He observes life with a naked, naive and unbiased eye and knits surprisingly beautiful poems and short stories, portraying the real life and imaginations of the common people of rural background.
A promising short storywriter and poet Sabir Ali Sabir was born into a working class family at ‘Pandoke’, a small village in the suburbs of Lahore in 1977.
He started reading classical Punjabi poetry from a tender age and the works of Bulleh Shah made a lasting impression on his personality and ultimately literary works.
“My family had very limited resources, not enough to finance my academic education. Consequently, I didn’t have any formal education after the junior school.
“But the habit of reading and interaction with old village folks helped me a great deal in making my vision about life and shaping up the literary expression,” says Sabir.
His early writings were inspired by TV drama serials. He aspired to be a scriptwriter for film and television.
“Whenever, I started writing a script for a film it turned out to be a short story in the end. That made me realise my natural inclinations,” he adds.
Writing for more than a decade, he had to struggle a lot to establish himself as a writer among the literary circles of Lahore.
“The so-called established and qualified writers didn’t take my works seriously because of my humble social and academic background,” he says.
His first short story, printed in 2007 in a literary magazine, was well received by critics. It was awarded ‘Kahani Award’ by the Punjabi Adbi Sangat the following year.
Short stories of Mansha Yaad and poetry of Tajamal Kaleem have always been his sources of inspiration.
His collections of Punjabi poetry ‘Alaf Tha Panthi’, ‘Ikko Saahay’ and collection of short stories ‘Parchaween’ are widely appreciated and acknowledged and awarded literary awards, including ‘Masood Khadarposh Award’.
Currently, he is finalising a poetic story of civilisations for children. It is based on the works of renowned historian Dr Mubarak Haider. This is one of the major works to his credit.
“I am always criticised for being a storyteller of the marginalised and outcast, and termed unromantic with no glamorous female characters to portray.
“I depict cultural landscape I am living in, what else one can conceive out of bitter realities of mundane life?” he asks in a bitter tone.
After experimenting with various genres of poetry, he seems like settling with short poems making subtle but remarkably strong comment on socio-political contradictions and the religious narrative designed to exploit the unprivileged masses.
In both poetry and short stories his subjects remain very ordinary and ignored characters of society.
Through the eyes of these humble characters, he watches and questions the world around him. The element of satire which evolved out of helplessness, pain and agony remains the focal point of his writings.
Being raised in a rural society, he has a good command on the language which is rich in diction and blended skilfully with proverbs and folk wisdom.
Published in Dawn, January 3rd, 2016