Khauf jinpe taari hai
Unmein eik main bhi hoon
Unmein eik main bhi hoon
I, Too, Am One of Them
With the coming of autumn
If nothing else
Those who sit beneath
These dense trees
Will get up
Those who have forgotten
The long distances of unknown journeys
Will remember once again
The pleasures of journeys will stop them
From remembering that
Till the coming of autumn
These very trees that gave them shelter
Protected them from the harsh sun
I, too, am one of those who dread
The coming of autumn
I, too, am one of them
Chupke Se Idhar Aa Jao
Darwaza-e jaan se ho kar
Chupke se idhar aa jao
Is barf bhari bori ko
Peechhe ki taraf sarkao
Har ghao pe bose chhidhko
Har zakhm ko tum sahlao
Mai taaron taki is shab ko
Taqseem karoon yun sab ko
Jageer ho jaisey meri
Yeh arz na tum thukrao
Chupke se idhar aa jao
Come Softly Here
Through the doorway of life
Come softly here
Gently nudge away
This sack of ice
Shower kisses on every wound
Soothe every ache
And I shall give away
This star-studded night
As though
It’s my fiefdom
Don’t reject my plea
Come softly here
Taaza Khabar
Darindon ki larhai ki
Koi taaza khabar jungal se aayi hai
Ke mere shahr ke logon ke honthon ne
Purani hijraton ki dastan chherhi
Zameen ko chhorh kar unki nigahein aasman ki simt jaati hain
Hawa sar khole paiham bain karti hai
Mere kaanon ne aankhon ne
Mujhe la kar kahan chhorha
Koi taaza khabar jungal se aayi hai
The Latest News
The latest news
Of duelling beasts
Has just come from the jungle
The people of my city
Have once again
Spun the story of old migrations
Their eyes leave the ground
And lift towards the skies
Head uncovered, the wind laments
Ceaselessly
Where have my eyes, my ears
Left me, stranded
The latest news
Has come from the jungle
Bebasi ka Aitraaf
Jab darindey jungalon se shahr ki jaanib chaley thay
Raat thi
Aur raat bhi kaali bahut thi
Jugnuon ki fauj unki rahbar thi
Saari duniya bekhabar thi
Sabz faslon se unhein bhi dushmani thi
Sabz faslon ki nigahbani pe lekin koi aamaada nahin tha
Hum nihaththe thay, akeley thay
Humarey paas bas aankhein thi
Aur aankhein khalaon mein lakeerein kheenchne ke shaghal mein masruuf thin
An Admission of Helplessness
When the beasts left the jungles for the city
It was night
And a particularly dark one at that
An army of fireflies had shown them the way
While the rest of the world was unaware
They, too, hated the green crops
But no one was willing to watch over the green crops
We were unarmed, and alone
All we had were our eyes
Eyes that were busy drawing lines in a void
Maut
Abhi nahin abhi zanjeer-e khwaab barham hai
Abhi nahin abhi daaman ke chaak ka gham hai
Abhi nahin abhi dar baaz hai ummeedon ka
Abhi nahin abhi seene ka daagh jalta hai
Abhi nahin abhi palkon pe khoon machalta hai
Abhi nahin abhi kambakht dil dhadakta hai
Death
Not yet, the chain of dreams is still snarled
Not yet, the torn fabric of my being still causes sorrow
Not yet, the doorway of hopes is still ajar
Not yet, the blood on my eyelashes is still wet
Not yet, this wretched heart still beats
Bibliography
INTERVIEWS
Baidar Bakht (over email from Canada)
Faiyyaz Rifat, Lucknow
Gopi Chand Narang, Delhi
Gulzar, Mumbai
Hilal Fareed, London, UK
Javed Akhtar, Mumbai/Delhi
Mehjabeen Jalil, Delhi
Mohammad Sajjad, Aligarh
Munibur Rehman (over email from the US)
Muzaffar Ali, Delhi
S.A. Siddiqui, Delhi/Aligarh
Sadiqur Rehman Kidwai, Delhi
Sarwar-ul Huda, Delhi
Syed Muhammad Ashraf, Kolkata
Vijay Kumar Bajaj, Aligarh
Zehra Nigah, Karachi/Delhi
BOOKS
Urdu
Huda, Sarwar-ul (ed.), Shahryar, New Delhi, Maktaba Jamia, 2010
Shahryar, Ism-e Azam, Aligarh, Indian Book House, 1965
, Satwan Dar, Allahabad, Shabkhun Kitab Ghar, 1969
