In the post-Iqbal era of Urdu poetry there are few greater poets than Majeed Amjad (this is a link to a short bio of him in Wikipedia that I wrote and I would love readers familiar with his work to add to it).
Yet, he may also be amongst the most under-recognized and under-appreciated of our great poets.Even amongst the lovers of Urdu poetry his name is least likely to be recognized.
Reading Majeed Amjad’s magnificent poetry I have often wondered how it is that some literary reputations get created from meager contributions but some people forever struggle to gain just acclaim.
In Majeed Amjad’s case I think it was a confluence of factors: he was a quiet, reserved introvert with no inclination for self-marketing. He lived away from the literary center of Lahore in small Punjabi towns like Sahiwal and Jhang and never had many influential advocates of his literary merits.
But, perhaps more importantly, Majeed Amjad was not an ideological poet affiliated with one or the other group of literary luminaries who could beat their partisan drums on his behalf (Progressive Writers Movement managed to turn everyone who knew the words ‘mazdoor’ or ‘kisan’ into literary giants).
However, on to some examples of his wonderful poetry (unfortunately I do not possess any talent for translation so my apologies to those who struggle with literary Urdu).
Shab-e-Rafta was the only collection of his poetry published in his lifetime. He wrote a beautiful poem (Harf-e-Awwal) as an introduction to that collection:
DardoN ke is koh-e-garaaN se
MeiN ne tarashi, nazm kay eewaN
ki ik ik sil,
Ik ik soch ki hairaaN moorat …Garche qalam ki nok se tapke
Kitne tarane, kitne fasane
Lakh masaail
Dil meiN rahi sub dil ki hikayat!Bees baras ki kaawish-e-paiham
Sochte din aur jaagti raateiN
Un ka haasil:
Aik yahi izhaar ki hasrat!
The persistent undercurrent of Majeed Amjad’s poetry is a view of life that is essentially tragic (perhaps another reason why it is difficult for the young to embrace him compared to say Faiz’s optimistic theme of ‘we shall overcome’) . Majeed Amjad feels the inexorable cruelty of time in his bones. Life’s circle continues with unremitting regularity indifferent to what it leaves behind.
In the poem “KunwaN”, the water wheel symbolizes the perpetual circle of time and the water carrier, symbolizing the divine, watches this passing of time and its ravages with complete detachment:
KunwaN chal raha hai! magar khet sookhe pare haiN, na fasleiN, na khirman, na dana
Na shakhon ki bahein, na phooloN ke mukhre, na kalioN ke mathe, na rut ki jawani …KunwaiN wala, gaadi pe leta hai, mast apni bansi ki meethi sureeli sada meiN
KahiN khet sookha para reh gaya aur na us tak kabhi aai pani ki bari
KahiN beh gayi aik hi tund rele ki fayyaz lehroN meiN kayari ki kayari …Aur ik naghma sarmadi kaan meiN aa raha hai, musalsal kunwaN chal raha hai
Payape magar narm rau us ki raftaar, paiham magar betakan us ki gardish
Adam se azal tak, azal se abad tak badalti nahiN aik aan us ki gardish
Na jane liye apne dolaab ki aastinoN maiN kitne jahaaN us ki gardishRawaN hai rawaN hai
TipaN hai tipaN hai
Yeh chakkar yuhiN jaawidaN chal raha hai
KunwaN chal raha hai
I could go on but the last poem that I would like to quote in this piece is “Maqbara e Jahangir”. Notice the wholly different tone of Majeed Amjad’s poem. His reaction to this beautifully historic sight is a deep sadness as he sees human beings (gardeners, people picknicking etc.) in this serene setting either struggling to get through the day or wholly oblivious to this fleeting existence.
Khurdre, maile, phate kaproN meiN boorhe maali
Yeh chaman band, jo guzre hue sultanoN ki
HaddiaN seench ke phulwariaN mehkate haiN
Ghaas kat ti hai ke din in ke kate jate haiN …Teen sau saal se mabhoot khare haiN jo yeh sarv
In ki shakheiN haiN keh afaaq ke sheeraze haiN
Saf-e-ayyam ki bikhri hui tarteebeN haiN
In ke saaye haiN keh dhalti hui tehzeebeN haiN …MarmareeN qabr ke ander, tahe zulmaat kahiN
Kirmak-o-Moor ke jabroN meiN salateeN ke badan
Koi dekhe, koi samjhe to is eewaN meiN jahaaN
Noor hai, husn hai, taz’een hai, zeebaish hai
Hai to bus aik dukhi rooh ki gunjaish ha
Fawad is a California-based literati-at-large and manages the blog Moments of Tranquility, where a version of this was first posted. This post was first posted at ATP in October 2006 and is now being re-posted.
