Sahir Ludhianvi- by Prakash Pandit
The following article was written by Prakash Pandit in his book “Sahir Ludhianvi aur unki shaayari (Sahir Ludhiyanvi – Life-Sketch & Poetry)”. One edition of this book, published by Rajpal and Sons, Kashmiri Gate, New Delhi, appeared in 1995 and can be found in shops in India. The book is written in Devanagri script. The translation of this article in English was rendered by Bhupinder Singh. The article originally appeared on Bhupinders blog on October 2nd 1998. I will also try to post the article in Roman Hindi (or Roman Urdu) at a later date, but in the mean time, enjoy this translated work by Bhupinder. The article is being published here with Bhupinder’s permission.
Sahir Ludhianvi
By Prakash Pandit
I have seen Sahir from close quarters- in 1943 when he was less of Sahir and more of a college student and had come from Ludhiana to Lahore for publication of his collection of poems- Talkhiyaan (Bitterness).
In 1945- when with the publication of Talkhiyaan, his popularity soared. He became the editor of the famous Urdu magazines- Adab-e-Lateef (Culture of Ideas) and Shahkaar (The Great Creator) of Lahore. Devendra Satyarthi introduced me to him.
In 1948- when he had reached the zenith of his fame. He had left the film world of Bombay to settle in Lahore. I was staying with him for a couple of days as a member of an unofficial delegation to Lahore. Despite these meetings , I would not have had an insight into his personality and through that into his poetry if I had not met him in Delhi in 1949.
My encounter with Sahir was unexpected, but yet not surprising. In the two days that I had spent with Sahir in Lahore, I could make out that he could not have remained happy there. That was because there he was surrounded on all sides with people of same belief and religion. There was freedom of neither the pen nor of speech and he was intensely missing those whose names were evidently Hindu or Sikh and with whom Sahir had spent his entire life and I had also noticed that his venerated mother too was elated to find us Hindus in her house. So, when I unexpectedly ran into Sahir in Delhi, I was not unduly surprised and when in his usual naughty style, he informed me that the Pakistani government had issued warrants against his name, I did not even feel the need to ask him the reason. Later, when I went to Lahore to bring his mother back to India I came to know that his pen had dripped a few drops of poison and venom on the new State in the fortnightly Savera.
Delhi was not Sahir’s final destination, but a mere foothold on the way. He wanted to reach Bombay at the earliest where, he imagined, the film world lay in wait of him. But perhaps thinking that even the wayside that Delhi was had a right on him, he gifted one full year to it. Though I have met Sahir often after that, I got the chance to understand him and his poetry only during that year. During those days we not only worked together for the Urdu magazine Shahraah (The Royal Road) and Preetlari (The Beads of Love), but also stayed under the same roof. I also had the opportunity to stay in his house for four years in Bombay when I was a guest in the house for months together during the course of my treatment for throat cancer.
Sahir has just got up from sleep (generally he does not get up before 10-11 a.m.) and as always, he is lying with his tall frame curled like a jalebi, his long hair spread out and his large eyes open as if mesmerized by some unseen sight. During this meditation, he cannot tolerate any kind of disturbance. Even his mother, whom he holds in high esteem and whose only support he is after her separation from his zamindar father, cannot dare to enter his room. Suddenly, he gets delirious and shouts “Tea !”.
And after this, for the entire day and if he gets the chance even during the night, he continuously keeps on speaking. He cannot sit in one place for more than half an hour and even as the gathering of friends is not less than worshipping a goddess. He presents cigarette after cigarette to them. As a precaution for his throat, he splits a cigarette into two but often smokes them together ! He offers them endless cups of tea and even helps himself to a cup or two. He regales them his own nazms and gazals and with hundreds of couplets from other poets also, which he has memorized just like his own poems. He recites them with interesting anecdotes and backgrounders. He remembers every small and significant details in his life. He remembers the letters of his friends and articles from magazines word by word. So much so, he remembers entire dialogues from the movies Indrasabha (The Court of Lord Indra) and Shaabharram which he saw as a child.
The interesting thing is that whether he starts making a point about Lata Mangeshkar’s melodious voice or the strange taste of the dosa, the underlying theme is that if this age has produced a great Urdu poet, it is Sahir- Sahir Ludhianvi, whose collection of poems Talkhiyan has seen 21 editions in Urdu and 11 in Hindi. And he makes this point in such a way that the listener is not even aware of the slow brain- washing he or she is being subjected to.
And around 10, 11 or even 1 o’clock in the night when his friends part from him promising to return the next day, and when at least one brave warrior remains with him, he experiences a very vile feeling of being alone and from somewhere the germs of Bohemianism engulf him, and everyone in the world appears small, even like an insect as compared to himself. At that time, the day- long jocular and easygoing Sahir is transformed. The conversations of the day (of which he has memorized each word), he recounts and makes fun of the mannerisms of his friends whom he had admired during the day.
But the next day, he invites those very friends to partake whiskey and food at his own expense. He begins to praise their qualities of head and heart and becomes an enigma in himself.
His enigmatic personality manifests itself in strange ways. It is in his nature to quickly get fed up, feel ashamed and scared on a trivial issue. Another characteristic is his indecisiveness. He cannot decide what to recite in a poetical symposia or gathering. It is impossible for him to decide matching shades for his dress- so much so that he needs a friend to decide the dish to eat, perhaps that is the reason why he remains a bachelor. He does not want others to look for a wife for him and there is no question of looking for one himself.
