AN eminent Indian research scholar, Professor Dr Nisar Ahmed Farooqi, while paying tribute to Sadequain, wrote that “certain reasons disqualify me for writing on Sadequain. Firstly, I know nothing about painting and its critical standards. Secondly, I am thoroughly impressed by Sadequain — albeit as a common man — but this must have impaired my ability to judge his works objectively. Thirdly, he belongs to the same city as mine, Amroha; and if I praised him much even I would doubt that this compatriotism might have made me biased in his favour.”
While reading these words in Dr Farooqi’s article published in the special issue of ‘Tulu-i-afkaar’, I felt I was much more disqualified for writing on Sadequain. Not only I know absolutely nothing about painting and its intricacies, but I, as a common man, have always looked at the maestro with greater awe. And yes, he also lived in the same city as I do. He spent much of his short life in Karachi; he was merely 57 when he fell while painting a mural and died in February 1987. But Sadequain does not need my praise, or, for that matter, anybody else’s. He would have never cared; he was that kind. He was beyond such ‘petty’ things as fame or celebrity status — or even money — even though he had become a world celebrity. Even in his lifetime, some of his works were sold for millions but used to call himself ‘faqeer’ and, believe me, he was one in true sense of the word.
I just want to remember him and let the readers know that a book of a strange kind has been published to celebrate the fond memories of the great artist, the noble soul that he was. Strange in the sense that it is an unusual book: artistic, different, meticulous, intricate and articulate, just the way Sadequain was and the way he would have liked the book to be. Aside from that, it is, perhaps, the only book in Urdu that has been handwritten, painted and sketched by the author himself.
Sadequain was a painter, calligraphist and poet. The book titled ’Rubaiyyat-i-Sadequain: kulliyaat’ celebrates all the three aspect of the artistic genius. Edited and published by Syed Sultan Ahmed Naqvi, the voluminous collection of Sadequain’s poetry, his calligraphy and his sketches, is entirely ‘created’ by Sadequain. Except for the foreword by the compiler and the print-line, the entire book is the result of Sadequain’s creative genius: it is scripted (that is created), written (that is artistically handwritten) and painted and sketched by Sadequain. Every page of the book is a masterpiece since it has Sadequain’s poetry or prose handwritten, sketched or painted by the maestro.
In his foreword, Naqvi Sahib, while informing the readers about how he collected these works of art and poetry together, also lets us know how Sadequain composed these quatrains. He tells us that though Sadequain had begun composing poetry at an early age, he devoted himself to painting and calligraphy most of the time. However, in 1969, while he was busy creating masterpieces of art and calligraphy, the quatrains began to “descend upon him in such a flurry that it became almost a craze and the inspiration seemed to be ceaseless. Then Sadequain began the sketching of his quatrains. For about four months he did nothing except turning his quatrains into sketches. … When this phase passed, he had composed over 1,000 quatrains and drawn sketches to go with them.”
Sadequain composed a large number of quatrains but his fame as painter and calligraphist overshadowed this aspect of his genius. The first collection of his quatrains ‘Rubaiyyat-i-Sadequain Naqqaash’ contains 1,111 quatrains and the title is in fact a chronogram, which, when deciphered arrives at the figure 1,390, the Hijri year in which the book was published. The second collection of his quatrains was named ‘Bayaz-i-Sadequaini’ and the third one ‘Rubaiyyat-i-Sadequain khattat’. The book includes all three and the fourth, hitherto unpublished, collection titled ‘Rubaiyyat-i-Sadequain shaer’.
‘Rubai’ is regarded as a challenging poetic art since he has got only four lines to say whatever he wants to say and that too has certain restrictions. For instance, a rubai has to be composed in the specified 24 ‘bahars’ and a poet must have something worthwhile — be it didactic or erotic, religious or satirical, philosophic or mystical — maintaining at the same time a certain restrain in expression and a tone that is soft and relaxed yet rich and pensive. Most poets strictly follow the traditions that the genre demands. Sadequain followed them quite masterfully, trying to find a voice of his own. But his poetry has largely been ignored.
One hopes that the book by Sadequain, who put Pakistan on international art map, will invoke a fresh interest in his poetry.
