Shahryar
Page 12
40 Bhaiyyu is the pet name of Shahryar’s eldest son, Humayun.
41 Suroor was the maternal grandfather of the author; and Siddiq is her maternal uncle.
42 Moonis Ijlal and Baaraan Ijlal have narrated many a happy memory of Shahryar’s visit to their parents’ home in Bhopal. Their father, Ijlal Majeed, the historian and poet, was a friend of Shahryar’s and Shahryar stayed in their family home on several occasions. Commenting on Shahryar’s friendly and informal disposition, Moonis remembers how, on one occasion, the poet insisted on being taken to a newly opened shopping mall in Bhopal where he bought a T-shirt for a young Moonis. Similarly, I spent an entire evening in London listening to Dr Hilal Fareed, a doctor in London whose family knew Shahryar in Aligarh, recount many memories of days well spent in London and Aligarh as well as long telephone conversations.
43 When Prof. Mushirul Hasan, the erstwhile vice chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, found himself in the eye of a storm over his alleged comments regarding banning a particular book, Shahryar was among the first to stand up and be counted among his sympathizers.
44 Kamleshwar, op. cit., p. 49.
45 Read these lines by Shahryar against the following from a long ghazal by Faiz Ahmad Faiz: ‘Bahut hai zulm ke dast-e-bahana-ju ke liye/Jo chand ahl-e junoon tere naam leva hai/Baney hain ahl-e hawas muddai bhi, munsif bhi/Kise wakil karen, kis-se munsifi chahein? (In this tyranny that has many an excuse to perpetuate itself/Those crazy few that have nothing but thy name on their lips/Facing those power crazed that both prosecute and judge, wonder/To whom does one turn for defence, from whom does one expect justice?)
46 Commenting on the absence of a generation gap in Shahryar’s friendships, Iftikhar Alam has written how Shahryar was his father’s friend and his as well as his son’s! Quoted in Sher-o-Hikmat, Hyderabad, Vol. 1, January 2003.
47 S.M. Ashraf spoke of a singular quality in Shahryar: all his life, he made it a point to attend the funeral or burial of those known to him or close to him. If the burial was in Aligarh, he would join the funeral procession but not be a part of the congregational namaz-e janaza (the special prayer for the dead offered just before the burial); instead, he would stand by the wall of the university graveyard and wait for the namaz to be over. But at all times, Shahryar was careful not to offend people’s religious sensibilities by word or deed.
2 The Call of Unknown Destinations
1 Muzaffar Ali, delivering the fifth K.P. Singh Memorial Lecture at AMU, 28 April 2015.
2 For details, see Ludmila Rosenstein, New Poetry in Hindi, Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003.
3 Manglesh Dabral, ‘Of Lost Dreams’, Frontline, Vol. 27, Issue 22, 23 October–5 November 2010.
4 Indeed, the influence of Nasir Kazmi is most evident in Shahryar’s poetry in the use of simple words for night, moon, memory, sleep, etc. This will be picked up and elaborated in greater detail in the next two chapters when we take up Shahryar’s ghazals and nazms for closer scrutiny.
5 Gopi Chand Narang, interview.
6 Taken from Prem Kumar, p. 39. These are Shahryar’s words that I have roughly translated here.
7 The topic of Shahryar’s PhD thesis was ‘Unisswin Sadi Mein Urdu Tanqeed’ (‘Urdu Criticism in the Nineteenth Century’). Shahryar submitted his thesis over a decade after he embarked upon it and was granted his degree only as late as 1978; however, as a teacher candidate, he did not require a formal supervisor at the time of submission. Narang has raised a question mark over whether at all it was published and how seriously Shahryar himself took his own work on the dissertation.
8 In poetry, as in several other matters of the head and heart, Shahryar doesn’t seem to be against tradition per se, but is definitely opposed to a blind adherence to tradition. We will take up this issue in greater detail when we discuss his ghazals and nazms in subsequent chapters.
9 Interview recorded at the home of S.R. Faruqi in Allahabad on 31 August 1996, with Asim Shahnawaz Shibli, Ahmad Mahfooz, Asrar Gandhi and S.R. Faruqi.
10 Shahryar writing the note, ‘Kuchh Apne Barey Mein’ (‘A Few Words about Myself’) in Shahryar, Sarwarul Huda (ed.), op. cit., p. 42.
11 Gopi Chand Narang, interview.
12 According to S.M. Ashraf, Shahryar’s poetic career is fairly long and his oeuvre is so vast and so varied that its interpretation is not confined merely to ‘progressive’ or ‘modern’; there is a great deal that can even be read as ‘post-modern’.