I sometimes felt that all this is a pretense and sometimes we would flare up on this. I often felt that he is trying to make me an undeserving hero and I was not at all ready for this, hence I would lose no opportunity to make fun of him and play him down. He would still be trying to prepare the grounds to prove the greatness of a new nazm of his, that I would tell him the plot of a long new story of mine, comparing myself with Chekov, Gorky or Guy de Maussapaunt. With mock seriousness, I would recommend those clothes which made him look funny and many a time I made him have ice cream for his breakfast. Then it slowly dawned on me that he was more to be pitied than to be made fun of. He has not deliberately inculcated these habits, instead they have grown around him like weeds and within the folds of these habits are the unfortunate circumstances in which he was born and brought up and which along with other traits- both good and bad- became a part and parcel of his personality.
Abdul Hayee ‘Sahir’ was born in 1921 in a jagirdaar family. Besides his mother, his father had a number of other wives too. But being the only son in the family, he was brought up with a lot of love and affection. But he was still a child when the doors of prosperity were closed on him. Fed up with the depravity of her husband, Sahir’s mother separated from him and since Sahir had given preference for his mother over his father, he was no longer the heir to his father’s property. And with this started the long and arduous phase of struggle of his life.
The days of an easy – going life were over. However, the desire for those luxuries remained. Even his mother’s jewelry had to be sold off but the will to live on remained. On top of this, his father had threatened to eliminate or at least have him separated from his mother. Frightened, his mother put him under the watchful eyes of bodyguards to protect him. So along with hatred, a strange sort of dread also began to gnaw at him. As a result, his mind was beset with a number of problems. He fell in love and failed due to poverty, lack of courage and social consequences. Against his desire and nature, he was forced to do small time jobs to make ends meet. He passed his days in great melancholy. There was a struggle between the desire for fulfillment and his sorrowful present. The dialectic worked between the mind and the heart as well as between life and death. It was this very dialectic that transformed an ordinary student to Sahir. And the bitterness of the heart and mind began to resound in his poetry.
As a poet, Sahir came of age when after Iqbal and Josh, Firaq, Faiz and Majaz reigned. It is evident that any new poet could not have remained impervious to the influence of his towering contemporaries. Consequently, Sahir came under the influence of Faiz and Majaz. In fact, so much so, in his early poetry, Sahir was suspected of echoing Faiz- the same soft soulful voice, the same careful weaving together of beautiful words and the same sleep- inducing ambiance. But soon, his own personal experiences came to influence his poetry, a deep sense of revulsion and revolt against the class one of whose representatives was his own father and the other the father of his beloved, and his conscience tempered in the heat and fire of worldly sorrows, showed him the way and it became evident that instead of Faiz and Majaz, Sahir’s creations bore the stamp of his personal experiences and they had hues of their own. It was Sahir’s very own experiences that could make him cry out-
I come of those whose ancestors have always
Supported the shadows of alien rulers
Since that cursed moment of the Revolt
Have served the authorities in difficult times
No road, no aim and no trace of light either
In deep darknesses does my life tramp
In these vacant spaces shall I remain forever lost
I am ever aware of this, my beloved
But sometimes it just does cross my mind
That if I could have lived under the soft shadows of your tresses
I could have been happier
This all- engulfing darkness, which has become the fate of my life
Could have also spent itself in the splendors labyrinths of your eyes.
And I feel the reason why Sahir, who earned a place much higher than that of his contemporaries lay precisely in his unique personal experiences which he presents shorn of any sheen, except the necessary creative ornamentation. Besides the sorrows of love, the venom and bitterness for soceity that his poetry spewed forth is also not borrowed- it voices his own life experiences.
Sahir is essentially a romantic poet. Failure in love left such a deep scar that the other sorrows were shadowed out. Finding silken dresses swaying around him, he could not do anything else except suffer a hundred heartaches. He found his beloved’s lowered eyes in front of him and he began to ask her in pain-
O the one who lights up my fleeting dreams
Do I ever cross your dreams ?
Search from within your eyes and tell me
Whether the future holds a glimmer of dawn at the end of my long nights ?
and it is possible that he could have kept on asking such questions and not finding a satisfactory answer would have succumbed to the dark and dense shadows whose flow started from the love of a woman and would have remained confined and limited to love poetry. But when he found no answers to his persistent questions, frightened of this constant dialectic he began to develop a habit for deep thinking. Why did this happen ? Why does it happens thus ? And he came to the conclusion that it should not happen as it does. And thus did his personal love, after crossing many a milestone, converged on this little dot where the love of the beloved transforms itself into the love for the entire world and -
You are unaware of this, my beloved,
That two days that I did love you, transformed this simpleton forever.
leads to his whispering in his beloved’s ears-
How can I ever think of forsaking your love, my beloved
The sorrows of this world have been enough to break me.
And then goes on to proclaim in so many words-
I have other cares too besides yours, my beloved
Even a moment’s relief I cannot find from them
Under the very chins of these high rise buildings
At every step screams the cry of a hungry beggar
Cries of hunger from every house
The noise of a seething humanity from every direction
In the din of the humming factories,
Are submerged the thousand cries of poor folk
Youthful faces being sold in every street
Sorrow drawn over enchanting eyes
This unending war- and the coquettish young men of my land,
Whose blosssoming youth is it consumes
On every protest, the long winding arguments of law
Humiliations, sufferings in this era of forced servility
These sorrows are enough to destroy me,
Do not inflict more pain on me with the sadness in your eyes.
And he did not just stop here. As his wounded conscience continued to torment him, he developed a persistent will to continuously fight these sorrows, to subdue them and transform them into happiness. And in doing so, he came to grips with those issues that confront this Age. It is true that in presenting some of these themes, he has not been as successful as in his handling of the love theme, it is sometimes astonishing to find that he has allowed himself to be first and foremost a poet, begins to plead that people should not consider him a poet and when he pledges-
From this day onwards, O workers and peasants
My ragas are yours
Hungry folks! From now on my sorrowful tenors are yoursFrom this day onwards,
My poetry shall exist to melt the chains that bind,
From this onwards,
I shall spew not dewdrops, but sparks of fire.
