A Stubborn Symphony Against Life
Waltzing with a book, some recollections, and a love affair
When Keats plucked the last Chrysanthemum from his small orchard to save it from the fangs of autumn he whispered into its ears with a caress “Fled is the music; do I wake or sleep — “; when Dickinson felt the touch of weight a flower feels on its ethereal shoulder against the departure of spring she said: “To be a flower, is profound responsibility.”
In both of these sensuous resistances, a chance and choice was at stake. Because as the sun crawls back to the arms of the night sky, and the palm of the day rests alone wearing a cloudy shawl, the same chance and choice protest through the boulevard of life. Many a clinician, people of reason and optimism, suggest all else than the spectacle of the stubborn symphony against life — a friendship and a thorough love affair with a book.
A distant December — uncountable months — when life loitered about like cat for me, my teacher recommended to me Ghubar e Khatir (titled “Sallies of Mind” for the English translation). Perhaps he had rightly estimated my anxious pace from the way I patrolled my thoughts. I was just starting my journey into the intermediate and had recently been introduced to poetry. I didn’t know what to do with the book. I had bought it anyway, stealing away the money Ammi had given to bring Chai. The volume was uninspiring and felt bland in its attempt to catch someone’s fancy — a blue hastily-made cover with some red random font thrown on it. I tried my unmistaken luck with it anyway. One time. Two times. Three times. But somewhere something didn’t strum.
At the outset it was a truth-be-told difficult read: Alien phraseology, distant imagery, and an estranging feeling rocked up moments into understanding the book. However, I kept it close. Closer more like an heirloom, because it was my teacher — whom I highly regard — who had shared the idea of it. It was never for Abul Kalam Azad — realizing his genius has been an unapologetically later discovery — I adored the book, but him, my teacher. Something beautifully nostalgic and warm had he stamped on it for me that I could never shed. The way he would sing the verses in Persian and Arabic and weighing down every word like a different taste was a delight to watch.
Just to reminisce on those poetic recitals I always kept the book at an arm’s length. Every year since, when the weather transitioned to grey, and autumn’s rhapsody filled the empty corridors of my heart, I would revert to the book just a cat does to a warm corner.
The sole reason for rereading rests on the setting of Ghubar e Khatir. Unsent prison dispatches written to a long-ago friend to eulogize the pleasurable company the writer had savored in his life before prison and to resist the clawing reality of the prison walls. I have been wrongly provoked to romanticize prison life for the creative genius ever since — it proves to be a plunge for genius in much of the Heideggerian sense where creative artist reaches the “Dasein”. So much so that some of the foremost literary chronicling has been a result of prison walls. Tafheem Ul Quran (a famous Quranic exegesis by Mawdudi) among many other works, was also written in the same setting. And the literariness of it never ceases to amaze me.
Another aspect, I reckon, also plays a pivotal role in landing Ghubar e Khatir a herculean stature is the deep-seated idea that rests beneath its creative purpose. Abul Kalam Azad resists the gnawing silence of the prison-walls with warm recollections on everything past and present. His temporal plane recalibrates. Sometimes he is found indulging the ontology of making Chai and chasing the history of tea in South Asia down the rabbit-hole — how interesting to have been writing about Chai whilst sipping the warm brew; sometimes he doesn’t shy away from dabbling the arguments of the existence of God; and sometimes later he pauses on the stillness of life to connect with the birds — closely enough to reenact the Farid Attar’s Language of the Birds.
One is dumbfounded, amazed even more so, to the bone to be able to witness the heights of language — one of my weakness in the face aesthetics — he shrouds his thought with. However, he doesn’t stop there. Kalam taste in the poetics of Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and English was divine. He blends a relevant verse every time with the train of thought and immortalizes it. Be it Khwaja Hafez, Abdul Qadir Bedil, Mirza Ghalib — his selection his spiritually profound and strums a chord so deep in one that it’s difficult getting back from rapture. I remember in one instance Abul Kalam Azad tuned to Khwaja Hafez’s verse when he felt a gush of cool air crossing his prison-cell.
صبا وقتِ سحر، بوئے ز زلفِ یار می آورد
دلِ شوریدۂ مارا ز نَو در کار می آورد
tr. At dawn, the wind brings the smell beloved’s tresses
it makes my heart burn with the effects of separation.
The rapturous effect is so unique it seems like a Keatsian confrontation of “Beauty is Truth” and leaves one jaw-dropped and tear-filled in the corner of the eyes. Similarly, I’m always stopped by the collar from going further when I get to see how the writer calls the birds nestled in his prison-cell “Aahoowan e Hawai” (Flying Gazelles) to register their hasty demeanor. And goes on describing their minutest details. It’s a poetic sublime which refreshes one’s dusty soul.
I would wish to keep rereading this magical swansong till my last days — in fact the endeavor would prove tasteful like an old wine. This love affair succeeds all else and one that will keep me prostrated in relishing the marvels of language.
This is the world Abul Kalam paints in his dispatches. He makes us laugh; makes us mourn destiny; but his call is metaphysically prophetic. He pours his whimper into the reed flute to let a stubborn symphony against life.
