Roundabout | The lunatic, lover and poet are of imagination compact

The Bard of Avon, William Shakespeare, put the lunatic and the lover in one row as theirs is a rich legacy of dreams and imagination. However, the poet has a greater gift of understanding the world around and even interpreting and analysing it, as well as reaching out to others in metaphors that soothe the head and heart of the reader or listener. Such are the thoughts that come to mind as one holds a mint- fresh book of poems curiously titled “Adha Ilaaj” (half the cure). The very name connects the lover and the poet who often express their pain and pangs in verse.

The author of this unique collection of new verses, opening one side in Hindi and the other in Urdu, is Salman Akhtar—an Indian-American psychoanalyst practising in the United States. His is a strong and old connection with our city for after completing his MBBS is Aligarh Muslim University Medical School, Lucknow, he chose to complete his postgraduate studies at PGIMER under the well known psychiatrist NN Wig. He went on to do his psychoanalyst training from the Philadelphia Psychoanalyst Institute. Hugely popular on social media, his recent book “Ghar ka Bhedi” made waves in which he wrote of the poetry of his illustrious forebearers, including his uncle Majaz—the famed Urdu poet who died young, his lyricist father Jan Nisar Akhtar and his older brother Javed Akhtar.

Coming to his latest book which encases half the cure, Akhtar says: “Adha Ilaaj is a collection of poetry which serves as a bridge to consciousness and assistance with music, words and emotions. In such a synthesis, our unsaid worries and confusions ease a bit.” To elaborate his point, he quotes none other than the poets’ poet Mirza Ghalib, who says in a couplet: “Dekhiye taqreer ki lazzat ki jo usne kaha, maine yeh jaana ki goya yeh bhi mere dil mein hai” (Watch the insight of the what he said, I felt that as though he had spoken my heart out).

The poet and the healer further goes onto say, “The poet resorts to pen down the deepest mains and confusions of his/her heart, whether it is conscious or subconscious, yet he can only provide catharsis to the self. He/she cannot be a healer, thus, the outcome is that the story remains incomplete and such is the beauty as well as the limitation of poetry. Thus, I have named this book ‘Adha Ilaj’.”

Akhtar illustrates this with his own couplet: “Yoon tao ashaar mein kuch unka bayan mumkin hai, dil ke har dard ko bhoolein yeh kahan mumkin hai” (Of course, I can say something of the other in my words, but to forget every sorrow is impossible). The poet also says that when he does psychoanalysis of a patient, the feeling he gets is that two people are together trying to write a poem. On the other hand, when he is penning his poems he feels it is an act of self psychoanalysis. “Thus psychoanalysis and poetry to me are twin sisters who look and feel like each other but they are not without differences,” he says. Well here comes a book of poems with a difference!

In search of a lost poet

The merry mix of poetry, psychoanalysis and of course PGIMER, a life saver for many including this pen-pusher, brings many memories—sweet and sour—of the 70s and I remember fondly one of my precious teachers of English language and literature at the Government College for Girls, who had set one of her poems in the psychiatry wards of the PGI. The poem I recall from memory: “Mujhse matt karo depression ki baat, meri filein dekho dabi hui hain jo PGI ke psychiatry ward mein...” (Do not talk to me of depression, look at my files buried in PGI’s psychiatry ward). She went on to say that these were not merely files but a living record of her rendezvous with pain and torment. These words penned by the tall, good looking professor, draped in graceful sarees, went straight to my young heart way back in the early 70s. I would seek her out, attend her lectures with attention just because she was also known as someone writing poetry in Hindi. Later on a self-created culture beat in the newspaper as a journalist, I would meet her at the symposia held every month at the home of the well-known professor of Hindi Virendra Mehndiratta. It was her spirit of challenging the expected order for a woman that excited me and soon almost a friend to her and close enough to visit the home on my green moped. She always welcomed me as did her husband Dr Sarin, a professor of zoology in Panjab University. I got to know her three lovely children, who migrated abroad, but am in touch with her beautiful daughter Rainy Khullar online. One of the precious books of old, which is still with me, is her slim collection of poems titled “Kuch kal ki, kuch aaj ki” (some of yesterday, some of today). It is a bit worn out but still has a suggestive sketch of her as she was in the old days with her lovely black hair bundled into a bun. Sometime ago, I sent the cover picture of her book to her daughter who also returned the cover with the copy of the book she had with a remark that wrenched the heart-wrenching remark: “You and I are the only ones who have this book, she gifted it to me on my first wedding anniversary. None of the other family members cared to keep it...My Mama, who was there for everyone, was forgotten so easily.”

No dear Rainy, she is not forgotten and thank you for sending me the lovely picture of the days she was in her prime till depression took the better of her. I end my remembrance with one of her liberating poems in this patriarchal world. I often recite it to myself and smile with glee: “Kya kabhi na hongi muktham iss ‘safai rakho’ ki kara se? Ao gand machaein, kursian torhein, gharon ko chhorhein, nikal jayein bahut door, gharon ki jailon se, apne sapnon ke gaon, madhur chhaon... (Will we never be free of the task of keeping the house clean, come let’s mess around, break the chairs, leave the homes, go far away to the village of our dreams, beneath a shady tree).

nirudutt@gmail.com