URDU poets, while portraying basant celebrations, have particularly highlighted two of its basic features: the yellow dress worn by those celebrating the event, and music. Inspired by the flowers blooming in mustard fields, people, especially young women, are seen dressed in yellow in the season. Amanat Lukhnavi, talking about the colourful dresses of girls, has also pointed out the other sartorial variety, the pinkish dress, in a couplet:
Dau char gulabi hain tau
Dau char basanti
But who was responsible for introducing kite-flying during these celebrations, and when did it all start? Should the city of Lahore be given the credit for its introduction of the festive season? In fact, it has given a new lease of life not only to the traditional seasonal festival, but to the age-old sport itself. It seems that Patangbazi, leaving behind all the other traditional sports, is now as popular as cricket. It has now proved its potential for attracting not only the local crowds, but also the entertainment-seeking foreigners.
The poets discussed above, mainly the Muslims, don’t seem to worry about the religion of basant. They’re sensible enough to realize that the mustard flowers bloom with no agenda of religious preaching. They just blossom into yellow carrying a message of change in the season from Jara Pala to Gulabi Jara. If the Hindus have imparted to it a religious touch and celebrate it in the form of a religious festival known as Basant Panchmi, why should they mind it? Poets are liberal enough to recognize that the Hindus have in general a tendency to attribute every phenomenon of nature to the miraculous doing of some devi or devta. In fact, all the devis and devtas can be understood as personifications of different forces of nature.
So should the Muslims in reaction to this Hindu behaviour sever their ties with nature? The clerics may respond in the affirmative. But the Muslims in general respond in a different way. In case of basant they own it as a purely seasonal phenomenon. While celebrating it they impart to it a different cultural hue. During the Mughal period in Delhi, people in their love for their mystics connected basant celebrations with the dargahs serializing them in the form Khwaja Bakhtiar Kakis’ basant, Nizamuddin Aulia’s basant, Chirage Delhi’s basant, Haray Bharay Shah’s basant, and so on. So the venue of celebrations shifted from one dargah to the other on a weekly basis. As for basant music, which has developed into a tradition, ranging from folk basant geet to the classical basant raag, they created a space in it for Sawwab. With the help of Qawwalis each basant took the form of homage to the Murshad on whose dargah it’s being celebrated.
So much for basant, whose celebrations have now swiftly ended, giving way to the season of sorrow, known as Muharram. Each year Muharram brings in a new series of publications in prose and poetry, centring round the great tragedy of Karbala. In case of prose, I will have to contend with what I already have in my bookshelf. Let me make a selection of three from among them. Premchand’s play Karbala, Khwaja Hasan Nizami’s famous short volume Tamancha ba-rukhsar-i-Yazid, and Nayyar Masud’s Marsiya khwani ka funn.
But here I will prefer to talk about the newly-published verse collections. I should better begin with Faiz Sahib, keeping other volumes for the next week. I am thankful to Hina Faisal Imam for providing me with a few copies of Faiz Sahib’s short marsiya, which has been produced in the form of a black booklet by the Packages.
It is significant that Faiz, sidetracking Jadid Marsiya, seems to be seeking inspiration from classical tradition, particularly from Anis, in order to try his hand at marsiya writing.
What has often been termed as Jadid Marsiya is based on the concept of purposive poetry. Those making a break-away seem to be thinking that marsiya should serve a higher purpose than just to make the majlis audience weep. It should help in promoting the noble mission Imam Husain stood for. This newly-formed concept of marsiya found its best expression in Josh’s, Husain aur inqilab. And Josh wrote this marsiya at a time when the Progressive Writers Movement dominated our literary scene. He was very much under its influence. And he, in turn, influenced the movement of jadid marsiya.
But Faiz with all his ideological commitment to purposive poetry, seems to feel differently when it comes to marsiya writing. Here the model before him is classical marsiya as represented by Anis. His whole expression is steeped deep in the classical expression of the genre. And the expression is so polished that it is suffused with a mellowness, which we will hardly find anywhere else other than in Anis’s poetry.
We can only regret that Faiz did not find time to write more marsiyas.
URDU poets, while portraying basant celebrations, have particularly highlighted two of its basic features: the yellow dress worn by those celebrating the event, and music. Inspired by the flowers blooming in mustard fields, people, especially young women, are seen dressed in yellow in the season. Amanat Lukhnavi, talking about the colourful dresses of girls, has also pointed out the other sartorial variety, the pinkish dress, in a couplet:
