NAZIR Akbarabadi was an alluring and enchanting poet of masses. His expressions comprise of folk phraseology and are garbed in unique humour. Yet it is not all about him. He had a deep sense of studying the minutest of details of anything. His insight did not leave anything unnoticed from a basic thing like the blade of a grass to the most sublimated ones like ethereal beings. He was special at minting words.
He had mastered in composing every species and forms of poetry like Ghazal (lyrics); Qasida (eulogy); Rubaiyat (quatrains); Masnavi (long poem depicting story); Musaddus (six line stanza) and Tarjih Band and Mustazad.
DIVERSITY: In Nazir’s wide canvas, one can see rich and poor; king and pauper; drunkard and ascetic; serious and non-serious. Hindus and Muslims. For everybody’s appreciation, and mental grasp, the material is there.
There is everything pertaining to human psychology; happiness and pathos. The various aspects of life from the most dry and matter of fact person, to the most congenial and lovable one is there in his poetry. That is why everybody takes pleasure in going through his fine depictions of human life in plain and simple language.
HIS ANTECEDENTS: Nazir lived for about a hundred years. He was born in AD1739 and died in AD1830. When Wali Daccani came to the Delhi Court, Nazir was seven to eight years old. When Ghalib was young, he had some fifteen years to live more. Therefore if we broadly fix the age of his attending mushairas at twenty, it can be deduced that he saw the era of Meerza Mazhar Jan-e-Janan, Hatim, Ghalib, Zauq, Jur’at, Insha, Mushafi and Nasikh.
Among them, some died in his lifetime, while others lived beyond his. That is why whatever quality each one of them had individually, he had united them collectively. Yet he had his own unique style, one that was never touched by anyone of his contemporaries.
HIS POETIC EXCELLENCE: Following are some of his couplets, not generally known that they are his, which denote how exceptionally consummate was he in his lyricism and how he had assimilated in him the qualities of contemporaries, yet how much he has retained his individuality and style in them:
Nazir has extra deftness in his portrayal of love affairs, more particularly in the delineation of sarapa (contours and personal beauty). Says he:
The belly is soft like makhmal (velvet) and its centre is like the bud of a flower. The breasts are raising, most shining pelvis and the youth is most enchanting
There is full-blooded optimism in his poetry. The happiness and hilarity of the common folks on the occasion of fairs and festivals are through and through in it.
His poems like Banjara Nama, Aadmi Nama, Holi, Devali, Dasehra and others wherein he had depicted his interest in life especially of cooing his beloved, are highly accomplished pieces of literature. Over and above this, the tinge of humour which is embedded in them is something lovable to appreciate and admire.
Through his poems he emerges as a loving, laughing, sympathetic and extremely congenial person who is not antagonistic to anybody but is, sympathetic and loving towards all. If he is happy and mirthful in a festival, he is equally religious and devoted in a mosque or a mandir.
PLEASURE: He discarded religious narrow-mindedness and rigidity. He was an interesting type of Rind who took pleasure in seeing the world through the eyes of others and after merging himself in the society, turned his individuality into a collective one. Instead of becoming secluded and sad, he was a free mixer, smiling and laughing as ever.
His hilarity is inherent, not imbibed from others. He could not restrain a word that came on his lip. He was highly accomplished in humour and retort. Whatever was the mood of the gathering he got himself absorbed in it.
If at one time he had a tasbih in his hand, at the other time he has a zunnar round his waist. If he was seen at one time with a long beard in the mosque, at the other time he was seen clean shaven along with arthi. He played with children, took part in lively discussions with young and in the company of old becomes didactic.