This twist in his poetry makes one suspect whether Sahir actually meant what he said and whether he would be able to stick to his pledges? Will his poems now never ever -
Contain longing and hope
The sound of the steps of death
Of life sensuously stretching itself out
Rays of a future and the darkness of the present
The sound of furies and the deep notes of dreams
-in other words, shall his poetry reflect the thousand other hues of life and not just the red colors of a radical political movement ?
Fortunately, Sahir proves himself to be the classical beloved of the Urdu poetry- and he goes back on his words. At least, he does take a step backwards, and after displaying a few sparks he comes back into the safe havens of his idol- house. He realizes that his job is not to wave the red flag, but to sing songs from the rostrum.
While discussing Sahir’s poetry, one of Urdu’s foremost poets- Kaifi Azmi who has been proclaimed by one responsible Communist Party leader as the Red flower of Urdu poetry, has observed that Sahir’s decision to sing songs from the stage and distance himself from the comrades who carry the flag shows the disparity between Sahir’s thought and action and this contradiction has brought anarchism in his life and pessimism in his poetry. He also drew some other similar conclusions and though he recognizes Sahir as being essentially a progressive poet and a friend of the progressive movement, he nevertheless calls upon Sahir to recite his poetry as well as wave the red flag. It appears that in Azmi’s views, reciting poetry is not so important as keeping the flag aloft.
While the flag has its own significance, the rampart too has an import of its own. History is witness to the fact that when the composers of poetry have tried to wave the flag also at the same time, either the rampart has collapsed or the flag could not remain flying. And it is absolutely incorrect to say that only by writing about workers and peasants can one get admitted to the portals of the progressive ranks. Our society is divided into many classes and our artists come from different social backgrounds. Because of certain conditions, if a writer is not able to transcend these class limits, he can very well continue to write healthy, idealist and progressive literature while remaining within the constraints imposed by his class origin. Writers from a bourgeois or upper classes can very well depict the aimlessness and irrelevance of their classes and render as high a service as a peasant or a worker through direct participation in class- struggles.
In contrast to this, if a poet or a writer, while remaining within the confines of his social class, and without being aware of whether a worker works on a lathe machine standing or laying down, and without knowing what time of the year a crop is harvested begins to write about workers and peasants; his words shall not carry the same convictions as those which are based on his own experiences and which are the foundation of great literature. Fortunately, on the whole, Sahir gives us what he has received in life in the form of his verse.
Since the last few years Sahir has been in Bombay and according to Kaifi Azmi, he is a afflicted with all the crassness that film industry is beset with today. One does not know if while writing lyrics for films, he might decide to become a producer or a director himself (because today he owns a fleet of expensive cars and bungalows and has by and large stopped writing nazms), but like Kaifi Azmi, when I first met Sahir, he was only a poet and when I shall meet him last, he would still be a poet because till today he cannot decide for himself what clothes to buy and the more popularity he gains1, he realizes that as a poet his fame is receding.
……the last I met Sahir was in 1978 when his mother, who considered me her son, died and Sahir suffered his first stroke and he was contemplating giving up the film industry and move to a life of relaxation and poetry.
……and the last news I heard about him was on 26th October 1980, when at 5:30 am in the morning, the phone rang and I came to know that the previous night he had sufferred another heart- attack and my beloved friend was no more.
May God shower all his Graces on him,
For the one who has passed away had many a deserving qualities
1 He has been honored with a Padma Shri and his new book of poetry Aao Ik Khawaab Bunain has been awarded the Soviet Nehru Award, Urdu Academy Award and the Maharashtra State Award. During the Indo- Pak war, Indian soldiers had named one of their posts after his name and many of his poems have been translated into English, Russian, Arabic, Persian, Czeck and many other foreign languages.
From Sahir and His Poetry Ed. By Prakash Pandit (Hind Pocket books, 1987)
(translated from Hindi by Bhupinder Singh*)
*: My thanks to Anand Mohan Sharma for helping to get this translation started, and for helping out with some of the more difficult Hindi words- bhupinder
Interesting article though for there was nothing new. I came across this per chance. Actually I was looking for “Savera” if per chance I could come across the article that Sahir had written about Majaz in “Savera”. If anyone has any trace of it I shall love to hear of him or them or the article itself. Please help. Thanks a million
December 26th, 2006 | #
Great article which gives insight of great lyricist…Thanks.
February 23rd, 2007 | #
I love sahir.That’s it!
Thanks for giving us a nice blog.
May 24th, 2007 | #
I should like to inform Sahir fans that I have dedicated my recently published book of English verse- WELTSCHMERZ- to Sahir Ludhianavi.
The book, a critique on India and world generally, includes a poem on Sahir, entitled SAHIR.It also has two of this great poet’s extraordinary pieces PARCHHAIYAN, AI SHARIF INSANO! in English translation.
Hope to have served the perpetuation of Sahir tradition in poetry.
The book itself was published by Writers Workshop, Kolkata, 2006; a copy can be had by writing to Prof. P Lal at 162/92, Lake Gardens, Kolkata.
August 26th, 2007 | #
GAM IS KADAR BARHE
Woes gathered such
That, panicking, I drank
Pitying this heart’s helplessness
I drank
For too long had
Kicked me the world around
Today I kicked at this world
And drank another round!
———————————
BLOOD IS BUT BLOOD !
A slain Lumumba is by far mightier than a living Lamoomba -Nehru
Repression is sill repression
Rising, it must flop
Blood is sill blood
Spilling it must clot.
