I DIFFER, therefore I am. This may be taken as an act of self-estimation by Zafar Iqbal. He cannot help being provocative and controversial. He must say something opposite to what is in currency, hoping for a sharp reaction from his naive contemporaries. “That is,” he says “what provides a justification for my existence. They differ with me, therefore I am.”
But Zafar Iqbal is not a purely literary animal. He must talk politics too. So, his last week’s presidential address during the annual function of Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq was a mix of political comments and literary opinion.
The movement for the restoration of democracy is all right. But Zafar Iqbal pertinently asked: “Have we ever had democracy in Pakistan? We cannot have it unless we decide to get rid of feudalism and choose to promote education in our country, which runs counter to the interests of the feudals.”
As far as literature’s relationship with contemporary politics is concerned, in his address Zafar Iqbal referred to the writings which their authors liked to call ‘resistance literature’ and said that one better call it party literature as, according to him, those writers had aligned themselves with a certain political party. When that party came into power, they did not show the courage to raise their voices against its repressive acts. Instead, they managed to earn benefits from their party’s government.
Zafar Iqbal seemed very annoyed with those contemporary poets who posed as ‘protest poets’ but were in fact ‘opportunists’. Perhaps, he is only in his element when he forgets petty politics of writers and talks about literature as he has understood it over the years.
Poetry in our times, he said, has deteriorated into something rotten. What, according to him, ails our poetry — more particularly ghazal — is the lack of fresh air. According to his analysis, ghazal has hitherto been able, after every decade or so, to renew itself by having access to some new fashion. But since long it has ceased to undergo such a process of renewal. Ghazal, he said, stands badly in need of some new mode of expression. And added: “My whole poetic journey, which may easily be branded as going astray, may be summed up as a search for a new mode of expression. But till now success has eluded me. Perhaps my whole endeavour has gone to waste. Yet I don’t mind it. What I prize most is this fruitless endeavour. It goads me on to a renewed search.”
Zafar Iqbal insisted in his talk that in poetry what counts most is the mode of expression. “Language is our basic instrument. And any word, its untraditional usage, is that Ism-i-Azam which can lead us to the opening of a new door.”
As far as extracting meanings out of the genre goes, Zafar Iqbal seemed to be least bothered about it. In his opinion meaninglessness too carries with it some meaning. “I grant that literature and poetry are a cry for meaning. But are we not insisting too much on meanings? Good verse has in it much more than mere meanings.”
I don’t think Zafar Iqbal’s argument can easily be dismissed. He is not far from the truth when he insists on the meaningfulness of meaninglessness in poetry. And in this regard he quotes Baidil saying that a good verse carries no meaning at all.
Zafar Iqbal also seems right when he rejects Dr Wazir Agha’s attempt to impose puritans’ morality on ghazal. In his address, he quoted a statement from him where he, upholding the case for metaphysical poetry, has dismissed sensuous poetry calling it Choomachati ki shairi. In his reply Zafar Iqbal said that ‘ghazal is a kind of a mixed marathon race’ which knows no restrictions. It is for the female participant to decide whether she will wear a pair of shorts or will like to cover herself in a burqa.
Ghazal, as understood by Zafar Iqbal, carries with it a cultural heritage deeply rooted in time. It can well defend itself needing no outsider to defend it.
Zafar Iqbal argued well in his address. At times I have this feeling that he appears more convincing in his prose than in his verse. Is it because he had not yet been able to creatively absorb all what he has learnt on the level of reason and logic?
I DIFFER, therefore I am. This may be taken as an act of self-estimation by Zafar Iqbal. He cannot help being provocative and controversial. He must say something opposite to what is in currency, hoping for a sharp reaction from his naive contemporaries. “That is,” he says “what provides a justification for my existence. They differ with me, therefore I am.”