13 Interview, The Hindu, 7 November 2010.
14 Ibid.
15 Manglesh Dabral, ‘Of Lost Dreams’, Frontline, Vol. 27, Issue 22, 23 October–5 November 2010.
16 Interview recorded at the home of S.R. Faruqi in Allahabad on 31 August 1996, with Asim Shahnawaz Shibli, Ahmad Mahfooz, Asrar Gandhi and S.R. Faruqi.
17 Interview, The Hindu, 7 November 2010.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Kamleshwar, op. cit., p. 49.
21 Baidar Bakht, interview.
22 Sooraj ko Nikalta Dekhoon (Kulliyat-e-Shahryar), Aligarh, Educational Book House, 2013, p. 41.
23 The hundred names of Allah are said to provide a cure for all the troubles and afflictions of the world. At the same time, several prophets had attributes too, which were their ‘ism’, such as Ayub (Job) was known as Arham-ur-Rahimeen, Sulaiman (Solomon) was Wahaab and so on.
24 Khalilur Rahman Azmi, in Sarwarul Huda (ed.), Shahryar, op. cit., p. 112.
25 Gopi Chand Narang, interview.
26 Introduction, Dhund ki Roshni, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 2003.
27 While in its simplest form it can involve the dropping of a preposition by the addition of an unstressed ‘e’ or ‘i’ between two or more nouns or two or more nouns and adjectives, in its more complex form, an izaafat can create new or compound words. For a detailed explanation of izaafat see http://www.columbia.edu/~mk2580/urdu_section/handouts/izafat.pdf
28 Javed Akhtar, in the course of a long and rambling conversation on Shahryar, first brought my attention to the absence of izaafat in his poetry and, drawing a parallel with Iqbal and Faiz, mentioned how the non-native Urdu poets (both Iqbal and Faiz were from the Punjab) have a propensity towards an excessive use of izaafat whereas the true ahl-e zubaan (literally meaning ‘people of the tongue’ but used to mean native Urdu speakers from Uttar Pradesh) use it sparingly.
29 Gulzar (ed.), Shahryar Suno: Chuninda Nazmein aur Ghazlein, New Delhi, Bhartiya Jnanpith, p. 6.
30 Gulzar, interview.
31 Ibid.
32 Gulzar (ed.), Shahryar Suno: Chuninda Nazmein aur Ghazlein, op. cit., p. 5.
33 Ibid.
34 I have relied heavily on Sarwarul Huda’s unpublished manuscript to build this section of my study. I am deeply grateful to him for sharing his work-in-progress with me.
35 Khair-o-Khabar, Aligarh, 1-24 February 1979.
36 Ibid., 1-15 May 1979.
37 Ibid., 16-31 May 1980.
38 Ibid., 1-24 February 1979.
3 Shahryar’s Ghazals: Of Dreams, Desire and Despair
1 In an email, Baidar Bakht pointed out for me that poets of Shahryar’s generation – such as Munir Niyazi, Shamsur Rehman Faruqi, Mohammad Alvi, Zubair Rizvi, etc. had stopped using the takhallus in the maqta. Also, Baidar Bakht believes, ‘It is true that an awkward name like Shahryar is difficult to fit in the metre of a ghazal.’
2 For more details, see Frances W. Pritchett, ‘Orient Pearls Unstrung: The Quest for Unity in the Ghazal’, Edebiyat, Vol NS 4, pp. 119-135. Found online on Frances W. Pritchett’s website ‘A Desertful of Roses’.
3 Ralph Russell, ‘Understanding the Urdu Ghazal’, in The Pursuit of Urdu Literature: A Select History, London, Zed Books Ltd, 1992, pp. 26-27.
4 Zehra Nigah, interview.
5 Baidar Bakht, interview.
6 Gulzar (ed.), Shahryar Suno: Chuninda Nazmein aur Ghazlein, New Delhi, Bhartiya Jnanpith, p. 6.
7 Sooraj ko Nikalta Dekhoon (Kulliyat-e-Shahryar), Aligarh, Educational Book House, 201
3, p. 42.
8 Prem Kumar, Baaton Mulaaqaton Mein Shahryar, New Delhi, Vani Prakashan, 2013.
9 Baidar Bakht, interview. S.M. Ashraf also points to this idiosyncratic use of words by dropping prepositions, citing the following examples: saying ‘shaam dhundhalka’ instead of ‘shaam ka dundhalka’ (to mean the dusk of the evening), or ‘dukh muhabbat’ instead of the more conventional ‘muhabbat ka dukh’(meaning the ‘sorrow of love’).