Whether it clots on desert sands
Or upon assassin’s hands
On justice’s head or around shackled feet
On injustice’s sword or on the wounded corpse
Blood is still blood
Spilling, it must clot.
However much one lies in ambush
Blood betrays butcher’s hideout
Conspiracies may veil in thousand darkly mask
Each blood drop ventures out with burning lamp on its palm.
Tell oppression’s vain and blemished fate
Tell cruelty’s crafty Imam
Tell the UN Security Council
Blood is crazy
It can leap up to the cloak
It is inferno, it can flare up to burn grain-stock.
The blood you sought to suppress in abattoir
Today that blood moves out into street
Here an ember, there a slogan, there a stone
Once blood comes to flows
Bayonets are no avail
Head, once it is raised
Is not downed by law’s hail.
What is about oppression?
What is with its impression?
Oppression is, all of it, but oppression
From beginning to end
Blood is still blood
Myriad form it can assume
Forms such as are indelible
Embers such as are inextinguishable
Slogans such as are irrepressible.
September 22nd, 2007 | #
KHOOBSOORAT MORH
Lets be strangers again!
I shall not expect of you
Heart strings
Nor shall you look at me
With love’s luring charms
Neither should my heart’s turmoil
Show in my erratic talk
Nor should your torment
Be read in your furtive eye
Some thing prevents you
From advancing
And I am told
My love’s labor is a lost cause too
My comrades are nothing but
The shame of my past delight
You are too haunted by
Shadows of many an
Adventurous night.
So, when love has turned sour
Better leave it
When bond weighs on mind
Better break it
What can’t be attained
Is better given a sweeter turn
In oblivion’s fires
For ever to burn.
September 22nd, 2007 | #
Thanks a lot ….one of my wishes..If I could meet him!!!
November 13th, 2007 | #
An excellent article on Sahir Ludhianvi
November 22nd, 2007 | #
SAHIR PATHOS
who ever thought
who yet certain
that such days would dawn
making living so hard
nor leaving dying
any a workable regard!
February 3rd, 2008 | #
SAHIR FIRE!
neither masked
nor of lowered heads
have we lived
eyeball to eyeball
engaged with oppressors
have we lived
a night less lived
so be it!
the point is
of burning flares
have we lived!
February 3rd, 2008 | #
SAHIR SPIRITS
so falls upon scalded heart
from your looks the love’s dew
as drizzles upon a burning jungle
now on, now off
now much, now few
February 3rd, 2008 | #
Satish sahib,
I couldn’t help but read the “Blood is but blood” (khoon to khoon hai) here. Would you be kind enough to please email me or post the original Urdu version of this nazm, I would be indebted to you forever.
Warm Regards
Amit Malhotra
February 21st, 2008 | #
found the nazm and posting it on the site for all readers along with your english translated version Satish Sahib.
Thank you
Amit Malhotra
February 22nd, 2008 | #
ALLAH TERO NAM
Allah, they call
Ishawar just as well
You, bestow on all
Equal wisdom’s dwell.
Sindoor from partings
May never slake
Mothers’ and sisters’ hope
May never break
O Provider!
Life may never wander
Outside the flesh and blood’s take.
O Protector of whole creation!
Giver of strength to the weak
Give you too to the mighty
That knowledge’s streak.
March 8th, 2008 | #
VO SUBAH KABHI TO AYEGI
That morning!
It must, it must dawn
Some day!
When the night’s covering
Will slip from
These dark centuries’ head
When clouds of woe will melt
When the goblet of mirth
Will spill
When the sky will waltz
When the earth will sing
That morning must dawn
Some day!
The morning that makes us live
Death after death after death through the ages
In whose nectar’s hope
We readily drink hemlocks
Upon these famished thirsted souls
It must one day turn kind
That morning must dawn
Some day!
Granted, our yearnings don’t count yet
Dusts have worth, only humans none
When the honor of humans
Shall no more be
False mint’s measures
That morning must dawn
Some day!
March 8th, 2008 | #
Amitji,
I was in Sahir mood; hence the two translations. I did send you a reply using this box. did you get it? Good you posted Blood is But Blood. I do appreciate your devotion to Sahir.
March 8th, 2008 | #
Plz tell me in which book shop I will get the book Sahir Ludhiyanvi – Life-Sketch & Poetry translated in English. I would be very greatful to you. I live in Kolkata.
March 11th, 2008 | #
SAHIR WOE
Upset am I
By the unbecoming state of affairs
The world wouldn’t be
The world of my concerns’ cares!
March 27th, 2008 | #
SAHIR MAGIC
It was magic
Of the other kind
No magic really!
Or then real magic
The nature’s wonders’ one!
Karma had him, the Sahir
Take birth among Jagirdars
Just as Karma had
Prahlad grace Hirankashyap court
Oh! It’s all in Karma play
So too the Sahir Magic-
A beauty of seminal thoughts
Deep Emotions, golden words!
Homed in a human heart
The Sahir surd’s!
Sahir could wave his
Out of the world words
Lo! The Sahir wand
Conjuring heart’s hearty feels
His own, yours and the mine
Isn’t that the poetry’s golden deals?
Concise he states
Wider humanity’s case
Precise he lays his finger
On multitude’s paining nerve,
Capital rules
Ah! Such sordid, creepy cruel!
Where Dharma ought
High principles’ thick gruel!
The one dead, heartless creature
Borne of greed
Driven by one upmanships
The one of flesh and blood
Cell, tissue, mind, heart, feel
Yeah! Subtly souled
Upanishad even has
Creator reside in its sinew
And that is verily true!
Truth reflected
In our conscience’s mirror
Sharp and clear!
No wonder upon earth
Since capital’s advent
Reign veritable hells
For luxuries of the few
For the damnation of the slew!
