HYDERABAD: Playwright and drama writer Noorul Huda Shah has said she felt that ‘deprivation’ or ‘weakness’ is there in Shaikh Ayaz even after contributing to a treasure trove of poetry.

She said Ayaz had been confined to a cage of so-called nationalism with his wings clipped, adding that Sindh still experienced those conditions Ayaz had reflected in his poetry then.

She was speaking at the last session of five-day Ayaz Melo, which concluded in Khanabadosh writers’ cafe on Wednesday.

Her session’s moderator Amar Sindhu asked her to comment on the author-reader relationship especially when reader was unaware of the writer’s confrontation within. Shah observed that society always made an idol of a writer although if society or a reader understood the real ‘self’ of an author, then the society would never disown him/her as this ‘self’ was more beautiful than the reader’s imagination.

She said that writer was a restless soul in a crowd and remained misfit.

She added writer always struggled to write and tore apart many texts. This condition was different from a reader’s imagination.

Ms Shah said she had taken influence of Ayaz although her upbringing till 15 years of her age took place in Lahore of One Unit era and then she tried to adjust herself in Karachi amid “Urdu ka janaza hay period”.

She started reading Sindhi at home through Sindhi newspapers. She said Shaikh Ayaz’s poetry was manifestation of her loyalty, love and conviction for his motherland ie ‘Sindhri’ — a loving word for Sindh — and even today Sindh experienced all those conditions that had been reflected in Ayaz’s poetry during his era.

She discussed Ayaz’s book of ‘prayers’ while mentioning that the preface written by Musa Memon was a great injustice to Ayaz when he declared “Ayaz will now produce Islamic poetry as ‘infidelity’ in Sindh has come to an end”.

She said Ayaz was a poet who produced a generation that hated ‘emperor’s court’ and knew how to hold one’s head high.

But, she added, if Ayaz was excluded from the Sindhi language, it means that an entire portion of poetry had been taken away to deprive literature of it. It means that this language remains deprived of modern Sindhi poetry, she added.

“Going through Prayers, Ayaz’s book, I felt he had been kept in a cage with his wings clipped and he is told that since you are a nationalist so you can’t write poetry sans our consent,” she said.

She said a big part of creativity had been chopped off to destroy everything. “Even after contributing immensely to language and Sindh he looks deprived in this book”, she said added ‘deprivation’ might not be a proper word for many but ‘weakness’ is definitely evident.

“He keeps looking for his beloved,” she said. She added that variety and colour abound in his poetry but ‘beloved’ is missing because there was a cage between him and his beloved. She said this book was in fact an elegy.

Ayaz craved if he could be like Rumi or Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, she said. She said it was great injustice with him because all those for whom he produced his poetry maintained a safe distance from him. Discussing Ghalib and Ayaz, she said former is not confined in any cage like latter. She quoted Ghalib’s verse to explain her viewpoint. She said that no poet was personal property of any language or nation. She said that Ayaz had expressed his fear to his readers.

Dr Arfana Mallah invited Baloch researcher Dr Shah Mohammad Marri from Quetta to express his thoughts and he contended that if anyone accorded due status to ‘Baloch’ it was Bhitai.

“And I understood Bhitai through Shaikh Ayaz’s translation of the mystic’s poetry in Urdu,” he said while urging people of Sindh to at least translate Bhitai’s poetry in the Balochi language.

He said Mir Gul Khan Naseer and Shaikh Ayaz were close friends. When Ayaz was languishing in Sahiwal prison he had been communicating with Mir through letters. He said Ayaz had talked about common man and so did Mir Gul Khan. And when Habib Jalib focuses on common man an uprising takes place, he said. Only a few opposed One Unit and they also included Shaikh Ayaz, Mir Gul Khan and Ajmal Khattak, he said.

At a session of ‘Ka jot jalaye veenda seen’ moderated by Imdad Chandio, Qaumi Awami Tehreek leader Ayaz Latif Palijo said if Shaikh Ayaz was excluded from Sindh’s 50 years of politics then cause of courage would be lost. He said that Ayaz should be seen like a philosopher and ideologue and added that people said that Ayaz was quite self-centred. “I ask whether men of such stature should not have this feeling about them”, he asked and said Ayaz would always be counted after Bhitai in the future. He said Ayaz had opposed status quo.

Hameeda Ganghro, widow of late comrade Nazeer Abbasi, said that through his ideology and art Ayaz was still alive today. She said that Ayaz was a rebel and urged people to stage a revolt.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2019