10 In terms of the sentiment contained in this verse, I am grateful to S.M. Ashraf who drew my attention to Ghalib who wrote:
Teri wafa se kya ho talafi ke dehar mein
Tere siwa bhi hum pe bahut se sitam huye
(What recompense can there be for my fidelity in this world
For many cruelties have been heaped upon me apart
from yours)
And Faiz who wrote in a similar vein:
Duniya ne teri yaad se begana kar diya
Tujh se bhi dil fareb hai gham rozgaar ke
(The world has made me a stranger to your memory
The sorrow of earning a livelihood is even more
enticing than you)
11 From Saatwan Dar.
12 Ibid.
13 From Hijr ke Mausam.
14 Ibid.
15 From Khwaab ka Dar Band Hai.
16 Ibid.
17 From Neend ki Kirchein.
18 Ibid.
19 From Shaam Hone Wali Hai.
20 Shahryar’s page on Wikipedia. The page also mentions that Shahryar wrote lyrics for Mira Nair’s TheNamesake but I have not been able to verify this.
21 Of the five sher of the original ghazal published in Hijr ke Mausam, this one sher was deleted in the film version:
Humne to koi baat nikali nahin gham ki
Woh zood-pasheman pasheman sa kyun hai
(I have not raised the subject of sorrow
Why is that bashful one so abashed)
Unlike ‘Justuju jis ki thi…’ the four sher were retained intact for the film.
22 Gulzar, interview.
23 Narang, interview.
4 Shahryar’s Nazms: Of Time, Topicality and Tautness
1 Interview, The Hindu, 7 November 2010.
2 Sooraj ko Nikalta Dekhoon (Kulliyat-e-Shahryar), Aligarh, Educational Book House, 2013, p. 47. Translation mine.
3 Interview recorded at the home of S.R. Faruqi in Allahabad on 31 August 1996, with Asim Shahnawaz Shibli, Ahmad Mahfooz, Asrar Gandhi and S.R. Faruqi.
4 While such a pronouncement caused uproar among many of Hali’s contemporaries, especially those belonging to the Lucknow school (that in comparison to the ‘new’ school of thought at Aligarh represented the ‘old’ school), Urdu poetry did undergo changes and began to reflect newer concerns. Hali’s scathing indictment of the ghazal and the ghazal-go of his time is viewed by later critics, such as Ale Ahmad Suroor, as evidence of Hali’s vision and maturity, one that earns him a pride of place among the serious critics of Urdu literature. See Suroor, ‘Yaadgar-e-Hali ’in Tanquid Kya Hai?, New Delhi, Maktaba Jamia, 1972.
5 To this day, poets prefer to recite their ghazals, rather than their nazms, at mushairas, knowing full well that a ghazal draws greater applause from the audience.
6 N.M. Rashid, Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol. 4, 1984, p. 10.
7 Gulzar (ed.), Shahryar Suno: Chuninda Nazmein aur Ghazlein, New Delhi, Bhartiya Jnanpith, p. 6.
8 Ibid., p. 7.
9 Baidar Bakht, interview.
10 Frances W. Pritchett, Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1994, pp. 34-39.
11 Ibid., p. 38.
12 For an understanding of the Halqa-e Arbaab-e Zauq and its relationship with the Progressive Writers’ Movement – that occupied the opposite end of the literary spectrum in the 1950s and 1960s – I am indebted to Yunus Jawaid’s Halqa-e Arbaab-e Zauq, Lahore, Majlis-e Tarraqui-e Adab, 1984.
Index
Ahmad, Salim
Akhtar, Begum
Akhtar, Javed
Akhtar, Waheed
Aligarh Movement
Aligarh Muslim University (AMU)
Aligarh Rotary Club
Alvi, Muhammad
Amjad, Majeed
Anarchism
Anjum, Khaliq
Anjuman-e Punjab
Ashraf, Syed Muhammad
Auden, W.H.
Auliya, Nizamuddin
Azad, Abul Kalam
Azad, Muhammad Hussain
Azmi, Kaifi
Azmi, Khalilur Rahman
Azmi, Shabana
Badayuni, Asad
Bajaj, Vijay Kumar
Bakht, Baidar
Bedi, Rajinder Singh
Bhosle, Asha
Bhramar, Ravindra
Browning, Robert
Campism
Chaupal
Chopra, Yash
Cinema Writing
Communal disturbances
Communal riots
Communication, importance of
Contemporary events, gaze on
Cosmopolitanism
Critics
Dabral, Manglesh
Dhundhki Roshni
Ease and simplicity
Egalitarianism
Eliot, T.S.
