Mehfil-e-Ahlul
Bayt
URDU
SHAAYRI
Marsiay
~ Mir Anis and Karbala
~
by
Ariel
Muharram and Mir Anis have become synonymous in our part of the world. In fact,
Mir Anis is a great teacher for the young generation if it wants to feed itself
on the gems of Urdu poetry. Undoubtedly, Urdu derives much of its strength from
the Marsias of Mir Anis.
Mir Anis has drawn upon the vocabulary of Arabic, Persian, Urdu/Hindi/Awadhi in
such a good measure that he symbolizes the full spectrum of the cultural mosaic
that Urdu has come to be. No Urdu poet from Ghalib onwards has lagged behind in
showering his eulogies on Mir Anis.
The art of Marsia in the hands of Anis has brought to itself the attributes of
painting, music and photography. He convinces us that a great artist is at work,
making us watch with a sense of wonder all that he has in his repertoire. The
moment the bewitched readers or listeners of Mir Anis's Marsias surrender
themselves to the magic they feel as if they have been transferred to the scene
of action aboard the time machine.
Perhaps there is no other poet in the world who has looked after the aesthetic
and spiritual satisfaction of his fans so completely as Mir Anis does. It is
simply miraculous!
This year the sub-continent has seen the culmination of a huge focus on Anis by
way of seminars and symposia on the bicentenary of the poet. The spillover of
the celebrations is still on. The month of Muharram is serving as the most
appropriate atmosphere to add to emotional intensity which Mir Anis's poetry
inculcates in us more and more.
Quite a few important works on Mir Anis appeared last year. The most commendable
of them all was monthly Risai Adab's monumental Mir Anis Number. Comprising
1,200 pages it shows that Hadi Askari's Muhammadi Education and Publication
deserves the unique credit in Anisean studies. Edited by Dr Hilal Naqvi this
publication is the best effort so far made anywhere. Mir Anis deserves the
honour for he is easily the fourth most important poet of Urdu from the
standpoint of Urdu's linguistic development - Nazeer, Mir Taqi Mir, Ghalib and
Wajid Ali Shah. I strongly believe that only Josh Malihabadi could be added to
this list. I have left out Ghalib and Iqbal from this list on purpose. They are
great poets of our literature but when it comes to discussing our important
poets in the context of language, then this yardstick calls for a separate roll
of honour. T. S. Eliot did it in the case of Milton when he said that regardless
of the fact that Milton's influence on English language was only next to the
Bible, he could not be regarded as a good influence on English language in spite
of being a great poet.
Allama Iqbal and, before him, Ghalib were definitely greater poets than Mir
Anis, but none of them satisfied us on so many counts as Mir Anis did. Unless we
appreciate the fact that a good poet may not be a great poet and vice versa. Mir
Anis bicentenary celebrations have also been enriched by Nayyar Masud's
important book Mir Anis (Swaneh) and Syed Zamir Akhtar Naqvi's book Mir Anis Ki
Shaeri Mein Rangon ka Istaimal besides Dr Taqi Abidi's work Tajzia-i-Yaadgar
Marsia.
The picture that is emerging of Mir Anis could be summed up in the following
words: Mir Anis is a great Marsia poet but he is no less important as an Urdu
poet. Hence his appreciation should not remain confined to a particular sect. Dr
Hilal has very rightly dwelt on this point. I believe that a poet like Mir Anis
should not be confined to a particular sect. It would be the height of a
different kind of tragedy if Baudelaire was confined to being a Roman Catholic,
Shakespeare with Protestantism and Milton with the Puritan sect. When we delimit
a poet we are only delimiting our appreciation of his poetry. By acquiring
greatness in his own right, he immediately joins the galaxy of the immortal
souls which belongs to the entire humanity. Shakespeare does not belong to
England or to the English-Speaking world alone, but to all of us.
Ghalib's homage to Mir Anis is worth our attention. Ghalib had tried his hand at
Marsia writing but miserably failed. Therefore, his homage to Mir Anis becomes
pertinent: "The Marsia-poets like Mir Anis and Mirza Dabir will never be
born again in Hindustan." The great mentor of the Lucknow School of
Literature, Imam Bakhsh Nasikh, had said: "If we want to learn Urdu in the
true sense of the word then we will have to learn it from Mir Anis and his
family." Hali went to the extent of saying that Mir Anis was the best of
all Urdu poets. This compliment comes from the author of Yaadgar-i-Ghalib.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad is on record having said that Ghalib and Mir Anis have
turned Urdu into a great language of the world. Ram Babu Saxena hails Mir Anis
as the Shakespeare of India and then he goes still further and puts Mir Anis on
a par with Homer, Virgil and Balmiki.
What made Mir Anis so important as to be equated with the best names of world
literature. May be because of his art of breathing life into words and making
them signify the signified splendidly. It has become almost impossible to think
of Marsia without Mir Anis. He has taken Marsia to the zenith. All that he has
achieved for Urdu poetry is difficult to imitate, let alone excel him.
Mir Anis, not many of us realize, was an active advocate of sectarian and
communal amity and that's the reason, perhaps, that his Marsias always touched
us. Scores of poets of other faiths have joined Mir Anis in his elegiac homage
to the Martyrs of Karbala. Jawaharlal Nehru had once said that Mir Anis was his
essential reading on the day of Ashura only to let him shed more of his
insularity. What a tribute.
courtsy: www.dawn.com - 12 March 2003
Back
to Marsiay
