Ashqon mein jo paya hai woh geeton mein diya hai…
Translated from the original Marathi article in 'Geet-Yatree' by the late Shri Madhav Moholkar.
The article is quite long and will have to be uploaded in parts.The responsibility for any mistakes in translation is entirely mine.
1.
Poet and lyricist – the two images of Sahir in my mind may have imperceptibly blended into each other later, but he first entered my life as a poet. That was the time when I had just begun to develop a liking for Hindi-Urdu. I used to see as many films as possible, used to sit in a restaurant and listen to songs till ten or eleven p.m., or listen to the radio to my heart’s content. One summer night, when I had gone to Hyderabad, I casually turned on the radio and heard an Urdu poet recite: “meri mehboob! kahin aur mila kar mujhse…”
There was no artificial vehemence in his recital, no deliberate theatrical cadences. He was reading the poem in a hoarse, low-pitched sincere voice. But his firm belief in what he was saying was evident. Sahir was reciting his poem ‘Taj Mahal’. He was repeatedly and expressly telling his beloved: Meet me somewhere else…He did not approve of the Taj Mahal as a meeting-place for lovers. He was describing to her the garden, the bank of the Yamuna, the intricately carved marble walls, the beautiful arches:
“yeh chamanzaar, yeh Jamna ka kinara, yeh mahal
yeh munakkash dar-o-deewar, yeh mehraab, yeh taak |
ik shehenshah ne daulat ka sahara lekar,
hum garibon ki mohabbat ka udaya hai mazaak |
meri mehboob! kahin aur mila kar mujhse !”
yeh munakkash dar-o-deewar, yeh mehraab, yeh taak |
ik shehenshah ne daulat ka sahara lekar,
hum garibon ki mohabbat ka udaya hai mazaak |
meri mehboob! kahin aur mila kar mujhse !”
Not being fluent in Urdu, I couldn’t understand some of the words, but the sentiments pierced deep as an arrow. In fact, I was then at an age when one loves to write phrases such as ‘The Taj Mahal is an eternal symbol of Shahjehan’s love for Mumtaz’ in essays. But Sahir shook all my romantic notions about the Taj to their foundations. In his view the Taj Mahal was nothing but an emperor’s misuse of his wealth to cruelly mock the love of the poor. The thousands of oppressed artisans who actually built the Taj Mahal remained unknown to the world. Those who gave shape to Shahjehan’s dream must have loved someone in their lives. Where are the memorials to that love? Who knows if anyone lit a lamp on those graves?
“meri mehboob! unhe bhi to mohabbat hogi
jinki sannai ne bakhshi hai ise shakl-e-jameel
unke pyaaron ke maqabir rahein be-naam-o-namood
aaj tak unpe jalayee na kisi ne kandeel |”
I keenly felt, while listening to the poem, that Sahir was enunciating something that lay hidden somewhere deep in my mind and of which I was unaware. Later on, I read many poems on the Taj but never felt the same way. Sumitranandan Pant’s ‘Taj’, too, revealed a humanistic point of view:
“hai! Mrityu ka aisa amar, aparthiv poojan?
jab vishann, nirjeev padaa ho jag ka jeevan!
sphatik saudh mein ho shringaar maran ka shobhan,
nagn, kshudhatur, vaasviheen rahein jeevit jan |”
[O! Such immortal, imperishable worship of Death
When the world lies melancholy, lifeless
Death beautified, decorated in a crystal palace
While the living remain naked, hungry and homeless]
When the world lies melancholy, lifeless
Death beautified, decorated in a crystal palace
While the living remain naked, hungry and homeless]
But my mind was drawn more to Sahir’s emotional outburst than to the mature contemplation and restrained expression of Pant’s poetry. In Kusumagraj’s [ The late V.V.Shirwadkar, alias Kusumagraj, was one of the greatest contemporary Marathi poets and winner of the Jnanpith award.] ‘Taj Mahal’, the mind was simply entrapped in a chain of wonderful metaphors:
“ki Kalindivar karanyaalaa jalkeli
kuni yakshalokichee roopgarvitaa aali
tyaa nital darpani vivastra hounee pahee
nij laavanyaachee usaasaleli veli”
kuni yakshalokichee roopgarvitaa aali
tyaa nital darpani vivastra hounee pahee
nij laavanyaachee usaasaleli veli”
[… a beauteous angel has come to sport in the waters of the Kalindi river, and in that clear mirror admires the unclothed beauty of her own youthful body]
The poet seems so entranced in describing the beauty of the Taj that the line ‘shat anaamikaanche tyaa he kabarastaan’ [this is the tomb of a hundred such unknown women] describing the fate of many women forced into the harem of an emperor blinded by lust, fails to have much impact. To be honest, the description of the beauty of the Taj, at the beginning of the poem, captivates the mind far more than the final twist. Sahir was uninterested in the loveliness of the Taj Mahal and his reaction was stinging:
“ik shehenshah ne daulat ka sahara lekar
hum garibon ki mohabbat ka udaya hai mazak!”
hum garibon ki mohabbat ka udaya hai mazak!”
