The Hidden Garden by Gopi Narang (phonics books txt) 📕

Mir has an edge in masnavi and ghazal, but in qasida3 and hajv (satire) Sauda is by far the best.’4 Mirza Ali Lutf writes in his Gulshan-e Hind: ‘The truth is that Mir has attained a distinctive place for himself in ghazal, but in qasidah and masnavi Rafi Sauda has no equal.’5 Shefta went further and in the style of an adage wrote about Mir in his Gulshan-e Be-khaar: ‘His high is too high and low is too low.’6 This adage, a sharp tongue-in-cheek compliment, later became a public quote to downgrade Mir’s poetic contribution. This type of proverbial generalizations were a gross injustice to a master poet’s multidimensional, layered, and inventive oeuvre, as we would demonstrate in our analysis.

Hallmark of a Distinctive Creativity

agarche gosha nashiin huun main shaa’yiron mein Mir

p mere shor ne ruue zamiin tamaam kya

Although I quietly sit

in a lonely corner

in the galaxy of poets,

but my lyrical voice

has conquered the world.

The above couplet makes it clear that right from the beginning Mir had a feeling that he was different from other poets. His creativity was such that even in his younger years he was writing couplets that were distinctive. This distinguishing characteristic became his hallmark in later years. Sauda’s couplet that we read above was nothing ordinary. It had all the markings of rhetorical and crafty poetry. But it doesn’t touch the reader’s heart in the same way as Mir’s couplet. What is the secret? A good couplet has a mix of inventive meaning, free flow, and a heart luring quality. The presence of such elements and mellowness separate Mir’s couplet from that of Sauda. As a first step, it is worth noting that Sauda’s couplet contains a medley of nouns such as chaman, sub-h, jangju, saba, tegh, aab, kaam—seven in all. Mir has just one noun—dil-e sitam zada—around which the whole couplet is built. The effortless verbal structure used by Mir was far ahead of his time, unique among his contemporaries, and a primary reason for the genial and affable sweetness of his verse that left arty and lofty poets like Sauda far behind. Syed Abdullah has mentioned a couplet by one of Sauda’s disciples where he wonders how a poet who wrote in the common colloquial language could surpass a poet like Sauda who wrote in the rhetorical modes established by the great Persian masters like Naziri and Zahuri.7 Here is his couplet:

jo aisi zabaan mein ho ghazal us ko kahien bad

aur lehje mein ho aa’m ke so paaye vo tauqiir

Isn’t it strange that a ghazal

written in an ornate language

is labeled worthless?

And the one in ordinary speech

gets all the respect?

The term commonplace or ordinary speech, often used for Mir’s verse, was the principal misleading factor. We would address it later. The vital point here is that Mir’s simplicity is deceptive, and it deceived the critics for centuries. This idea was so widespread that even Mir’s metaphorical caveat was not taken note of for quite some time.

koi saadah hi us ko saadah kahe

hamein to lage hai vo a’iyaar sa

Only a simpleton would call him simple.

To me he looks like an ingenious sorcerer.

Mir makes this assertion time and again. Using conversational language does not make his verse simple. We will unfold this deception step by step.

Poetic Attributes of Rekhta

rekhta rutbe ko pahunchaaya hua us ka hai

mo’taqid kaun nahien Mir ki ustaadi ka

If Rekhta reached the pinnacle of its greatness,

this was the work that he accomplished.

Is there anyone who does not accept

Mir’s masterly and mysterious touch?

Mir has mentioned, and he agreed with Qayem Chandpuri in this, that his maa’shuuq (the raw idiom that inspired him) was a resident of Dakan—a veiled reference to Wali’s Dakani poetry. We should not forget that at the time when Mir was writing, Urdu was still raw and at best a work in progress. Mir was not only using an imperfect language; he was also creatively perfecting it through the process of his poetic weaving.

In his Tazkirah Nikaat-us Sho’ra Mir mentions six categories of Rekhta. First, there was a practice inspired by Amir Khusrau, of using Persian for the first line and Hindavi for the second. For example:

yaka yak az dil do chashm-e jaadu basad farebum b burd taskiin

kise pari hai k ja sunaave pyaare pi ko hamaari batiyaan

Like a flash of lightening

those two eyes pierced my heart.

I wish someone were there

to carry my message to my lover

on how hard I was hit.

Second, some poets used half a line of verse in Persian and the other half in Hindavi or Hindi. Third, there was a trend to create a poetic line that had all the verbal features of Persian. Mir called such practices absurd. Fourth, only those usages and phrases which were in conformity with the linguistic genius of Rekhta are used. Mir wrote: ‘But only a sensitive and creative mind could make this judgement. In the same manner, what is unsuitable and not in conformity with the genius of the soil should be discarded, again based on the poet’s creative judgement. I am all for it and this is what I try to practice.’ The fifth type was called iihaam—to use a word having double meanings, a sort of pun. It was quite prevalent at that time. This led to trite poetry, not written for creativity but for jugglery or play of words. Mir rejected this type. ‘I am not in favour of it and cannot recommend it.’ The sixth kind uses all standard devices for beautification like fasaahat, balaaghat, tajniis, adabandi, khayaal, etc.8 which the masters had perfected over centuries. Mir liked their artfulness for writing inventive poetry and he praised this type.

The sixth category combined with the fourth is what Mir preferred; and he called this distinctive, synthesized, and chiselled style as his andaaz (style).9

It is unfortunate that most of the literary criticism of the time simply ignored what Mir had stated about his unique creative poetic style. He was generally referred to as Khudaa-e Sukhan, meaning the God of Poesy, but no one cared to elaborate why