Where children grow
To end in capital’s tow-
Child labours!
Youth’s aimless struggles
But life’s waste
Maidens’ flesh’s shameless sells
Boobs, wombs in demeaning trade
Old age’s mauling
Lies’ stately tells
Injustice society’s stony strength
Might is right, well!
The zeitgeist’s dwells.
Sahir gave to our innermost pains
Tongue!
To our starved dreams vision
To our demeaning despairs hope
Magic like tapestries
Of romantic relief, belief
In our own selves
In future
In the basic goodness
Of us humans
As foreseen by divine acumens.
That was Sahir
That is Sahir Magic!
April 12th, 2008 | #
Satish sahib,
Thank you for your contribution through this thread. I really appreciate it.
April 17th, 2008 | #
I am not at all sure if my piece belongs here. Even so, I submit it for the gravity of the matter, moreover in order to continue with Sahir tradition in poetry as for the chance of meeting with nods among Sahir fans.
I should say, here is to Sahir a salute per Rapology:
RAPOLOGY
Eyed is the unlucky thing enough
Innocent smile to villain mind is sought design
Haya, hallmark of Indian beauty
Just the armour’s chink
The scheme was run through thoroughly
In motions of sorts
Spots spied, earmarked
Temple where none suspects
DC office behind
Barred to public
The air, the ambience?
No point, for rulers
Live in their ivory towers
Given to golden speech
Too preoccupied handling
Their self made malaise
Developing India a laisser faire
Simply put capital’s Jungle Raj
Blind pursuit of money
By hook, by crook
Their probity’s sanctum sanctorum!
So, the Shaitan shuffles
Amid alluring Kama’s irresistible ruffles
Fuelled on by Bollywood lecher Dom
Why, now even imported Pom Poms!
Says their King Khan
Hum Hain Naan!
Rest is all so very Alec Smart
The deadly play: they come inebriated
In cars, buddies all
Of one soul in ill earned monies’ regard
Here flung the door
There seizes the aroused arm
Sucking the poor prey in
Innocent ‘gal’, for
What else is teenage?
Quick! Gas!
Windows shut
Tinted is glass
You! First!
Me?
Shut up! Come on! Now!
Drive around, you!
The prey cries
Fends, her arms tied
Her mouth gagged
With Kama blinded bites
Hands are at tearing clothes
Bearing bosom
Ploughing proceeds
No God listens
Or then sees!
Though Upanishad has
God sit right through
Right there in all hearts
Good or the evil!
Ploughing is on, merciless!
Amid killed cries
Scotched sobs
Shot supplications
Harrowed eyes beseeching
O brothers!
But these are Haraami bloods
These nouveau riches
Of some rotten seeds!
Jump you over
Now give me drive
Comes on the next
Over virtually dead flesh
Surely woodened soul
Deflowered!
Hurrying into tissues torn
Bleeding sinews
A human soul disrobed
Despoiled, desecrated the
Sacred womb
That bears here Nanak
There Gautam
A mini Mother India raped!
In modern progress’ icon
Car, a moving car!
By these laisser faire neo Indians!
Think!
Martyrs such sacrificed their lives
For such skunks and racoons!
Sullage of society!
What stink fruit of soured freedom!
Shame on Republic’s President!
Shame on Prime Minister!
Shame on Home Minister!
Shame on you all!
Drown you in CHULLU BHAR PANI
You free India’s disappointing KAHANI!
You are real stinking scums
Of utter misrule
Into horrible Karma
Devoid of all Dharma.
You are deaf and dumb
And you are blind
Is this how it goes?
In a republic, true, genuine
To its innocent citizen kind?
Answer! You bloody fools!
Answer!
Is this how?
April 25th, 2008 | #
SAHIR LULLABY
Your childhood I bless with youth
And as soon I get into sort of ruth.
My little child!
My garden’s little sapling!
To save you from circumstance’s storm
Today I drape you in
Into love’s raiment
Tomorrow you will miss this weak prop too
Tomorrow will fail this weak prop too
Tomorrow you must traverse thorny path
Burn under life’s sun’s searing wrath.
On your brow is
No nobility’s stamp
Oh! Those few kisses of love
What worth are they?
Of mothers like me
The loves don’t much weigh!
O my innocent angel!
What knows you yet?
For whose sins you would recompense
Among these religions and faiths scarred humans
Any and every look you beget
Is to be frowns dense.
Your child hood I bless with youth
And as soon fall into sort of ruth.
May 4th, 2008 | #
SAHIR ENRICHMENT
(You enrich uranium to make atom bombs, which devil’s work wreaks but havoc of death and destruction and devastation
You enrich Sahir to make soft sweet songs which gentle work keeps but promise of renaissance and resurgence and redemption
The one, soul decivilizing fare, must not be!
The one, soul civilizing fare, must be!
Which is which?)
Sahir out-Ghalibs Ghalib!
In the ring about poetry’s peak excellence.
Ghalib was sure a remarkable genius
Imploding though within self’s confines
Master of conquering finesse
Mother of poetry’s lapidary phrase
Seminal? No, not really
Wise? Yes, of course
Raconteur of sorts
From life’s Leiden
Truisms of pithiest gists
On inadequacies of life,
Undone by lack of prop
Robbed of deserved critique
For, the Zauks and the Momins
Came stuck in Urdu’s habitual marsh
Ghalib was wondrous lotus
Growing from Urdu mucks.
But this our singular Sahir!
Fire of irrepressible spirit
Flame of enlivening hope
Romance’s Himalaya Height
Fully awake to mortal sins around
And as duty bound
Countering despondency
With refreshing romanticism
Romance that sustains us unfortunates
Still starved of living’s truest fates
By scheming villains’ “baits”.