Without falling into this debate of who is better and who is not, I would say from the names listed above, in my opinion Nasir Kazmi and Munir Niazi are two jems of literature. Parveen Shakir gets the same rank too. Nasir Kazmi, depite getting a lot of recognition, also lived a life of poverty. Amjad Islam and Iftikhar Arif would be in second tier. Even though I dislike Iftikhar Arif’s very bad beaurocratic record and his efforts to stay in charge of pakistan academy of letters takes something away from him and his poetry. How long can you sell yourself with bharwaan khilari from the 70s and abhi kuch din lagayn ge from the 80s?
Adil,
I think in our culture the singing of poetry has a lot to do with popularity. This typically means that the “Nazm” poets are more likely to be short-changed compared to ghazal virtuosos (Rashid, Majeed Amjad etc.). “Nazm” enables greater experimentation with new forms and hence can be less lyrical and not as easy or suited to set to music.
Amongst good poets, you bring up Munir Niazi. Another lesser known name is Shahzad Ahmad who is also quite good.
Adnan, I am indeed Khawaja Zakariya’s son and much thanks for the kind words. I will convey them to my father who will be genuinely delighted to learn of your comments about Majeed Amjad.
Alavi Sahib: Thanks for engaging so thoughtfully with my blog post. The response requires more time and space than I can take here but I will make a couple of comments. You make two broad points. One, that poets go in and out of fashion and that does not mean that they have not been given recognition. Secondly, you make say that post-Iqbal poetry(ca 1938) is too broad a sweep in which to place Majeed Amjad as one of the leading poets.
On the first point I would have to disagree. Getting published in a few literary journals is hardly recognition. Even versifiers can and do get published in journals of literary merit. A slim volume of his poetry was all that was published in his lifetime, few in any mainstream literary movement even mentioned him as an accomplished poet and he virtually starved to death in complete obscurity in 1974. No M.A./Ph.D level research work was done on him until much later. Anyway, fashion in literature is indeed a factor but again many progressive poets have never suffered from a lack of attention (I would even put Ali Sardar Jafri in that category but these are personal preferences).
Second, opinions in literature are always somewhat subjective. I stick by my “few greater poets” formulation. I wouldn’t know how to precisely rank all good Urdu poets (many of whom you mention) but as far as I am concerned amongst the poets that I am acquainted with Majeed Amjad ranks very highly. I do completely agree with you on Rashid and Meeraji. I would include them and Faiz amongst the best modern Urdu poets in the same category as Amjad (Rashid amongst these is at times the hardest for me to understand).
There are a few poets you write about that I have not read. I have not read any works of Makhdoom, Majaz or Akhtar-ul-Iman and confess never to have heard of Ameeq Hanafi. Despite many decent poems between them, I certainly would not rank Akhtar Sheerani, Ali Sardar Jafri or Kaifi Azmi anywhere near Majeed Amjad. I think Nasir Kazmi (whom you don’t mention) is another good poet that should be mentioned in the next tier lineup.
In matters of literature I have never found discussions of ‘who is better than whom’ to be particularly inspiring. Yet we do get into them (for example, on whether Rabbi Shergil’s version of ki janaan mein koun is better than Junoon’s).
To me the key point of this post is why a poet of Majeed Amjad’s caliber never got the kind of recognition that one might have expected. And he did not.
Fawad gives us some good clues – although I should say that, personally, I share the prejudices of the taraqqi pasands. I wonder, however, if the question of who sings ones poetry (and how) also has something to do with it. Mehdi Hassan singing guloun mein rang bharray or Iqbal Bano singing hum daikhain gay were not inconsequential to the popular appeal of Faiz and, in many cases, drove people to read what else he had written. Faiz would not have been a lesser poet without these singers, but did he become more popular becasue of them (acknowledging, of course, that they too became much more popular because of the beauty of his words).
I wonder, therefore, what the dwindling status of ghazal singing might have on ghazal writing.
P.S. Yes, there are many other wonderful nazm poets who deserve more credit than they get. On my list, for example, are Munir Niazi (hamaisha dair kar daita houn mein), Iftikhar Arif (barhwaan khilari), Amjad Islam Amjad (agar kabhi meri yaad aaye, Himayat Ali Shayer (aeena dar aeena), just to name a few.
FYI, we have just added the part of ‘Imroze’ that was available on the web to the post above.