“A BASIC question that literary criticism has been trying to answer is: what are the elements that make literature or poetry great”, wrote Prof Dr Tehseen Firaqi in his intro to a compendium of important critical essays on Mir Taqi Mir’s art.
The question that Firaqi Sahib had asked some 13 years ago began to reverberate in my mind as I got hold of ‘yet another’ selection from Mir Taqi Mir’s Urdu verses, an 880-page tome compiled by Muhammad Hameed Shahid and published by Jehlum’s Book Corner. It is a selection from Mir’s Ghazals and one of the important features is that it includes all the ghazals form which Shamsur Rahman Farooqi had selected couplets to expound in his epoch-making study on Mir in four volumes: Shear-i-Shor Angez.
While referring to this new selection from Mir’s poetry, I said ‘yet another’ because there has never been any dearth of selections from Mir’s poetry. Aside from various compiled and edited versions of Mir’s divan, beginning in early 19th century, we can trace an incessant flow of Mir’s selections from early 20th century by well-known poets and scholars.
For instance, in 1909, Nawab Syed Husain Bilgirami compiled Mukhtar-e-Ash’aar, a selection from Mir. In 1928, Hasrat Mohani published a selection from Mir’s Urdu divan. Asar Lakhnavi published Mazameer, a two-volume selection from the great bard, in 1947. Others followed the suit and some of the selections are by: Moulvi Abdul Haq, Muhammad Hasan Askari, Ameer Hasan Noorani, Nasir Kazmi, Dr Muhammad Hasan, Mushfiq Khwaja, Qazi Afzal Husain, Sardar Jafri, Hamidi Kashmiri, Shamsur Rahman Farooqi and Saleemuz Zaman Siddiqi — our renowned scientist who as a painter as well as a poetry buff — not to mention some less known selections.
Though intellectuals and critics had always been trying to understand and appreciate Mir, it was Muhammad Hasan Askari who drew the attention of readers and critics alike to Mir’s poetic genius in the 1950s by writing on Mir and preparing a selection of Mir. In an era that was amazed by Ghalib and wonderstruck by Iqbal, it was not an easy task. But Askari himself had inspired and impressed so many brilliant minds, including Farooqi, and whatever he said was taken seriously, albeit usually initially rejected and sometimes scorned. By the way, Farooqi had been much influenced by Askari as reveal his letters to Askari that have been compiled by Aziz Ibnul Hasan. So, no wonder that following in the footsteps of Askari it was Farooqi in more recent times who rekindled a love of Mir in lovers of Urdu poetry. With Farooqi’s work began a new era of re-evaluating and acknowledging Mir’s great contribution to Urdu language and literature.
In his detailed preface Hameed Shahid has mentioned that Farooqi had gained much from Askari’s views when it comes to selecting Mir’s poetry and on many occasions both great minds think alike. So one can understand why Hameed Shahid has taken much from Farooqi in this selection and why Iftikhar Arif in his foreword has approved of Hameed’s selection.
According to Jameel Jalibi, Mir was born on Sha’aban 20, 1135 Hijri. This corresponds to May 15, 1723 AD and it means in 2023 Mir’s tri-centennial should be celebrated. But what makes Mir as great a poet as you would want to celebrate his tri-centennial? The answer is found in what Firaqi said to the question as to what makes great poetry. He said that there might be many contradictory and debateable points but many experts agree to some extent that three elements may cause great literature or great poetry to transpire: compassion, profound linguistic consciousness and creative imagination. It is generally very difficult that these three traits are gathered together in but one personality and if it ever occurs, such writers and poets are considered among great ones, says Firaqi. And that’s why emergence of such authors is rare in any literature and, he adds, Mir Taqi Mir should be counted among them.
There have been numerous books and articles that propound the notion of Mir’s poetic greatness with examples, but in a nutshell we can say that Mir was able to see the political and social upheaval through his own miseries and anguish. Apparently Mir’s poetry often sounds as if it was a tale of woes of the love-struck, but in fact it is “an elegy of heart and Delhi”, as goes the oft-quoted aphorism. It is often said that dil, or heart, is a metaphor for Delhi in Mir’s poetry. As for language, Mir was the real architect of the Urdu language in the classical era. Mir’s rich and vivid imagination is also incomparable.
So we are waiting for Mir’s tri-centennial.
Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2023
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