Urdu poetry, a mesmerising tapestry of intertwined and conflated emotions, leads into the captivating world of nonconformism, a rebellion that transcends the tantalising tale of unrequited love. Led by influential poets such as Mir Taqi Mir (1723–1810), Mirza Ghalib (1797–1869), Raghupati Sahai Firaq Gorakhpuri (1896–1982), and Faiz(1911–1984), Urdu poetry skillfully employs an engrossing idiom to challenge the widely accepted norms of collective life. These poets, through their reflective renderings, mock the self-appointed guardians of morality and the postulates of the well-regulated religion. They aim to instil a strong sense of rebellion that permeates all genres of poetry, including the most longed-for genre, the Ghazal.
The constitutive features of Urdu poetry, including rhetorical flourishes, judicious use of connotative meaning, and an ornate style that draws on metaphysical concerns and the multilayered life of desire, are not just captivating but also intellectually stimulating, engaging the audience with their unique beauty. It is this depth and complexity of Urdu poetry that fabulates inner lives in an expressive vocabulary, inviting the reader into a world of profound beauty and intrigue.
Creative terrains
Urdu poetry, often draped in a rich tapestry of love, celebrates much-maligned errant behaviour that defies all restrictions. It challenges cultural norms, literary convictions, moral codes, and religious commandments, and appreciates activities that unsettle but resonate with us. The experiences reveal different strands of human consciousness that surface in the form of a penchant for voyeuristic pleasure. The concept of “voluptuousness”, which in the context of Urdu poetry refers to the indulgence in luxury and pleasure, also betrays an unnoticed streak of internal splits, rupture, and reprobation. This unique mode of lived experience, with its profound and inspiring celebration of love, has a secure place in our collective memory, inspiring us with its profound celebration of love and the human experience.
Several Urdu poets tried to capture every pulse of unexplained relations beyond romantic overtures. The unveiling of excesses, mendacity and violence (sex too denotes violence) puts a question mark on the ethics of historical representations. It is what several Urdu poets continuously portrayed while trying to capture the epiphanic moments of unexplained relations beyond infamy and condemnation. The upending slippery landscape of waywardness through intriguing words constitutes an alternative poetic diction, and its creative terrains need to be sensitively mapped. Urdu poetry is admired widely, and the frequent publication of selections of poets bears testimony to the fact. However, there is a pressing need to tell the beguiling and multilayered story of love, sensuality, heterodoxy, irreverence and erotica. This non-irresistible, iconoclastic and generally cast aside trend of Urdu poetry is to be made accessible to non-Urdu speakers, ensuring that language barriers do not limit the beauty and depth of Urdu poetry.
Sanjiv Saraf, an enthusiastic researcher and founder of Rekhta, a platform dedicated to promoting Urdu poetry, has turned our attention towards all such digressions frowned upon by the so-called guardians of public morality. Now, his latest compilation,” Wayward Verses: Unruly Urdu Poetry, indeed not a run-of-the-mill anthology of Urdu poetry, supplements what has been missing. The range of selection indicates how many books, journals and anthologies are browsed through and consulted, before Saraf’s rhymed English translation of such verse hit the stands.
Exquisite rendering of the moments of subjection, privacy and obscurity wrapped in comedy, satire, and irreverence has been candidly showcased in the anthology. As the translator and curator of the book, Saraf explains the denotative and connotative meaning of the word “wayward”, suggesting that it conveys much more than its widely used synonyms, depraved, perverted, freakish, and iconoclastic do. He attempts to translate all that is beyond the clichéd themes such as love, separation, longing and devotion.
In his terse introduction, Saraf asserts, “…[M]ost of Urdu poetry is unconventional; it emerges from the minds of evolved beings and often brilliant people, and, over the centuries, it has developed a certain language, vocabulary and diction – expressing love or devotion, philosophical ideas, or other subjects. The object of this book is to present selected outlying shers (couplets) which do not conform to the established literary conventions of Urdu poetry. The book seeks to fashion a repository of all such unexpurgated and nonconforming couplets that have a securer place in public memory.”
Exploring and curating the undaunted and uncharted territory of Urdu poetry, Saraf observed a high degree of self-restraint as he omits Mir Mohammad Jafar Zattali (1658–1713), whose satirical obscenity and scathing lampooning of the tenth Mughal Emperor Farrukh Siyar (1713–1719) led to his execution by the emperor. The author justifies his exclusion by asserting, “The scathing satirical obscenity of Zattali, who was critical of the powers that be and was murdered by Emperor Farrukh Siyar, is not included as it is mainly in Persian and the Urdu ones were considered too controversial or offensive to be printed.”
