Keeping the occasion of Muharram in view, I would like to talk about the poetry related to the tragedy of Karbala, which in Urdu has come to stay as a distinctive poetic tradition.

At one time these elegies, or to be more precise, marsiya, dominated all the rituals related to Muharram, and enjoyed a central position in the mourning congregations called majlis. The majlis started with soz-khwani followed by the recitation of marsiya, which used to be a full-length poem running to about 200 stanzas or even more. At the end of the marsiya, mourners expressed their sorrow by reciting the noha, an allied short form of marsiya, and doing matam.

But in our times, as far as the majlis is concerned, the marsiya khwan, or to be more precise, the poet, has receded in the background, giving way to the orator called the zakir. However, in spite of this recession, the marsiya, along with its short form, the noha, still holds sway on the hearts and minds of mourners and Muslims in general. It also well serves the Muharram programmes on radio and television.

As for the genesis of marsiya, it can be traced back in time to soon after the great tragedy of Karbala. The sensitive souls from among the mourners were seen expressing their deep sense of sorrow in the form of elegiac verses. As far as Urdu is concerned, this elegiac form of poetry is traced back to the early Deccani period of Urdu poetry.

The verses written during that period were generally in the form of the noha. It was left for the poets in Delhi to provide further development to this form of expression. Mirza Sauda discovered the musaddas as the form most suited for this purpose and was the first to write a marsiyas in this form. This form then came to stay as an integral part of the tradition of marsiya. It was in this form of expression that when employed dexterously by Anees, marsiya touched its heights.

In fact, the genre of marsiya in the hands of Anees seemed to expand, bringing out the immense possibilities of a higher kind of expression fit for the exploration of deep human feelings. Hitherto, Urdu marsiya aimed at narrating the tragic events of Karbala in a simple, emotionally packed way so as to incite the mourners to weep.

But Aneesian marsiya is more than that. It aims at the deep feelings of the listener and tries to touch what is human in him, activating it against that which is inhuman and vicious. In fact, the battle of Karbala is depicted here in a way that it appears to symbolise a tussle between what is human and what is inhuman and vicious and in the garb of brute force. This brute force with its ugly face is seen hectoring and bellowing in a threatening way. On the other side we see a group of a selected few, serene in their behaviour and resolute in their purpose.

A number of critics have tried to say that Aneesian marsiya may be read as an epic. If that is so, there is at least one difference between the two. The epics, for instance the Greek and the ancient Indian, are mainly male-dominated. The battlefields in Iliad and Mahabharata are under the dominance of the din and noise of armour and the bellowings of warriors. Here in Karbala, one might hear another sound — the grief-stricken voices of women, and the children crying for water. This sad mellow sound may be seen acting as a counter to the harsh din and noise of the battle.

To be more precise, not far away from the battlefield there are a few tents, where a family with many women and children are staying. The family with its civilised behaviour and refined expression:

It may be seen as an embodiment of a culture, a culture standing with grace in contradistinction to what is ugliness and inhuman. So that is what Aneesian marsiya is. It is very much a marsiya and at the same time, more than a marsiya.