These lines made such a powerful impression that we used them at every opportunity. Whether in an essay, in history class, or in a debate it was our trump card to win the listeners. Yet, later on, these lines started seeming a trifle too loud and other lines from the same poem came to the fore. The question Sahir had posed in the following lines was such as would echo in anyone’s heart for long:
“anginat logon ne duniya mein mohabbat ki hai,
kaun kehta hai ki sadiq na the jazbe unke?
lekin unke liye tashaheer ka saamaan nahee
kyonki woh log bhi apni hi tarah muflis the |”
kaun kehta hai ki sadiq na the jazbe unke?
lekin unke liye tashaheer ka saamaan nahee
kyonki woh log bhi apni hi tarah muflis the |”
…Countless people have fallen in love. Were their feelings not genuine? But they lacked the wherewithal to advertise themselves because they were poor, as we are!
All young men and women who had the sensitivity to fall in love but not the means to lead a happy, luxurious life identified with Sahir…
And, one day, when Geeta submerged me in the intoxicating “husn bhi faani aur ishq bhi faani hai, hanske bitaa le, do ghadi ki jawani hai” I was too elated too realise that Sahir the lyricist had stepped into my life. It never occurred to me that this song could have been written by Sahir. In those days, the lyricists who wrote of beauty, love and youth were different. This song did not harmonise with the mental picture of a Sahir who had penned ‘Taj Mahal’. Enamoured of that poem, when I had tried to trace Sahir, I had learnt that he had emigrated to Pakistan. That pain had gradually subsided… I had never heard a song written by Sahir, indeed, hadn’t even heard that he wrote film songs. Further, since we knew he had gone to Pakistan, there was no place for him in our guessing game of ‘Who has written this?’ which we used to play with every new song. But Sahir gave us a pleasant surprise. In a fit of joy we pieced together the information that Sahir had returned from Pakistan, that he was in Mumbai, and that he had become a lyricist. But my mind was awhirl, trying to find a glimpse of the poet who’d written ‘Taj Mahal’ in the songs of ‘Baazi’…
I was listening to the songs of ‘Baazi’, each more romantic than the last, with rapt attention : ‘Sharmaaye kaahe, ghabraaye kaahe’, ‘Yeh kaun aayaa ki mere dil di duniya mein bahaar aayee’, ‘Aaj ki raat piyaa dil na todo’, ‘Dekh ke akeli mohe barkha sataaye re’ and ‘Tum bhi na bhoolo baalam, hum bhi na bhoole’. A true poet cannot stay hidden; even when writing for others, his inspiration cannot remain concealed. I kept feeling that the progressive Sahir must be somewhere in the songs of ‘Baazi’, it was I who could not find him. When I finally found him in Kishore’s ‘dandar dandar dandarda’ I was happier than Archimedes. Sahir’s progressive voice could not be cloaked even when writing lines like ‘teri kasam, meri jaan’:
“aur honge jinhe aaraam ke saamaan mile
apni kashti ko to saahil pe bhi toofah mile
arey teri kasam, meri jaan –
naiya pooraani hai, toofaan bhi puraane hai
apne labon pe dekho aaj bhi tarane hai…”
apni kashti ko to saahil pe bhi toofah mile
arey teri kasam, meri jaan –
naiya pooraani hai, toofaan bhi puraane hai
apne labon pe dekho aaj bhi tarane hai…”
Others may have found the means to live a life of leisure and comfort. It was my boat’s fate to encounter storms even on the shore. No matter, the boat is hoary as are the storms. Even today there are songs on my lips…
And suddenly I realized that it wasn’t Geeta Bali telling the losing gambler, Dev Anand, to believe in himself and stake another wager; it was Sahir’s message to the downtrodden:
“kya khaak woh jeena hai jo apne hi liye ho
khud mitke kisi aur ko mitne se bacha le
toote hue patwaar hain kashti ke to gam kya
haaree hui baahon ko hi patwaar banaa le
apne pe bharosa hai to yeh daav lagaa le…”
khud mitke kisi aur ko mitne se bacha le
toote hue patwaar hain kashti ke to gam kya
haaree hui baahon ko hi patwaar banaa le
apne pe bharosa hai to yeh daav lagaa le…”
The terrible sights that met his eyes on the way to Pakistan had stifled his songs ‘mere barbat ke seene mein nagmon ka dam ghut gayta hai…’. On his return to Bharat he started singing with a free voice: ‘apne labon pe dekho aaj bhi tarane hain…’The songs of Baazi brought Sahir great renown, and dealt a powerful blow to the then prevalent belief in the film world that celebrated poets could not write film songs. This belief held sway to such an extent that producers would not dare to give successful poets an opportunity. A classical singer who could hold his audience spellbound all night could not necessarily sing a three minute film song well. Similarly a reputed poet having many superb volumes of poetry to his name may not always be able to write a four or five line film song well. These songs have a technique of their own which not all poets can master. The feelings therein are not the poet’s own but those of a particular character in a specific situation. They have to be expressed in simple words which will immediately touch the heart. And all this to a tune already composed by the music director. Therefore a lyricist has to have an ear for music. Consequently, a poet who is accustomed to expressing his own experiences in his own metre often fails as a lyricist while someone with no literary originality but having a reasonable knowledge of music and moderate writing skills, often succeeds. Sometimes the songs of such writers have absolutely no literary touch yet professional success goes to their heads and they start denigrating true poets.