The chosen couplets wrapped conjure beauty with dread. Pitched against the hierarchical gaze, the words imagine life in another way that remains perilous, sometimes identified with the parts of the body tossed off as insults or crass jokes. The selection showcases different ways of conducting, and Saraf has classified them into five broad categories: God; Religion and its Purveyors; Social Customs; Miscellaneous Topics; and Provocative Poetry. Classical poets figure prominently in the book as they upended the traditional concepts at will. It is pretty intriguing, and the justification provided by the editor looks plausible. “I have tried to limit the selection largely to shers (couplets) by classical poets. The classical poets lived in far more conservative eras, but those were also more tolerant times in some ways, so poets got away with a lot. There are also some shers of more recent poets, but fewer in number.”
The themes
The first section carries the cardinal motif of Urdu poetry, god, through which a profound sense of admiration and devotion is conveyed conclusively. Saraf’s selection begins with a famous couplet of a celebrated Sufi poet Shah Niyaz Ahmad (1742–1834), making it clear that whatever is uttered about a human beloved is referred to god. “Yaar ko hamne jaa ba jaa dekha / Kahin zahir kahin chuppa dekha (My love was everywhere revealed / Sometimes clear, sometimes concealed.)
The couplet is the metaphor of the Sufi tradition where one longs for oneness with the divine. There are innumerable reverential couplets and poems expressing gratitude, mercy, and divine magnificence, but Urdu poetry is replete with compositions that question the very existence of God. For many poets, god betrays man’s fear. Firaq Gorakhpuri (1896–1982) describes man as the creator of god. “Khuda ko ahle-e-zamin jab bana chuke to firaq / pukar uthe ki khuda ne hamen banaya hai (When they had created god, humans then cried out; ‘that we are god’s creation – let there be no doubt)”.
God has an intimate and warm presence in Urdu poetry; hence, he is addressed frankly sometimes with sarcasm. In Islamic tradition, god has 99 names, and all describe him as the most merciful. And yet, many poets find him uncaring, unjust and merciless, as a prominent modern poet Mohammad Alvi (1927–2018) puts it, “Mila hamen bas eik khuda / aur voh bhi bedard mila (only one god I did find/ that too pitiless, unkind). For Faiz (1911–1984), patience and courage elude him. “Eik fursat-e- Gunah mili who bhi chaar din/ dekhen hain hum ne hausle parvardigar ke (Time to sin we got, that too just four days – / We have seen the lack of courage in god’s ways!)”
Ghalib (1792–1869) subverted the much-revered concept of heaven. He astutely articulated in one of his famous couplets that believing in heaven is no more than a happy self-deception. It is astutely rendered by Saraf. “Ham ko malum hai Jannat ki haqqiqat lekin / dil ko khush rakhne ko Ghalib yeh Khayal accha hai (Though the truth of paradise is known to one and all, / Ghalib it is a pleasant thought to hold the heart in thrall).” The first section carries several couplets dovetailed into agnostic and atheist tradition, putting down judgment, mercy, hell, and heaven and lodging nagging complaints with God.
The second chapter candidly explains how Urdu poets, including Mir, Ghalib, Faiz, and others, remain torn between faith and heresy. Again, Ghalib surfaces here, who says, “Iman mujhe roke hai, to kichhe hai mujhe kufr / Kaaba mire pichhe hai kalisa mire aage (I remained restrained by faith, lured by heresy; behind me stands the mosque, the church in front of me)”. Saraf intriguingly picked up verses that depict how Urdu poets saw holy men deal with romance, drinking, and idol worship.
The next chapter is devoted to showcasing how social customs and morality have been made an object of disdain by the poets. A careful selection of verses on drinking alcohol, lust, sexuality, and homoeroticism is put before the reader. There is a little-known and less-practised genre of Urdu poetry, Rekhti, which provides a quick but insightful glimpse of everyday life and the life of desire of women. Saraf enumerated many, but here the male poet pretends a female voice to seek voyeuristic pleasure. A separate section zeroes in on lustful and scatological Urdu poetry, which lies in oblivion. The miscellaneous section provides a panoramic view of the topics of self-praise, anger, disenchantment, and rebelliousness in ironic posturing.
The translations read well, if with occasional turgidness. Saraf has taken pains in fashioning a gripping rhymed English translation, and one tends to agree with the celebrated Urdu poet Farhat Ehsas, who expressed a deep sense of gratitude from all Urdu Wallahs for exposing to our eyes the untarnished lustre of our beloved poetry.
Shafey Kidwai, a bilingual critic, is a professor and Director of Sirsyed Academy, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. He can be reached at shafeykidwai@gmail.com.
Wayward Verses: Unruly Urdu Poetry, curated and translated by Sanjiv Saraf, Rekhta Publications.
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