Dr Tasadduq Hussain is a veteran educationist. He is a popular spiritual figure also, with a large following. Haal-e-Faqeer is a compilation of biographical material related to him, by one of his close disciples, Group Captain (Retd) Shahzad Munir Ahmad. Rakhshanda Naveed is a prominent Urdu poet. Her latest collection of verse titled Khamoshi Ko Sun Rahi Thi is out like her distinguished contemporary Hussain Majrooh’s Awaaz. The three publications are being jointly reviewed here.
Haal-e-Faqeer
Dr Tasadduq Hussain was this reviewer’s colleague in the English department at Government College, Nowshera (the then NWFP and now KPK) in 1967-69. A self-made person, he was sober and suave but focussed on his favourite scholastic pursuits of literature, learning and mysticism. He has all along led a life of strife tinged with the primal virtues of austerity, humility, tolerance and contentment, eventually emerging ‘victorious’ in the metaphysical sense if not in the mundane. The travail of his journey within is obliquely the theme of this quasi-biographical venture undertaken by his devotee Shahzad Munir Ahmad.
There are as many as 22 miscellaneous pieces of writing comprising essays, pen-pictures, an interview by the compiler, and a few epistles addressed to the dervish by one of his admirers, Syed Abdur Rashid, himself an eminent mystic. Other contributors to the volume are Nadim Siddiqui, Prof Muhammad Arif, Muhammad Qadeer, Aftab Ahmad Malik, Niaz Irfan, Khalid Khalil, Iram Zubair (daughter-in-law), Zulfiqar Haider (son), Mazhar Iqbal Nizami, Iqrar Hussain Sheikh, Syeda Jannat-ul-Firdaus, Nazir Begum (spouse), Ahmad Mehmood, Rashid Afreen, Prof Arshad Mehmood, Riaz Janjua, Col (Retd) Muzaffar Ali Khan, Afsar Sajid, Abdus Samad, Fauzia Alam (daughter), and Engineer Munawar Ali Qureshi.
Since this scribe has intimately known Dr Tasadduq Hussain for nearly five decades, he is in a position to testify to the veracity of the biographical content of the book, forming as it were, the bulwark of his spirituality. It is axiomatic to attribute the achievements of a successful man to his better half; the maxim could well be extended to the life and work of Dr Tasadduq Hussain. The (ghost) essay ascribed to his spouse (who has stood by him through thick and thin with conviction and courage) in the book would also substantiate this thesis. In the last analysis, the book is a valuable addition to the biographical literature appertaining to the comity of men of substance.
Haal-e-Faqeer
Compiler: Group Captain (Retd) Shahzad Munir Ahmad
Publisher: Matrix Publishers, Committee Chowk, Rawalpindi
Pages: 192; Price: Rs400/-
*****
Khamoshi Ko Sun Rahi Thi
Rakhshanda Naveed’s poetic felicity finds its fullest expression in her latest publication titled Khamoshi Ko Sun Rahi Thi. Noted poet and writer Shoaib Bin Aziz envisions truth and civility as the vitals of her poetics besides a cognizable aesthetic consciousness sustained by an indefinable audacity characterising her socio-cultural demeanour as a feminist. Far from confrontational in her stance, she seems to be engaged in an unceasing battle against duplicity and sham. But that does not suggest that her poetry is a harangue on some socio-moral platitudes intended to propagate the cult of feminism.
The book in view is a wide but varied collection of her ghazal and nazm. Contextually her verse is a mix of romance and reality knit together in a kaleidoscopic pattern of rhythm and rhyme. Nostalgia, inconsonance between reverie and reality, a non-stoic penchant for optimism, and a passionate scepticism of the extant socio-cultural conventions, forms the nucleus of her poetic themes. Her accent is soft but self-assuring. The kinaesthetic undertones of the title of the book lend it an aura of the surreal verging toward the paradox of a mystic perception of the real.