When Sahir entered the film world, such wordsmiths who wrote trashy songs, ruled the roost. All sorts of worthless stuff was being sold under the pretext of ‘this is what the public wants’. Before the advent of Sahir, Shailendra, etc, the most popular lyricist was B.N.Madhok. His songs were hummable as he had musical knowledge. Composers found him convenient. From a literary viewpoint his songs were ordinary. The Urdu writer Prakash Pandit frequently ridiculed him as ‘Mahakavi Madhok’ – ‘great poet Madhok’. But songs like ‘ankhiyaan milake jiya bharmake chale nahin jaana’, ‘o jaanewale balamwa’, ‘angadai teri hai bahana’, ‘milke bichhad gayi ankhiyaan’, ‘jab tum hi chale pardes’ from ‘Ratan’ brought him such popularity that he became swollen-headed and his price sky-rocketed. There was such huge demand for Madhok in those days that he never delivered songs on time to anyone. Sets and recordings would be cancelled and producers would lose thousands of rupees. To get songs on time from this ‘Mahakavi’, shrewd producers would go to him with six or seven bottles of liquor and a similar number of girls of easy virtue and lock him in a room with them. Then the great poet’s muse would awaken and lines would spring to his mind: ‘ui maa maar gayee, ho rama maar gayee tirchhee nazariya’… etc. etc.
Even allowing for exaggeration, songs from that era were mostly of this type. I’d liked Madhok’s ‘jeene ka dhang sikhaye ja’, ‘mohabbat mein kabhi aisi bhi haalat payee jaati hai’, ‘paapi papiha re’ etc. in Saigal-Suraiya’s ‘Parwana’ but his overall style of writing was of the ‘hai ram’, ‘hai hai’, ‘ui ma’ variety. The current lyricist in Madhok’s tradition, who has achieved fame despite a lack of literary quality, on the basis of musical training and the ability to quickly write songs to tunes already composed, is Anand Bakshi.
Great Urdu poets like Faiz, Josh, Sagar Nizami, Majaz, Sardar Jafri etc. were not too successful in films. But Sahir, despite being a renowned poet like them, achieved overnight popularity as a lyricist. Further, he brought with him a definite viewpoint and ideology. He was not of the tradition of romantic Urdu poets who made us feel that, day or night, there was nothing in a man’s life but love. He was a progressive poet and contemporary of the Faiz Ahmad Faiz who’d, told his beloved ‘aur bhi gam hai zamane mein mohabbat ke siwa, rahatein aur bhi hain vasl ki rahat ke siwa’. Faiz,Majaz, Jazbi, Salam Machhalishahari, Sahir and other poets had started a new era of progressive poetry in Urdu literature. They were not against love, but their love was of this world, grounded in reality. They hadn’t fallen in love with a ‘saki’ – bargirl – in a pub or a beauteous angel. They had loved ordinary girls of flesh and blood. Their beloveds did not have hearts of stone like those in Urdu literature of yore. Unlike Daag who’d written
“humne unke saamne pehle to khanjar rakh diya
phir kaleja rakh diya, dil rakh diya, sar rakh diya”,
phir kaleja rakh diya, dil rakh diya, sar rakh diya”,
they did no such thing. These progressive poets, too, wrote poems of unsuccessful love. But the reasons for their failure were ordinary e.g. poverty, social customs, etc. And love and heartbreak were not the only reasons for their distress. There were many other things in this world they were concerned about. Exploitation of farmers and workers, atrocities on hapless women, the torment caused by social and religious restrictions…Before joining films, Sahir had written intense love poems addressed to his beloved. He, too, wanted to meet her but not near the Taj Mahal. Even in her company he could not forget that artisans had been exploited there. He knew that the emotions of countless men and women in love were genuine but they did not have the wealth to erect monuments to their love – for, like us, they were impoverished: ‘who log bhi apni hi tarah muflis they…’
To be continued.