Sahir could fetch from despair’s darkest fathoms
Beauteous pearls of profound thought
Sing paeans of unrivalled ennobling ideas
One off!
Always calling forth
Come! Let’s weave dreams!
For, if we didn’t
Life would die as venoms stung
Ever cursed, no smile but horrible scream
Still seen in perpetually mauled multitudes’ stream
What waste of lives!
Sahir’s magic word impels
Go! Catch the mirth’s star
Oh! But first mend minds
Capitalism rogued humanity
Bring to bear on manhood
Sense for womanhood’s due
Her Hasti with veneration imbue
Women are pious
Paragons of virtue
As by God created
Far above meager men they stand
Us bearing mothers
Us adoring sisters
Us alluring wives.
Man! What do you do?
Reducing them to Chakle hives!
Flesh dirts and filths!
Shame on you!
Don’t you send youth into wars!
Why, don’t you make wars!
Give idle hands work to do
Give eyes dreams
Give hearts hopes
To minds wistfulness’ dopes!
So lived Sahir
A spring board to action
A harbinger of inceptive change
Ghalib just sallied forth
However rich of stylish phrase.
Ah! But one swallow
Does not a summer make
Now in Sahir Magic word’s wake
Folks! Carry the flame to fruition!
Translate Sahir
Into living’s audacious idiom!
Burn down oppressing facades!
Tear down repression’s forts!
Delhi is still very much Aurangzeb
Our freedom still half the sprint
False its Republic mint!
Sahir uplifts, even exalts mind
Ghalib’s is depressing resigned wind
Wails not the despondent Ghalib?
ISHAQ NE GHALIB NIKAMMA KAR DIYA
Soars not Sahir into art’s heady heavens?
BANDE KO KHUDA KARTA HAI ISHAQ
That says it all.
Ghalib is no match for the far more advanced Sahir geist
That super duper imagination’s flight.
Oh! Sahir out-Ghalibs Ghalib!
Alas! Sahir verse is pearls before swines
Their banalities
versus Sahir’s divines!
Sahir is action’s seminal germ
If Ghalib is much ado’s whining husks!
If Ghalib had reparteeing wit
Sahir has searing scorn
Life is no bed of roses either
For none!
It is man made rankling’s staying thorn
Yet thorn upon painful thorn.
Laughters!
What laughters?
Buddha Himself frowned
The philosopher came on
Don’t just interpret
Change the world!
An overaged unrequited cry
Of perennially troubled humanity
Sahir did then add his mighty mite
We stand challenged
We, the present’s Sahir Bright!
Sahir refreshes
Sahir word is but flares
To lead us from darkness to light
Shivaji’s sword edge, sharp
Rana Partap’s valor breath
Rani Jhansi’s rebellion harp
At once germane! Guide!
Yet why won’t we abide?
The need is even world wide.
Sahir Soul speaks
‘To my time
I did my best’,
Yet Sahir Soul asks
‘To your time
My protégés!
Are you doing the rest?’
May 10th, 2008 | #
SAHIR SIGNIFICANCE
Sahir was Kalidas spirit
modernly!
He came, he saw, he conquered
We missed the new time’s homily!
Nor was Sahir grand poetry’s last star
He himself did forecast
Better than him would be!
Nation’s redeeming recipe!
The great ancient bard
Was a free soul
In a free sovereign pure nation
Oh! So very Susanskrit!
No wonder he proved
Art’s most glorious gem!
Sahir came to world
Burdened, born into reactionaries
The nation itself a tissue of
Subjugation riddled terrible gore
Distorted under centuries of alien misrule
The Panjab barbarians’ first feast
Babur would upon each conquest
Sit down to count decapitated Hindu heads
Nanak himself described those mistimes
Islam in Jihad’s fury
Aurangzeb out to rob India
Of its pristine Indianness
The Firangi yet pucca Haraamda
Still worse, yet outheroding Herod!
This was Sahir’s milieu
Rotten stinks of denationing fares
Off which he weaved magics!
That’s a true wonder!
If Kalidas flourished
In nation’s free airs.
Sahir’s is so
A many splendored work
Of top creative creation
Under severest of circumstance
A full spectrum of rich thought
Deep fathom of society’s hideous depths
His art itself diacritical rainbow
Upon our perception’s horizon.
Today, as our nation
Bursts at its corruption’s seams
It flounders!
The folk lies floored
Sahir word is the way out’s mantra!
Says Sahir, “ye insaan ke dushman samajon ki duniya
Jala do ise foonk dalo ye duniya”.
So showing light
At the dark tunnel’s end
Sahir leads
All it needs now
Is cumulative concerted action
Folks joining hands
Converging into a meaningfull fist
In unity lies unconquerable might!
Complex yet straight is the path
Aana hai to aa rah mein kuchh fer nahin hai!
Besides, lays out Sahir
Ek se ek mile to insaan
Baas mein karle kismat!
I often ask
Why wouldn’t Sahir Fans set example?
Turn their common Sahir joy
Into constructive seminal force?
Now the nation is free
Ab koi gulshan na ujrhe
Sahir Sea teems with such pearls!
O strollers along this
Wondrous sea shore!
Stop! A step away
From pebbles and stones
Engaging your eye
Seethes deep Sahir Sea bosom
Replete with gems, rubies and pearls.
Search! Research! Sahir is our Kalidas today!
Not Ghalib
That incorrigibly derailed locomotive
Ever MAIYAAB!
Not Iqbal, peak promise
Degenerating into parochial Islam
Vivisecting our grand subcontinental nation.
Not Faiz
All of one high intellectual sortie.
Sahir shining!
And Sahir work
Like pole star upon sky
A guide, guide post
Yet our camarade
Today, Sahir is our Kalidas host!
