THERE are writers who do not depend on any critic to form opinions on their creative work. They prefer to do the job themselves. So, if a writer has this ability why should he seek a critic’s service to write the preface to his book?
Saqi Farooqi’s newly published collection of verse Ghazal Hai Shart has prompted this writer to pen these words. I have been a regular reader of his poetry from the late ‘60s when his first collection Piyas Ka Sahra was published. In his foreword to that collection he writes that he’s presenting his book with no preface by any professional critic. Instead, he quotes from a number of personal letters written to him by his friends and seniors. Those letters carried many a piece of advice for him. The most useful advice came from his mother. She was of the view that he must get rid of his poetic nonsense and start taking care of his health. “Health is wealth,” she wrote and told him to have some milk and eggs on a daily basis. However, he turned a deaf ear to his mother. Saqi kept on writing poetry and his distinct views on the literary genre.
But now his new collection has hit the bookstores. It has two long prefaces, one by Jamal Panipati and the other by Asad Mohammad Khan. Interestingly, the most meaningful statement in Jamal Panipati’s scholarly preface comes from Saqi himself. He says, “A good piece of art has the quality of Draupadi’s sari that keeps on unfurling endlessly.”
The statement is followed by a quotation from Salim Ahmad, according to which Saqi’s verse has no Draupadi’s sari to put on. Perhaps what Salim means is that there are no layers of meaning in Saqi’s poetry. Jamal Panipati endorses it by saying that ambiguity is the basic characteristic of modern verse. But Saqi’s verse is not modern, because it is anything but ambiguous.
In fact, Saqi Sahib’s statement under discussion was given in a certain context while he was being interviewed by Ifitkhar Arif. This interview, used as the preface to his previous collection, reminds us of good old days when the two poets were friendly to each other. Who would dispute the fact that all Urdu poets cannot keep friendly relations with their contemporaries for long?
Now coming back to the point. At one juncture in the interviews Iftikhar Arif raises a question regarding Saqi’s reference to a variety of animals in his poems.
“The poems,” says Saqi “are not just animal poems,” and explains that different references to animals have no fixed meaning. Its symbolism can be interpreted in several ways. Saqi’s explanation compels me to say that Salim Ahmad was wrong. Saqi’s poetry does carry some pieces of Draupadi’s sari.
One explanation given by Saqi appears to lay emphasis on the relationship between these animals and his own personality. “These animals are a part of my self,” he says. “It is through them that I try to understand the cosmos.”
But how strange it is that his new collection of verse is devoid of all references to animals, which were dominant in his previous volume Razon Sai Bhara Basta. Should we conclude from this that he has lost some essential part of his self, and has also lost the urge to understand the cosmic reality?
The new books is a collection of ghazals, not of nazms. And ghazal is a genre that can hardly accommodate animals. The select few such as bulbul, qumri and ghizal have to be used as metaphors in a ghazal. The references to animals such as pigs and frogs are strictly prohibited as far as Taghazzul goes. Saqi sees no way out but to stick to these laws and say goodbye to his pigs, frogs and dogs. Sticking to the old laws of ghazal has its own benefits. Saqi is now known as one of the important ghazal writers. He has been writing ghazal for the last 50 years. The recent collection Ghazal Hai Shart, published by Academy Bazyaft Karachi, has all his ghazals written since 1955. This gives credibility to his assertion that he is “deeply rooted in his literature, his soil, his culture”.
But there is one problem. As a writer of modern verse he enjoys a distinct position among his contemporaries. Other characteristics apart, the animals that he refers to in his verse-wielding are enough to make his poetry different from the work of other poets. But for the sake of his prestige as a ghazal writer he needed to part ways with his trademark style. And the absence of references to different animals in his ghazal makes it difficult to distinguish him from his contemporaries. This is not an attempt to deny Saqi’s position as a ghazal writer. His ghazal has its own charm. But where is his trademark?
THERE are writers who do not depend on any critic to form opinions on their creative work. They prefer to do the job themselves. So, if a writer has this ability why should he seek a critic’s service to write the preface to his book?
