Noon Meem Rashid, has been haunting readers and critics of modern Urdu poetry ever since he began his literary career, i.e. some 70 years ago. Much has been written on him but it seems that critics keep on finding new interpretations and new aspects of his poetry and, hence, keep on coming up with new books and articles on him.

Of late, there has been a steady flow of books and papers on Rashid. A couple of conferences were organised and some literary journals have published special issues on him. This is perhaps the kind of tribute that a great poet receives after his/her departure from this mortal abode.

Born Nazar Mohammad on August 1, 1910, in a small town in Gujranwala district of Punjab, Noon Meem Rashid died on October 9, 1975 — but he lives on.

What makes Rashid immortal? Is it his modernistic sensibility that makes him relevant even today? Is it the unusual diversity of themes and issues he writes about? Or is it his anti-colonial stance and heretical beliefs that attract certain readers? Another aspect of his poetry that entices many is his use of beautiful language markedly influenced by Persian poetry — a trait shared by two great poets of Urdu: Ghalib and Iqbal. Maybe, all of these factors together lend Rashid's poetry a charm that makes it so popular, albeit to a specific circle of readers who can appreciate and enjoy his modern imagery entwined with highly 'Persianised' language.

But the 'comeback' that Rashid is staging in a grand manner is really surprising for many as the number of readers who can truly enjoy a language full of Persian-like constructions and expressions is ever decreasing in our society. Many 'moderately enlightened' (a nonsensical coinage attributed to a former military ruler) scholars do not like Rashid's anti-imperialistic and anti-West stance even. In addition to that, many scholars of new generation do not fully grasp prosody or Persian — or both — let alone readers. And Mushfiq Khwaja had once remarked that “anybody who does not know Persian and prosody may not be a very good scholar of Urdu”.

The decline of Persian in our society has led to many losses, one of which is the inability to understand the works of many Urdu writers, who have written in Persian as well, in toto. Prof Dr Tehseen Firaqi has revealed in his new book ' Hasan koozagar ' that N. M. Rashid had composed poetry in Persian too. Rashid had given some interviews in Persian language during his stay in Iran from 1967 to 1974.

These interviews were published in some Iranian magazines and unless that poetry and those interviews are read, says Dr Firaqi, it would not be fair to judge N. M. Rashid. Or, at least, the evaluation of Rashid would be left with many dots to be joined.

The book is yet another feather in Punjab University's cap as its Oriental College's Urdu department has published it and it is the latest in the series of some very valuable books that the varsity's Urdu department came up with under the chairmanship of Dr Firaqi.

The book is quite different from the ones published recently on Rashid in the sense that it invites to see Rashid and his works in totality.

Prof Firaqi has recently retired from the Oriental College as chairman of the Urdu department and has deservingly got a post at the university's coveted project of Urdu encyclopaedia of Islam.

He had taught at Tehran University between 2005 and 2008 and, taking full advantage of his stay in Iran and his amazing command over Persian and prosody, had dug into some rare interviews of N. M. Rashid published in Iran years ago. The book includes, in addition to Firaqi's detailed article on Rashid, the poet's five letters to Dr Laiq Babri and the original Persian text of the three interviews with annotated Urdu translation and introduction. The result is a meticulous analysis of Rashid's poetry and an invitation to see and understand Rashid in entirety.

In the introduction to the book, Firaqi has emphasised the need for an edited and definitive version of collected works of Rashid as in the earlier editions some typographical errors had crept in.

At times, these errors have rendered the text incomprehensible and misled the critics such as Hameed Naseem who are considered a connoisseur of modern poetry. Firaqi has a difference of opinion with other critics of Rashid too and sees Rashid's poetry from a different standpoint, a right that no one can deny him.

This refreshingly different book has a lesson to teach to many of Urdu's so called scholars and professors: it brings up some new aspects of Rashid's poetry, a basic requirement of and justification for writing a new book or a new research paper; a fact that is so obvious that it need not be said, of course, but it somehow seems to skip most writers of what is called 'maqala' with much awe and affection and is published in Urdu research journals with much fanfare these days.

But most of these so called 'maqalas', I am sorry to say, do not conform to the standard as they only repeat old stuff by paraphrasing the already published material and are aimed at only fulfilling the condition (imposed on university teachers by HEC) of getting a specific number of research papers published in order to be eligible for promotion.

Anyway, many of us can learn a thing or two by this book. And, as they say, it's never too late to mend — and to learn a few useful things.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com