October 20th, 2008 | #
TO SAHIR PUPILS
Self appointed?
Well! So be it!
As long as Sahir juices flow!
I even sing of hope
Weave on Sahirish dreams
Troubled folks!
Come away from listlessness’ scums
Be you yet living’s bubbling creams
As indeed those inspiring Sahir deems!
Rebel!
Revolt!
Speak up!
Join hands, by need
Take to arms!
Bands upon bands
India wide
Taking matters in own hands
Sahir Banner flying high
Let’s end nation’s this wild run
Bring in instead redemption’s sun
To rise, to shine over our darkened sky
Try!
Oh! try!
By each breath
By each wistful sigh
Try! Try!! Try!!!
October 23rd, 2008 | #
SAHIR
-celebrating a singular Indian genius
Generally, our adoration for Sahir’s oeuvre exhausts itself around his better known film songs. But that is so because we tend, as a matter of course, towards conventional rather than the unconventional. Even so, it is not without good reason, for not only are songs a very popular ‘artifact’ of Indian life, but also because Sahir has raised his songs too to a pedestal that is reached, as they say, once in thousand years. After all, Sahir’s songs are distinguished by extraordinary brilliance of his literary creativity’s fireworks!
Of course, his idiom is at once colloquial, extremely simple prosody at that so that every word, every phrase Sahir uses easily relates to our own experience and situation, often enough an exact fit. It is so good, so amazingly accurate that we marvel at Sahir’s facility with words, in fact his overpowering mastery of his particular genre.
I have always sought after the springs of his muse. Even though that is a matter of serious academic research at university level, my hunch is that those secrets lie concealed in his adolescent years in Ludhiana- his personal vicissitudes, the ‘Talkhi’ of his intercourse with people he came to have to do with. Just as out of filthy mucks grows beautiful lotus, so must have sprouted from social reaction’s stink what later on added up to Sahir philosophy on the art of poetry, in a word Sahir geist.
Now, Sahir’s medium was majorly Urdu, another rich harvest from Hindustan seeds. But then we also know that the poet was a completely enlightened soul. An open hearted citizen whose mind was occupied only by the very best in human values. I can say, from what I know of him by my engagement with his thought as given in his verse, that Sahir was quite an otherworldly fellow. How I wish I could write his biography!
I shall here particularly showcase his deftness with the art of poetry per se using two of his scintillating songs written in chaste Hindi. I don’t think any other poet reached those towering heights of accomplishment, doesn’t matter in Hindi or Urdu language. And each of the two songs ought to put Sahir at the very peak of poetry art’s Himalaya.
In the one case, drenched with profoundness, Sahir verse dwells on life’s innermost truths such as stem from deepest fathom of knowledge of spirituality. Lord Krishna Himself did delineate at length on the central place of ATMNAH (Gita-6/5), loosely translated mind, as regards successful denouement to human life. Sahir the mortal has actually called that locus ‘Mana’ as he writes MAN RE TU KAHE NA DHIR DHARE.
Each word, each phrase is a class apart, over and above the golden worth of the represented supreme knowledge, oh! Seminal meaning. The carried Hindi lyricism itself drips with sweeter than honey cadences. Staccato alliteration, as in the phrases KAHE NA DHIR DHARE, NIRMOHI MOH NA JANE, RANG PE KIS NE PEHRE, ROOP.. astounds our subtler sensibility, again in turns inspiring, enriching and deepening our insights.
Another equally wondrous example follows from Sahir’s expertise in rhymed meter. It generates in the mind of Rasik (English has no equivalent word really) such fountains of joys- poetry’s joys- than mind begins to ‘melt’, oh! Fluid with feel and emotion; heart soars, into its own moving emotion’s tangential trajectories, high up exuberance canopy held in art’s glittering skies. Oh! This Sahir thief steals from us our very own hearts! In broad day light as it were!
Here are, viewed in exact context, the resplendent rhymes.
RASIK KO NAINON MEIN
RAKH LOONGI PALKEIN MOOND MOOND
AAJ SAKHI PEE DALOONGI
MEIN DARSHAN JAL KI BOOND BOOND
LE AAO KALIYAAN GOOND GOOND
This is called other worldly mood of muse!
This is called super rich poetry! Oh! Divine! As of gods!
Such divinely laid was Sahir soul indeed!
If this was Sahir excursion into Hindi letters, imagine Sahir stars and galaxies pulsating upon Urdu firmament. By God! It is one off!
As our Chandrayaan makes its moves over the moon and it fills our hearts with prideful joy, I am directly taken to Sahir’s very seminal poem MERE AHAD KE HASINO with which this unfailing optimist celebrated to his time the inauguration of Sputnik.
His words are unique, to say the least.
Here are they
MERE SATH REHNE VALO!
MERE BAAD AANE VALO!
MERE DAUR KA YEH TOHFA
TUMHENIN SAAZGAAR AYE
KABHI TUM KHALA SE GUZRO
KISI SIMTAN KI KHATIR
KABHI TOM KO DIL MEIN RAKH KAR
KOI GULAZAAR AYE.
English translation:
O my contemporaries!
O my successors!
May this gift of my time
Prove for you a boon
Now you may tumble through spaces
Seeking a fairy ‘silverine’
Now may some petal cheeked fairy
Holding you in heart
Come to you, smart.
I salute Sahir, a truest Bharat Ratan!
October 23rd, 2008 | #
Thus, it is great that in their own lesser mortal way, our creative compatriots have left for us treasure troves of this wonderful wealth- melodiously golden songs!
Indian song! Honey like sweet, water like flowy, ocean like deep, stars like pulling, of meanings full, the lovely Indian Song!
And, just to name one recent genius artist, Sahir Ludhianvi burst over us as a big blue monsoon cloud drenching our souls deep inside with exuberance of Indian Song!
