Review: Daaera (The Circle) and Dhanak (The Rainbow) edited by Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar

One seldom comes across a husband and wife who have both distinguished themselves in films, literature and activism and share an intellectual and emotional intimacy. Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar together form that rare couple, upending the general notion that celebrities are narcissists incapable of amicable personal relationships. Their joint project, a box set comprising two trilingual anthologies, Dhanak (The Rainbow) by Jan Nisar Akhtar and Daaera (The Circle) by Kaifi Azmi, shows that sometimes celebrity pairings have great creative possibilities.

Urdu poetry often features shattered lovers rejoicing in the sweet, sharp thrill of unrequited love. Progressive poet and lyricist Jan Nisar Akhtar (1914-1976), father of Javed, was one of those who explored love, loss, identity, the lessons emerging from betrayal and eventual healing, and the tormented universe of intimacy. Shabana Azmi’s astute note on the senior Akhtar’s tantalizing world reveals that though she is best known for her acting, she also has an acute sense of the poetic.

Dhanak, which comprises 26 densely textured poems translated by Sumantra Ghosal, draws on the dilemma of a conscientious person living in a world bent on stifling an individual’s multiple identities. The memory of bygone days is an unceasing motif that’s viewed and skewed through every conceivable literary trope with Akhtar employing subtle similes to conjure mental images:

Thinking of the past brings up your memoryin such a way that stirs the heartbeat.It is as if a maiden running fastIs tripped by a scarf caught in her feet. - Quatrain

Akhtar’s ghazals (not included in the selection) and nazms (poems) replace the worn-out tropes of romantic Urdu poetry with more titillating imagery and metaphors. In one of his best-known poems, Bezari (meaning “aversion”, though the translator has strangely chosen “apathy”), he depicts the intense emotional turmoil of separation. In a moment of disgust, he describes the moon as a prophet with no followers. Similarly, the stars resemble cold flowers offered on a coffin, and the sky recalls the ash of brunt corpses:

The stars-cold flowers that upon a shroud do lie,Ash from burnt corpses seems to make up the sky.The moon a prophet utterly alone,No followers to attend his sermon.Let me forget it all, my friend. 

Shabana’s appraisal is accurate: “His imagery is striking. I marvel at the precision of the similes he used. It seals the visuals in the reader’s mind.”

Jan Nisar Akhtar juxtaposes loneliness, the human predicament and rebellion to explore the chaos beneath the facade of optimism. With a satirical eye, he repudiates every cultural practice that views women merely as objects of desire. Instead, he shows how continual denial, repression, subjugation and momentary enjoyment of venereal pleasure epitomize the misery that women experience:

They who deny your salutations by dayAt night are high on the wine you pour their way.they are damned if your neighbourhood they pass by,these same men who warm your bed with their sighs.they do not speak with you; avoid all social congress,then lose their false dignity in the folds of your dress. - Daughter of Eve

For the poet, the marital bond is vested with power and imbues life with a thrilling sense of triumph. About this, Shabana makes a pertinent point: “There was an abundance of odes to the beloved, but rarely, if ever, did an Urdu poet capture so lovingly every detail of his wife s actions as in, Ghar Aangan. Akhtar saheb is perhaps the only Urdu poet who captured the play banter (nakhras) of marital life from the point of view of the wife.”

He is oftentimes stubborn,argues with me on every detail.he never acquiesces in my wishes,Yet he acts on my thoughts without fail.

The translation of Jan Nisar Akhtar’s poems by Sumantra Ghosal is largely expressive and fluid even if occasionally cumbrous.

Beyond the ironies of unrequited love and the quasi-religious quest for salvation, modern Urdu poetry also depicts compelling social and political issues in an idiom that everyone understands. Indeed, this is the hallmark of the work of the much-anthologized poet Kaifi Azmi(1919-2002) whose work forms the other volume in this box set.

Celebrated poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar presents 25 of his father-in-law’s poems translated by Mir Ali Hussain in Daaera(The Circle). Marked by subtle preaching wrapped in captivating imagery and an ironic vocabulary, Kaifi Azmi’s poems often are witty meditations on everyday trials and tribulations. He became prominent in the 1940s and 1950s when a group of progressive poets comprising Josh, Majaz, Jazbi, Faiz, Ali Sardar Jafri, Janisar Akhtar, Majrooh Sultanpuri and the like turned away from esoteric mysticism and nostalgia and towards the chaos of a world obsessed with faith and politics.

This anthology has appeared quite soon after Kaifi Azmi; Poems/Nazms presented by poet Sudeep Sen that included translations by Hussain Mir Ali, Baidar Bakht, Sumitra Ghoshal, Pritish Nandy and Sen himself. Mapping the creative terrain of Azmi’s sublime poetry, in this volume, Javed Akhtar asserts that Kaifi holds fast to human dignity even in moments of epiphany: “Very often, poets compromise pride for love and can be seen begging the lover for mercy and generosity. In contrast, in his romantic poetry, Kaifi Saheb accepts the separation from his lover but does not let it diminish his self-respect. Main aahista badhta hi aaya/Yahaan tak ke us sey juda ho gaya main (I kept walking away- slowly/ until we became separated). The poet’s dignity is not compromised, even in the worst of times, and perhaps the dignity adds a grand and dramatic effect to his poetry.”

Despite a discreet reverence for tradition, Kaifi refuses to see the complexities of life through the prism of any naive or familiar postulate. He calls attention to the implicit meaning of important historical events by locating them in the alternative creative space. His poem Somnath makes the reader realize that the plundering spree under the guise of religion was a blatant attempt to secure power. The veneration of deities has nothing to do with redemption, he suggests. It allows us to recognize some aspects of ourselves. Nothing works with ideas or values in abstraction; it impacts us emotionally; idol worshipping or razing is no exception.

Hope and despair have often been the subject of poetry, but uncertainty about the future turns on fear. Fears overshadows everything; it breeds faith, smothers the hope for change, and the emancipation of humanity becomes a distant dream. This puts off Kaifi completely:

Today, life has another name - Fearfear is the ground in whichFactions sprout, communalism growsstreams cut away from the seaas long as fear remains in heartsAll I have to do is to switch faces Change the way I speakno one can then destroy meNo one can celebrate the festival of humanity”- The Woman With Many Faces

Humans everywhere recall the past wistfully and this can invaluable for building the future. However, nostalgia cannot be used to deny progress, nor can the past be the future. This is what Kaif’s evocative poem, The String-legged Saint affirms:

So what if Man has now set foot on the moonthis is not the progressbefore this, long before thiswhen the atom had not yet been splitwhen the fount of knowledge had not yet sprung, someone had already made the journey from earth to skythese and many such ignorant conversationsTake place on my shoulderMy shoulders are sagging from the weightI grow shorter night and dayone day my head might end up next to my feet.

Lord Ram is highly esteemed in Urdu poetry, and several poets, including Iqbal, who described him as the Imam ul Hind (the revered leader of India), have made him the object of abiding reverence. Kaifi zeroes in on the values that Ram represents. His famous poem The Second Exile explains why Ram left the capital again so hurriedly: Ram had not even washed his feet in the Sarju river yetwhen he noticed the deep stains of bloodGetting up from the river’s edge without washing his feetRam took leave of his home saying: “The atmosphere of my capital does not agree with me.”

There are occasional traces of turgidity in the translation but don’t let that put you off. All these poems are still incredibly relevant. In sum, the volumes in this box set merit several reads.

Shafey Kidwai, a bilingual critic, is a professor of Mass Communication at Aligarh Muslim University.