The contemporary literary tradition in Urdu poetry tends to eschew the conventions of the neo-classical poetic statement and instead strive after a kind of poetic statement which is both precise and passionate, profoundly felt and desperately accurate, even if language is wrested in the process to a new and startling shape. Happily, Rakhshanda Naveed’s verse conforms to this norm. Some extracts from her work here will serve to illustrate the contentious formulations as affirmed in the foregoing observations.
Qadam qadam thay maqamat-e hairat-o hasrat/So dil ko pehlu may hairaan rakh liya gaya tha
Kaun samjha’ey ab parindon ko/Haq hawa par hai kuch hamara bhi
Khwab ki naqabil-e bardasht wahshat kay sabab/Log aankhon ko khula rakh kar hi sastanay lagay
Maey barson say faqat ek raat aur ek din kay/andar ji rahi hun/Yeh a’daad-o shumar-e waqt/jama aur tafreeq-e khayal-e aarzu/yadon ki aati jaati latadaad lahrain/tamanna kay subuk jhonkon ki ginti/Hisab inka mray bus may nahi hai
Khamoshi Ko Sun Rahi Thi
Author: Rakhshanda Naveed
Publisher: Jumhoori Publications, Aiwan-e-Tijarat Road, Lahore
Pages: 168; Price: Rs 390/-
*****
Awaaz
Hussain Majrooh is a veteran poet. As a literary artist, his vision seems to transcend the ephemeral bounds of the world of make-believe and fathom the psychosocial domain of existential pain and penury. Poetry to him is the proper fusion of meaning in language, not merely self-expression. What counts in the process is the intensity and pressure under which the fusion takes place for the function of art is the ‘exploration of experience’.
Viewed in this perspective, Hussain Majrooh’s verse turns out to be a transcript of the human dilemma in its multi-faceted but convoluted dimensions. Awaaz is his second verse collection after Kasheed, published some fourteen years ago. The intervening period has seen his poetic art maturing into a veritable mosaic of beauty and truth symbolising its rich diversity.
The author has introduced the book in its preamble, in a semi-monologic tone. Time and space constitute the primordial theme of poetry, as also of literature as a collectivity. The gyral motion of life, with all its curves and convolutions, underscores the cathartic impact of poetry. Awaaz epitomises the chanting of its protagonist’s distressed soul – a cry in the wilderness of a humdrum, workaday existence. A dreamy longing for the bygone, a seething quest for the unattainable, and a tortuous sense of loss accruing from the tragic demise of a dearest one besides a curious novelty of diction form the warp and woof of Majrooh’s poetics, as exemplified in the following excerpts from the book:
Saaray khwab kahan phaltay hain/Aksar khwab to/Kachchi neend ki tahni par hi mar jaatay hain/Baqi maanda tabeeron kay phansi ghaat utar jaatay hain
Baichay tamam umr jo khwahish kay nirkh par/Lainay ga’ey woh khwab to qeemat badal ga’i
Zar kay bohran may lohay ki salakhain laikar/Bayhunar shakhs bhi taksaal may ja pahuncha hai
Gali may aur bhi thay log ishti’aal pasand/Hamee ko aa’ey magar tairay khaddo khaal pasand
Aey chashm! hoshiar kay raaton ko shahr may/Aasaib ghoomta hai na’ey dar liye huey
Husn ho wasl talab, wasl ho taseer say pur/Yeh fasanay hi sahi dil to lubha’ey hu’ey hain
Ishq awaaz say tasveer bana laita hai phir/Usi tasveer may awaaz koi goonjti hai
Majrooh aashiqi bhi hai tareekh ki tarah/Ravi badal gaya to riwayat badal ga’i
Aik bayfasla manzil ko rawana hua/Chahat ka juloos/Shahr-e farda ko/Malal-e gul-e taaza kab tha/Takht-e-Bilqees ki aamad thi/Janaza kab tha
Awaaz
Author: Hussain Majrooh
Publisher: Rang-e-Adab Publications, Urdu Bazaar, Karachi
Pages: 220; Price: Rs400/-
More of the aspects can be seen from this article out of those poetry books this might be a good idea to get summary about those and then to read with interest this will almost get us forward to the point where we actually want get our opinion.
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