We are ever enamored of it, aren’t we?
Phailli hui hain sapnon ki bahein
aa jaa chal dein kahin door!
Vahi meri manzil
Vohi teri rahein
aa jaa chal dein kahin door!
Oonchi ghata ke saye tale chhup jayein
Dhoondhali phiza mein
Kuchh khoyen kuchh payen
Sanson ki lai par
Koi aisi dhun gayen
De de jo dil ko dil ki pnahein
Jhoola dhanakta
Dheere dheere hum jhoolein
Ambar to kya hai
Taaron ke bhi lab chhoo lein!
Dekhen na peechhe
Murh ke nigahein
Aa jaa chal dein kahin door!
India Song! A multifaced jewel of peak creativity, mind enrapturing sheer magic by the pen of lyrical poet, by the keys of heavenly composer, by the Saraswati blessed Kokil Kantha of the melodious songstress, not to speak of fluidly dancing Tabla beats, deep resonating Pakhawaj bols, and Dholak’s inimitable Dutta Ram Dha Dhin Dhin Dha echoes!
excerpt from an unpublished essay INDIA SONG
December 26th, 2008 | #
Celebrating March 8, the great poet’s Barsi
SAHIR APOGEE
(na to karvaan ki talaash hai)
Neither seeking a caravan
Nor in the look out
For fellow traveler
This my crazed obsession
It seeks but your passage!
This my ill fated craving
Death alone is its denouement
Now, nothing but death really
Whoever dispenses poison
In medicine’s guise
Such healer’s touch
Is my sought out prize.
Your love is my cherish
Your love, too, my relish
Heart is love
The body too
Besides, my life’s very thread
Why, if you tested it
Faith itself is but love
How could I abandon thy love?
My lifetime’s pursuit true!
Only one oneself hurt
Can appreciate another’s hurt
I address the wick’s flame
Not those in attendance
For, it boils down to love.
It is even common fate
By morning shall burn to ash
Be it flame
Be it the moth, all
For, such is love’s enthrall.
Neither by heartlessness
Nor by gallows
Neither by daggers
Nor yet by swords
Was ever conquered love
Such this Majnu’s calls
Before which no Laila
Was ever held back
No! By no walls.
By light banter if demanded
I would offer my very life
Yeah! What is life?
I would part with
The very moral, the upright!
Off high brow eye is ordained
That I am to die
Poison is presented
Commanded to be drunk
When I drink on
Is bemoaned, ah!
He dies not
When I do die
Is said, but you must live on!
Love-faith’s custom is strict
At every step a wall erected its way
But love is free
Neither Hindu
Nor Mussalman is love
Faith unto itself
A moral all its own is love.
Equally, the Sheikh
And the Brahmin ignorance,
Love is that truth’s thundering élan!
Love doesn’t care
For religion
Nor any for the castes
Thousand Barats sank in warm bloods
On this very love’s account
Three cheers to love’s fount!
The path of love is doubtless hard
Take it not so easy
For, again, it is love!
Very treacherous indeed is
The trail to the water hole
What water shall I fetch from Yamuna?
That I went water gathering
O friend! Look!
As I was ready
Came Krishna crossing my path
Mind Him! I cried
What water shall I fetch, Sakhi!
Save my drape’s honor!
Whenever Krishna flute played
Would emerge the all ornate Radha
Oblivious of propriety
Impropriety
Abandoning all censure anxiety.
Oh!
How did Janak’s darling daughter
Wholesomely become!
Wearing those love’s garlands
Meera! The Meera
Thirsting after Darshan-Jal
How she downed poison cup
Entreating, now by Your Grace
Look! Keep my solace!
The Allah’s
And the Rasool’s message is love
Hafiz word is love
Koran is love
Gautam and Messiah’s wish is love
This Creation is body
But the breath is love
Sarmad is love
Mansoor too is love
Moses is love
Kohitoor is love
Dust even is turned to idol
And idol itself to god
The height is that
Man himself turns God
Thanks to this very love’s prod!
March 1st, 2009 | #
CELEBRATING THE GREAT SAHIR
SAHIR’S MESMERISING WISTFULNESS
This night, this moon light
When then ever again?
O do hear out
Heart’s tale’s refrain!
On tree twines the sleepy moon light
In your thoughts lost the moon light
In another while, tired, will return
This spring like night
Shall never again return
Another moment or two is this while
O do hear out
The heart’s tale awhile.
On waves’ lips in shifts and shuffles
A slow steady melody’s mire
Inside of wet winds
Scurries a coldish fire
In this beauteous fire try you too to burn
Giving to life’s song yet another turn
Let now heartbeats’ tongue loosen from yearn
This night, this moon light
When ever again?
O do hear out
The heart’s tale’s refrain!
Spring on way out
Youth in wane
Under stars’ shadows
Give the stories the churn
Once, having called you
They start on track
Shall these spring caravans
Not turn back
Come, still is life a youth’s boon
O do hear out
The heart’s croon.
Moon lit nights
Oh, those love’s flights
Don’t know
Where ever they went lost!
Your voice comes
From fallen stars
I hear your steps sound
Among silent sights
The wet air
The high cloud
Tell your tale’s ruth
For you in torments
This my coals wrapped youth
In breast the smoke’s swirls
O do hear unfold
The heart’s tale’s whirls.
On waves’ lips hang
Those lost tales
Those hopes’s gardens
All turned to wilderness’ naughts
Where shall I find your whereabouts
All trysts are gone cold
Don’t know where went lost
Having passed, those earlier times
Devastated lies ambition’s domain.
This night, this moon light
When then ever again?
O do hear heart’s tale’s refrain!
March 6th, 2009 | #