THIS is apropos the letter ‘The ‘bias’ of a literary giant’ (Jan 10) which has charged the late Shamsur Rahman Faruqi with bias because of his ranking of the poetic excellence of five 20th century Urdu poets in which Faiz has been ranked fifth, while Ahmed Mushtaq is ranked first, presumably, in the words of the writer, because he was Faruqi’s friend.

While one may disagree with Faruqi’s ranking, he has repeatedly explained that it was governed by criteria of literary attributes; not by those external to poetry.

Thus, the writer’s advocacy for a higher ranking for Faiz because the latter “was a great humanist who felt the pain of humanity and sang the oppressed and the downtrodden song” and that “he was a great human being” would, rightly, cut no ice with Faruqi being irrelevant to literary merit.

A better argument would be to point out that there are multiple literary attributes and that a ranking depends on how each one is weighted relative to others which is a personal determination. Faruqi has written that he considered ‘soz’ and ‘gudaaz’ (passion and pathos) much lower than ‘maani aafriinii’ (wordplay).

A critic with different preferences would come up with a different ranking. For the non-critics, Faiz remains by far the most popular poet of our times, maybe because his poetry can be set to music and sung, and appeals to the heart rather than to the mind. Those too are attributes of poetry that many, contrary to Faruqi, consider highly.

Dr Anjum Altaf

Lahore

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2021