, Hijr ke Mausam, New Delhi, Anjuman-e- Tarraqui-e Urdu, 1978
, Khwaab Ka Dar Band Hai, Aligarh, Educational Book House, 1985
, Neend ki Kirchein, Aligarh, Educational Book House, 1995
, Shaam Hone Wali Hai, Aligarh, India Book House, 2004
, Haasil-e-Sair-e Jahan (Kulliyat), India Book House, Aligarh, 2001
, Kulliyat, Lahore, Sang-e-Meel Publications, 2008
, Sooraj ko Nikalta Dekhoon (Kulliyat-e-Shahryar), Aligarh, Educational Book House, 2013
Hindi
Gulzar (ed.), Shahryar Suno: Chuninda Nazmein aur Ghazlein, New Delhi, Bhartiya Jnanpith, 2011
Kamleshwar (ed.), Aaj ke Prasidh Shair Shahryar: Ghazlein, Nazmein, Sher aur Jivani, New Delhi, Rajpal, 2007
Kumar, Prem, Baaton Mulaqaton Mein Shahryar, New Delhi, Vani Prakashan, 2013
, Shaoor ki Dahleez, New Delhi, S.S. Publications, 2009
Kumar, Suresh, Milta Rahunga Khwaab Mein: Shahryar ki Ghazlein aur Nazmein, New Delhi, Diamond Books
Shahryar, Qafile Yaadon Ke, New Delhi, 1986
English
Bakht, Baidar and Marie-Anne Erki (Selected and Translated by), Selected Poetry of Shahryar, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 2010
Jalil, Rakhshanda, (tr.), Through the Closed Doorway: A Collection of Nazms by Shahryar, New Delhi, Rupa & Co., 2004
Rosenstein, Ludmila, New Poetry in Hindi, Delhi, Permanent Black, 2003
Shahryar, The Light of Dusk: Selected Poems of Shahryar, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 2003
, Influence of Western Criticism on Urdu Criticism, Aligarh
JOURNALS/MAGAZINES
Alfaaz, Aligarh, different issues
Dabral, Manglesh, http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2722/stories/20101105272209400.htm
Faruqi, Mehr Afshan, ‘Farewell, Shahryar’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLVII No. 21, May 26, 2012.
, http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Farewell-Shahryar/279957.
Hamari Zubaan, Anjuman-e Tarraqui-e Urdu (Hind), Aligarh, different issues
Hasan, Mushirul, ‘Aligarh Muslim University: Recalling Radical Days’, India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. XXIX, Issues 3&4, 2003
Jalil, Rakhshanda, India International Centre Quarterly, New Delhi
, ‘Poems’, Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol. 17, Wisconsin-Madison, 2002
, ‘Poems’, The Little Magazine, 3:5-6, New Delhi, 2003
Khair-o-Khabar, Aligarh, different issues
Sher-o-Hikmat (Poetry and Philosophy), co-edited by Shahry
ar and Mughni Tabassum, Hyderabad, different issues
Notes
1 From ‘Kunwar sahab’ to ‘Shahryar’
1The Lalkhani are a Muslim Rajput community found in parts of north India. They are a subdivision of the Bargujar clan of Rajputs. The community is found mainly in the districts of Aligarh and Bulandshahar as well as Dataganj and Gunnaur tehsils of Badaun district in Uttar Pradesh. The term Lalkhani does not apply to all Muslim Bargujars, but like other Muslim Rajputs they retain certain practices from their Hindu past and exemplify a multicultural pluralistic way of life.
2 From Prem Kumar, Shaoor ki Dahleez, New Delhi, S.S. Publications, 2009, p. 172. (All translations throughout this book are mine unless specified otherwise.)
3 Ibid., p. 36.
4 Anil Maheshwari, Aligarh Muslim University: Perfect Past and Precarious Present, New Delhi, UBSPD, 2001, pp. 19-20. He mentions Dr Piara Singh Gill, a renowned physicist who was brought in as head of the department of physics; as well as P. Venkateshwarlu, an expert in spectroscopy and microwaves; and A.N. Mitra, a theoretical physicist.
5 Mushirul Hasan, ‘Aligarh Muslim University: Recalling Radical Days’, India International Centre Quarterly, Vol. XXIX, Issues 3 & 4, New Delhi, 2003, pp. 47-59.
