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.
Who says Majeed Amjad is less remembered. I remember him a lot (almost daily) since I read his book Shab-e-Rafts in my teen age. No doubt he is one of greatest poets of 20th century.
Dear Adnan Alavi:
like to communicate with you directly.
You may contact me at ‘ALVIPERVAIZ@HOTMAIL.COM’.
Two nazms of Akhtarul Iman in his own voice at the following link
http://www.urdulife.com/mushaira/poet.cgi?ara_akht ar_ul_iman
And one Nazm I recently posted at
http://www.bestghazals.blogspot.com
Unfortunately Ek Larka though available in English translation is not on net. And it is a tough task to type this long ghazal. Putting it for another day.
Pervaiz Sahab guftguu meN shaamil hone ke liye aapka bhi shukria. I am Alavi from Kakori, a town near Lucknow in UP.
This is indeed interesting discussion. I agree. Post-Iqbal era would encompass every thing and every body including Hasrat Mohani,Abdul Hmeed Adm, Hafeez Jalandri and so on. It will be a too large of a canvas and too long of the time span for a fair comparison. Perhaps a better milestone to measure the journey of the Urdu poetry in Pakistan would be 1947. Pakistan embraced Urdu like no other country in the subcontinent did and that provided the level of patron-ship which the language deserved but had not received since 1857. In the last sixty years Pakistan has produced numerous good and many great poets. Many names have been mentioned here although not all. Missing from the discussion are the names of Nadeen Qasmi, Habib Jalab, Ahmad Faraz and Mustafa Zaidi to name few. Now who would be included in the group of great poets of the post-independence era could be an endless debate but interesting one nevertheless. Mr. Adnan Alavi(Alvi with an A) has given us a list of Urdu poets unfortunately lesser known to Pakistani readers and therefore difficult to recognize and evaluate. We have to take Mr. Alavi’s word for it. Even though in my personal opinion, non-Pakistani Urdu poets tend to be more ‘romantic’ and ‘traditionalist’.
Azeezam Fawad Sahab,
I think I need to clarify. Pure literary magazines are different from social or semi-literary magazines. And as Pakistan’s own maverick writer (Ahmad Hamesh of Tashkil magazine) pointed out, ”Raghib Muradabadi can come out with a hundred couplets on any subject ever day and each would be falling in the meter and perfect but that can’t be termed as literature or good poetry’.
And I was just talking about poets of Nazm. Not ghazal. It is a unique aspect of Urdu poetry that Ghazal, which is just one of the genres of our poetry, has so dominated our literary scene that Nazm has been eclipsed.
Adil bhai, yes, I agree. If only gale-baazi of a shaa’er or singing of his ghazals by well-known artistes would have been the measure of poetic ‘qad’, then surely Shakeel Badayuni would have been a great poet. But who remembers him? Not even in footnote.
Meanwhile, off the record: Recently somebody was saying that Ken Barrington scored at an average of 58 but is never considered a great batsman. Yeah Compton and Trumper with career average of 50 and just 39 respectively but are legends. So is it here also like Shakeel Badayuni…output is not all but quality…the manner in which you scored and the situations…ash’aar ki quality na ki sirf tukbandi…
I would soon paste Akhtarul Iman’s Nazms.