Poems, original and translated

November 15, 2014

209

Iqtidar Javed is a well-known Urdu poet with nazm as his poetic forte

Iqtidar Javed is a well-known Urdu poet with nazm as his poetic forte. He is also an adept translator. Aik aur Duniya and Matan dar Matan Maut are two of his latest publications, the first being a collection of his Urdu poems and the second, a translated version of Iraqi-Australian poet Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen’s Arabic poems. The two books are the subject of this review.

Aik aur Duniya

Eminent poet and critic Farrukh Yar has highlighted the salient features of Iqtidar Javed’s nazm in his scholarly introduction to the book. In his opinion, lyricism, nostalgia, a crisis of personal identity, and the ‘homogeneous’ duality of his experience as an artist and as a human being characterize the substance and form of Iqtidar’s poetics. In his prefatory remarks, Nasir Abbas Nayyar, another acclaimed litterateur, takes cognizance of the spontaneous overflow of the lyrical strain in Iqtidar’s nazm that bespeaks, though in an obverse manner, a dichotomy in the artistic wholeness of his poetic work. Paradoxically, this quasi-dissociation of sensibility leads to a greater understanding of the poet’s work because creativity has quite often thrived on all kinds of conflicts and contradictions intrinsic to the human situation in a given age.

The collection carries forty four pieces of nazm with titles corresponding to their respective themes. The lyrical felicity of the verse adds to its charm. The poet seems to be in a fix as to the existentiality of his being. His dreams have not come true. The yawning gap between desire and fulfilment has grossly subdued his faculties. The idiom and phraseology that he has chosen to voice his inner perturbation is far from being a cliché-ridden cry in the wilderness.

Kin zamanon ki aasoodgi ki tamanna may/baychain hun/kaisay khwabon ki bayshakl haaiet kay mabain hun/kaun say din ki andhi tawaqqo pay jeeta hun aakhir/yeh kaisi kahani ka anjam hai/kin fasanon ki tamheed hai

Paul Verlaine, a 19th century French symbolist, taking an anti-moral view of art, proclaimed that he wished art to be irresponsible in order that he might indulge without reproach his sadism, his masochism, and his anti-parental neurosis. To a thoughtful reader, many a poem included in the book would suggest that:

Lafzon ko sha’ir ki aisay zururat hai/ma’ani ko lafzon ki jaisay!/huroof-e-tahejji nay jurna hai/to lafz banna hai/lafzon nay jumlay may dhalna hai/ma’ani nay/sha’ir kay khwabon may/pahla janam laina hai

Oscar Wilde was of the view that ‘There is no such thing as moral or immoral book. Books are well written or badly written; that is all… No artist has ethical sympathies… All art is quite useless.’

Maira zamana/bulata hai mujhko/zamana bhi chaalon kay zahreelay paani may/dooba para hai!/apnay zamanay say kahta hun/jungle may masroof hun/maey nay/mitti ki zarkhaizi/phoolon ki rangat barhani hai/dobara hisson ki tajseem karni hai/bhairon kay zakhmi thanon par/jari booti koi lagani hai/bhairon kay hamrah rahna hai/bhairon kay baaron may sona hai/bhairon ka hona hai!

Iqtidar uses the language of common speech and employs the exact word, not a decorative one. He seems to produce poetry that is hard and clear, and does not deal in vague generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. He creates new rhythms and restrains himself from copying old ones which merely echo old moods. The imagist in him portrays a world which despite its angular dissimilarities, brings into focus a teeming multitude of hope and inspiration.

Title: Aik aur Duniya

Author: Iqtidar Javed

Publisher: Classic, 42-The Mall, Regal, Lahore

Pages: 173; Price: Rs.500/

Matan dar Matan Maut

Poet, journalist and translator, Adeeb Kamal Ad-Deen, born in Babylon-Iraq (1953), has lately immigrated to Australia. He composes verse in both Arabic and English languages. He is a prolific writer having composed and published fourteen poetry books in Arabic, English and Italian since 1976. Iqtidar Javed has rendered a poetic translation of his Arabic prose poetry collection Tamah Khata in the book in hand which comprises forty-one pieces of nazm.

‘Loneliness, death, and love’ are some recurrent themes of Adeeb’s poetry. Iqtidar’s preface and Ali Shahzad Tauqeer’s translated essay on Adeeb’s second collection in English viz., Something Wrong, rendered into Urdu under the title of Kuch Zurur Ghalat Hai, serve to facilitate the reader in appreciating the poet’s person and art.

In the present work, too, he continues to explore the ‘human condition’ which can also be likened to a keen search for knowledge on his part. To quote Anne-Marie Smith, a distinguished Australian writer and critic, ‘He (Adeeb) engages us through his all-inclusive imagery and his use of trim, simple and sometimes elliptic phrases.’ She further suggests that ‘darkness, fear, passion and isolation remain close companions in any of his work’.

A contemporary Australian poet, Jude Aquilina comments that ‘Layered in meaning and nuance, Kamal Ad-Deen’s poetry is rich with deft imagery and well-chosen, often hard-hitting, language.’ In her opinion he addresses issues such as ‘war, human rights and personal relationships, with skill and empathy’.

The titles of the poems included in this collection denote a variety of themes ‘loaded with the strange and the symbolic’. His love of language, of words, dots, and of the letters in the Arabic language is amply reflected in these poems. Sometimes ‘the use of repetition and word play, create a dreamlike picture in the reader’s mind.’ The quality of translation either does not escape the reader’s attention. Iqtidar Javed seems to have taken pains in synthesizing and trimming the process of translation of these verses from Arabic into Urdu albeit the fact that the metaphor of death has been slightly over-stretched in some of them.

Mujh say kaha harf nay/yun pareshan mat ho/k har cheese fani hai/khud maut fani hai/tab harf nay aik shikray ki manind/par/apnay phailaaey/aur nuqta baadal bana/aur nikla falak ki taraf/maey nay chaha/k nuqta mujhay saath lay jaata/charon taraf say mujhay aisay ifreet nay/aan ghaira hai/deevanay darvesh ko/jaisay thug ghairtay hain.

All said, the book is sure to acquaint the Pakistani reader with a unique specimen of the diaspora literature.