6 Anil Maheshwari, op. cit., p. 23.
7 Hasan, op. cit. Hasan has listed several names in different fields such as Hadi Hasan of the department of Persian who had studied in London; Moonis Raza in the department of geography; Anwar Ansari of the department of psychology; A.B.M. Habibullah, Khaliq Ahmed Nizami, Muhibbul Hasan, Noorul Hasan and Irfan Habib in the department of history; Mukhtar Ahmed Ali in the department of English; Abdul Alim, Munibur Rehman and Maqbul Ahmed in the departments of Arabic and Islamic studies (notably, these men were liberals with a pronounced leaning towards the left, rather than the ‘Islamists’ or ‘fundamentalists’ one normally finds in these departments nowadays).
8 For details of the career of Ale Ahmad Suroor, see Rakhshanda Jalil, ‘In Memorium: When Comes Such Another? Ale Ahmad Suroor’, Annual of Urdu Studies, Vol. 18, 2003, pp. 626-629. Suroor was professor and head of the department of Urdu at AMU from 1958 to 1974. His name will appear repeatedly in this narrative, given Shahryar’s close association with him and his extended family.
9 Gopi Chand Narang has called this period ‘the last flicker of the golden age of Urdu literature after the Partition’ in an interview with the author.
10 For details of his experiences in Aligarh, see Ralph Russell, Losses, Gains, New Delhi, Three Essays, 2010.
11 Aligarh had, over the years, produced many known communists as well as socialists, the most notable being the firebrand Hasrat Mohani who had addressed the first congress of the Communist Party of India in 1925 and used the slogan ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ at a labour rally in Calcutta in December 1928. He was followed by Sardar Jafri, Sibte Hasan, Ansar Harvani, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and large numbers who eventually joined the Progressive Writers’ Movement, followed by Nurul Hasan, Moonis Raza and in more recent times Irfan Habib, Raza Imam, etc.
12 In the introduction to his poetry collection entitled Dhundhki Roshni, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 2003, Shahryar has written that he began to write poetry with seriousness and regularity from 1957 onwards, and ‘from Kunwar Akhlaq Muhammad Khan became Shahryar’ (emphasis mine).
13 According to Shahryar’s friend, Siddiq Ahmad Siddiqi, Shahryar recited in a mushaira for the first time at an event organized by their mutual friend Raza Imam, a student of English and an active member of the Communist Party of India (CPI) who went on to retire as a professor of English at AMU; this was Shahryar’s first formal introduction as a poet in Aligarh.
14 Gopi Chand Narang narrates that Khalilur Rahman Azmi sent him the MA examination papers and told him that ‘one of his favourite disciples’ was also appearing for the exam. At the time, he hadn’t met Shahryar or read any of his poetry. Their first meeting took place shortly after, when he visited Aligarh and heard Shahryar recite his poetry on a moonlit terrace at the home of a common friend. Thereafter, he read Shahryar’s kalaam on several occasions when it was published in Hamari Zubaan. Also, because Narang was close to both Suroor and Azmi, during his trips to Aligarh he had several occasions to meet the young Shahryar with whom he became firm friends, a friendship that lasted over the years till Shahryar’s death.
15 The bare facts were narrated to me by Siddiq Ahmed Siddiqi but repeated with many embellishments by
several people in Aligarh as a bit of an apocryphal tale: of a student taking his ustad to court!
16 Kitab, Lucknow, 14 November 1965.
17 Kamleshwar, ‘Ibadat Guzaar Baghi’, in Shahryar, edited by Sarwarul Huda, New Delhi, Maktaba Jamia, 2010, p. 44.
18 Gopi Chand Narang, interview.
19 This was corroborated by Shahid Mahdi who was Shahryar’s near contemporary at Aligarh and close friend in later years. Five issues of Ghalib appeared. Faiyyaz Rifat, the fiction writer and poet, told me that he was also on the editorial board of these two student magazines.
20 Mughni Tabassum was an eminent poet, critic and scholar from Hyderabad. He was a professor in the department of Urdu at Osmania University. Sher-o-Hikmat (Poetry and Philosophy) came out intermittently in three phases.
21 Fikr-o-Nazar is a quarterly research and literary journal of the Aligarh Muslim University; Shahryar became its editor in 1987.
22 ‘Maqsood, who died in the US several years ago, always addressed Shahryar as “Kunwar Saheb”. As far as I can remember, Shahryar was active in NSF, which was patronized by many intellectuals of AMU including Zakir Husain.’ Baidar Bakht, interview.
