

The murderous Shimr sat on him, lifting the fatal sword.

Mirza Salamat Ali Dabeer (1803–75), perhaps like the second man to walk the moon, was fated to coexist with a marginally more talented peer. Anees was considered the better
marsiyagoh
, which infuriated Dabeer, and which led to a lively rivalry between the two in Lucknow circles. Dabeer’s verses tended to be more flowery, and he often experimented with form in the extreme, such as the time when he wrote an entire
benuqta
marsiya (one that did not use any word with a dot, equivalent in difficulty to someone writing a 700-line poem using only seventeen letters of the alphabet).

The marsiya tradition flourished in the expert hands of Dabeer because it allowed the poet to deal with a variety of emotions, using all manner of linguistic tropes and formulations. The snippet of marsiya I have translated below is structured as drama. The scene in my selected set of five verses involves the aftermath of the events of Karbala. Imam Husain’s family, including his sister Bibi Zainab and his son Imam Ali bin Husain (both featured in the marsiya
below) have been incarcerated in Damascus, and have been subjected to prolonged torture. At this moment, the wife of the tormentor Yazid (named Hind), who is a virtuous woman unaware of her husband’s unspeakable tyranny, pays a visit to the prison. The first verse refers to Bibi Zainab’s anguish and shame that she should be publicly visited at a moment of such vulnerability. The second and third speak of Hind’s consternation and grief at the desolation she encounters, while the fourth and fifth verses refer to her meeting with Imam Ali bin Husain, whom she sees as a young convict. Multiply the richness of these five verses by thirty, and one gets a sense of a single Dabeer marsiya. Now imagine hundreds of such marsiyas. These were some serious poets. For variety, I have chosen to translate Dabeer as free verse, rather than as my rhyme-bound translation of Anees.

Qaidkhaane mein talaatum hai ke Hind aati hai

Dukhtar-e Fatima ghairat se mui jaati hai

Rooh-e qaalib se vo zindaan mein ghabraati hai

Be-hawaasi se har ek baar vo chillati hai

‘Aasman door zameen sakht kidhar jaaoon main?

Bibiyon mil ke dua maango ke mar jaaoon main.’

Naagahan Fizza ne di Ahl-e haram ko ye khabar

Hind aati hai bade jaah-o-tajammul se idhar

Bairqeen naqra-o-zar ki hai juloo ke andar

Sab kaneezen to rida odhe hain, vo nange sar

Par savaari bahut ahista ravaan hoti hai

Har qadam Hind thehar jaati hai aur roti hai

Kehti hai: ‘Qaidiyon ke shor-o-bukaa ne maara

Mujh ko is “Hai Husaina” ki sadaa ne maara

In ke sardaar ko kya ahl-e jafaa ne maara?

Kya vo Sayyad thha jise ahl-e daghaa ne maara?

Ek bijli si kaleje pe mere girti hai

Nange-sar Fatima aankhon ke tale phirti hai!’

Laundiyaan thheen zan-e haakim ke jilaun mein jo ravaan

Dekhti kya hai ke ek sher hai aahan mein nihaan

Laaghar-o-khasta-tan-o-faaqa-kash-o-tashna-dahaan

Moonh pe seli ke nishaan, pusht pe durron ke nishaan

Saaq-e paa faaqe se zanjeer mein tharrati hai

Ustakhaanon se larazne ki sada aati hai.

Hind ne poochha ‘Maraz kya hai?’ Kaha ‘Be-pidari’

Ro ke boli vo ‘Dawaa kya hai?’ Kaha ‘Nauhagari’

Ghar jo daryaft kiya, kehne lage ‘darbadari’

Boli leta hai khabar kaun? Kaha ‘bekhabari

Kuchh kafan ke liye humraah nahin laaya hoon

Baap ko chhod ke be gor-o-kafan aaya hoon.’

The prison is in turmoil, Hind’s arrival is imminent

The daughter of Fatima shrinks inwards in her shame

Her heart and soul are aflutter with fear in the dungeon

With unselfconscious passion, she lets out a scream

‘The sky is too far, the earth too tough, where can I hide?

My sisters, pray that death should protect my dignity’

Suddenly Fizza announced to the Prophet’s kin

‘Hind arrives this way, with her dignified retinue

Her train is full of pomp and splendour,

But her head is bare though her companions are draped in shawls

The procession winds its way slowly, though

For at every step, Hind stops and begins to weep!’

Says she, ‘The wails of these convicts will be the death of me

I have been slain by these shouts of “Alas, O Husain”

Who were the cruel ones who killed their leader?

Was he Mohammed’s kin, the one murdered by tyrants?

A bolt of lightning strikes my heart

And in my eyes arises the image of Fatima, bareheaded!’

The women with the king’s wife moved but she stopped

At the sight of a shackled youth, though tiger-like in bearing

Weak, emaciated, food-deprived, parched of tongue

With a face swollen by slaps, and a back scarred by the lash

His chains clattered with the tremble of his exhausted feet

His bones made sounds as if they creaked.

Asked Hind, ‘What afflicts you?’ He said, ‘Orphanhood.’

She wept. ‘What is the cure?’ ‘Grief,’ said he.

She asked for his address, and he said, ‘Homelessness.’

‘And who cares for you?’ He said, ‘Anonymity.

Upon death, I have nothing that can serve me as a shroud

Indeed, I have left my father’s corpse unclothed, unburied.’