Faiz, Faiz Ahmad
Faraz, Ahmad
Faruqi, Shamshur Rehman
Fazli, Nida
Fikr-o-Nazar
Free-spiritedness, xi
Fundamentalists
Ghalib
Ghalib (magazine)
Ghalib Institute
Ghazal
exponents of the
poetic composition
prosody and structure of
ripple-like quality
structural fixedness of
fluidity
Gorakhpuri, Firaq
Gramsci, Antonio
Gulzar
Hali, Altaf Hussain
Halqa-e Arbaab-e Zauq
Hamari Zubaan
Hasan, Mehdi
Hasan, Mushirul
Hasrat Mohani
Hatim
High-decibel poetry
Hijr ke Mausam
The Hindu
Huda, Sarwarul
Husain, Razmi
Husain, Rizwan
Husain, Zakir
Ibne Insha
Ijlal, Baaraan
Ijlal, Moonis
Image, importance of
Imam, Raza
Iman, Akhtarul
Individualism
Inquilab Zindabad
Iqbal, Muhammad
Iqbal, Zafar
Islamists
Ism-e Azam
Izaafat (addition)
Jadeediyat (modernism)
Jafri, Shahab
Jaipuri, Hasrat
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Jazbi, Moin Ahsan
Jnanpith Award
Judaai ka Geet (The Song of Separation)
Jung, Ali Yavar
Kamleshwar
Kazmi, Nasir
Kennedy House
Khair-o-Khabar
Khan, Abu Muhammad
Khan, Kunwar Akhlaq Muhammad
Khan, Syed Ahmad
Khayyam
Khusro, A.M.
Khusro, Amir
Khwaab Ka Dar Band Hai
Khwaabon ka Bhikari (The Beggar of Dreams)
Kidwai, Sadiqur Rehman
Komal, Balraj
Kumar Pashi
Kumar, Prem
Language politics
Liberalism
Ludhianvi, Sahir
Mahdi, Shahid
Mahmood, Najma
Malihabadi, Josh
Manto, Saadat Hasan
Marairahvi, Taish
Maulana Azad Library
Mauzu, Raja Ram Narain
Mehdi, Baqar
Milton
Miraji
Modi, Sohrab
Moradabadi, Jigar
Mushaira
Mushtaq, Ahmad
Muzaffar Ali
Nai Nasl (New Generation)
Naim, Hasan
Namaz-e janaza
Narang, Gopi Chand
Narcissism
National Student Federation (NSF)
Naturalness
Naushad
Nazm, jewel-like
Neend ki Kirchein
New kind of poetry
Newness
New poetry, wave of
Nigah, Zehra
Nihilism
Nikhat, Maqbool
Niyazi, Munir
Non-Resident Students Club (NRSC)
Non-utilitarian school
Nuqoosh
Pakistan movement
Parochialism, xiii
Pen portraits
Pervaiz, Salahuddin
Poetic idiom
Poster-boy poets
Pound, Ezra
Progressive movement
Progressive upsurge
Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA)
Progressive Writers’ Movement (PWM)
Progressivism, decline of
Prolific writing, period of
Prose
Purposive literature
Rana, Munawwar
Rashid, N.M.
Raza, Rahi Masoom
Rehman, Munibur
Rizvi, Maqsood Hamid
Romanticism, xi
Royal Talkies
Russell, Ralph
Saatwan Dar
SAHMAT
Salim, Qazi
Sangh, Janwadi Lekhak
Saptak poets
Sattar, Qazi Abdul
Sauda
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)
Secularism
Saigal, K.L.
Shaam Hone Wali Hai
Shabkhoon
Shahjahan of Aligarh
Shakespeare
Sher-o-Hikmat
Siddiqui, Rashid Ahmed
Siddiqi, Siddiq Ahmad
Simplicity
Singh, Jagjit
Singh, Kunwar Pal
Sirajud Daulah
Spender, Stephen
Style of reciting poetry
Suroor, Ale Ahmad
Tabassum, Mughni
Tahir, Jafar
Takhallus
Tamkanat, Shaz
Tehzeeb-ul Akhlaq
Topical events
Tyabji, Badruddin
Urdu lecturership
Urdu zubaan and tehzeeb
Wadkar, Suresh
Waqti adab (topical literature)
Wedding party
Yeats, W.B.
Zaidi, Colonel Bashir Husain
Acknowledgements