23 Baidar Bakht, interview. Bakht goes on to clarify that he never met Shahryar personally during his stay in Aligarh from 1956 to 1962. His first contact with Shahryar came about when the Sahitya Akademi asked him to translate the award-winning collection Khwaab ka Dar Band Hai. ‘When he heard about my translations, he wrote to me in 1984,’ Bakht recalled and sent me via email a scanned copy of the letter in Shahryar’s handwriting. ‘I first met Shahryar in 1986 or 1987 in Mumbai at the home of Akhtarul Iman. When he was somewhat tipsy, Akhtarul Iman asked me to take him (home) in a taxi. We became friends thereafter.’
24 Foreword in Shahryar: Dhundh ki Roshni, New Delhi, Sahitya Akademi, 2003.
25 In Sarwarul Huda (ed.), Shahryar, op cit., p. 74.
26 Baidar Bakht, Laghzish-e Raftaar-e Khaama.
27 Gopi Chand Narang, interview.
28 In 1842, Ghalib went to meet the principal of the much-respected Delhi College for a teaching position in Persian, a position he had assumed was his for the taking; however, since the principal did not come out to greet him at the entrance of the college, Ghalib went away in a huff, thinking he had not been given the respect that was his due.
29 Ashraf is a Sahitya Akademi award-winning novelist and short-story writer, posted as commissioner, income tax, in Kolkata; he sent me detailed answers to the questions I posed via email and WhatsApp. His answers to my questions were subsequently published in the journal Tehzeeb-ul Akhlaq, Aligarh, December 2015, pp. 28-37.
30 Mushirul Hasan, op cit., p. 49. Hasan goes on to observe, ‘I don’t recall any of our Muslim teachers making us aware of our Muslim or Islamic identity. We read what our counterparts in Delhi, Allahabad and Banaras did.’
31 Kamleshwar agrees that it isn’t as though Shahryar doesn’t have anything to say about politics or about the world and its ways; it is just that he says it in his own way. Kamleshwar, op. cit., p. 47.
32 Narang, interview. However, it isn’t quite right to say that Shahryar wrote no prose whatsoever. See Chapter 2 for details of Shahryar’s prose writings, which, compared to his poetic oeuvre, was indeed slender but certainly not non-existent.
33 Shahryar was fond of narrating an anecdote regarding Faiz Ahmad Faiz who, too, was a less-than-engaging reciter of his own poetry at public gatherings and mushairas. When someone went up to Faiz and complained that while his poetry was always
excellent, his manner of reciting it was less so, Faiz is said to have remarked, ‘Sab kaam hum hi karein?’ (Must I do everything?) implying, therefore, that he was a poet and not a performer. I have myself heard Shahryar narrate this with a twinkle in his eye.
34 S.R. Kidwai, ‘Manzil Benaam Bulati Hai Mujhe’ (‘Nameless destinations call out to me’), in Shahryar, (ed.) Sarwarul Huda, op. cit., pp. 198-199.
35 N.M. Rashid (1910–75) is credited with introducing a new streak of modernism in Urdu poetry. His influence as a symbolist was profound among Urdu writers of the late 1950s and 1960s. Rashid was a curious case of being a progressive yet not being part of either the Progressive Writers’ Movement or the formally constituted Progressive Writers’ Association (PWA). He believed that literature must necessarily have a social content but he refused to clothe his concern for the world in an ideological garb. Averse to the ‘personality cult’ of the leftists, he wrote a critique of Stalin in a poem called ‘Hama Oost’ (‘Pantheism’).
36 In an interview with me, Gopi Chand Narang cites the beginning of the end of the progressive movement to the fourth conference of the All India Progressive Writers’ Association held from 27 to 29 May 1949 in Bhiwandi, an industrial hub outside Bombay with a large population of migrant workers from eastern UP. A new manifesto was adopted at the Bhiwandi Conference and a more sharply political role was carved out for the creative writers here. For many, like Narang, this was a watershed event in the history of the PWM and the fracturing of the PWA as a cohesive entity can be traced from here onwards. For details, see my study Liking Progress, Loving Change: A Literary History of the Progressive Writers’ Movement in Urdu, New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2014.
37 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.
38 Among the grandchildren, Sahir, Danish, Arshiya and Insha were born in his lifetime, while Humayun’s sons Rayan and Faris were born after Shahryar passed away.
39 Shahryar’s baarat (wedding party) that travelled from Aligarh to Najma’s home in Malihabad has been described as a historic and exceedingly literary baraat, including as it did the who’s who of the world of letters.