RMIM Archive Article "168".
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian
#
# RMIM Archives..
# Subject: Majrooh Sultanpuri - Immortal Melodies - part 3
#
# Posted by: Satish Subramanian (subraman@cs.umn.edu)
# Source: Illustrated Weekly of India
# Author: Zaka Siddiqi
#
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
Majrooh Sultanpuri
'Immortal Melodies'
by
Zaka Siddiqi
Illustrated Weekly of India
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
Few people know that, by training, Sultanpuri is a physician
- a Hakeem, and had actually a flourishing practice in Unani
Medicine. But this profession did not go too well with his
real calling, poetry.
He came from a lower middle-class family of Sultanpur. With
his first-hand experience of the feudal system prevalent in
the remote eastern UP town where he was born, he did not
require any brain washing to become a communist by the time
he arrive in Bombay in 1945. He jointed the party at the
same time he became a member of the Progressive Writers
Association (PWA).
The manifesto of the PWA laid down certain guidelines for
writers which, between the lines, required them to write on
topics of immediate political relevance. Literature was
reduced to slogans in a language which was direct,
demagogic, and thearetical. The early writings of the
progressive writers reflect these traits which stressed upon
strategy and tactics rather than progressive thought. To
some extent, the form of a poem could well be used as a
vehicle of this propaganda, as is evident from innumerable
assemlby-line collections of such poetry by Sultanpuri's
contemporaries. So, could he bring himself around to spit
fire and raise hailstorms to order?
The poser became a challenge to Sultanpuri. He was a ghazal
writer and the ghazal, as we know, abhors any kind of
compromise with a manifesto or a dogma, whether political or
religious. Consequently, he was drawn in, and had to fight
out; a two-pronged war started on the right flank by
ghazal-writers of the old school who had great doubts about
the real intentions of the upstart poet and, on the left
flank, by those from his own Progressive Writers Association
who were totally against the form of the ghazal. To them,
the ghazal was a symbol of decadent society.
This is where Sultanpuri proved his creative dynamism. His
quest motif was the same as that of his senior
contemporaries like Josh Malihabadi and Faiz. While Faiz
is, by and large, attributed to have introduced in Urdu a
new poetic diction and made it contain and express the
progressive thought, it is actually Sultanpuri to whom the
credit should go. But there has always been a restrain
vis-a-vis Sultanpuri in the attitude of critics - even, or
let us say plainly; especially, in the attitude of critics
from his own tribe, the progressives. But his
uncompromising integrity, both of personality and of craft,
and courage to face the change stood him in good stead.
Those who know him would testify to these rare qualities.
As a result of World War II, and in the wake of India's
freedom, the end of colonalism had begun and an insurgent
generation of youth was emerging on the scene all over the
Third World. Among other things, the young were searching
for a new poetic instrument capable of expressing the
conditions. Majrooh Sultanpuri was one such Indian poet.
Even at that early stage of progressivism, he had recognised
that the age-old, conventional symbol and imagery of his
very senior contemporaries like Fani Badayni, Asghar Gondvi,
and Jigar Moradabadi could hardly express the new poetic
ethos.
What with his sonorous and melodious voice (he actually
received, for some time, education and training in classical
Hindustani music in the music college in Lucknow), he had
very rapidly become one of the most popular poets of
mushairas. Nevertheless with his characteristic self-
confidence, he was busy developing his own, personal style,
quietly experimenting with language.
By the time Faiz's first collection of poems and ghazals,
Dast-e-Saba, was published in last 1952, Sultanpuri had
already long staked his claim as a poineer of the modern
diction of the ghazal giving either fresh meanings of
several hackneyed words, trite images, and stereotyped
metaphors, and most importantly, making them immediately
recognisable as new symbols of poetry. Social criticism,
rebellion against despotic rule of the colonialists found in
his ghazals the full-fledged expression which, before his
time, was taboo in poetry, let alone the ghazal.
To praise in not necessarily to be in agreement with
whatever Sultanpuri wrote in those early years of his
communism. Criticism of such work has become a commonplace.
We have yet to come across one critic, one poet, one scholar
or even an ordinary student of Urdu poetry who would not
bring up those three of four ghazals which Sultanpuri
composed, probably under direct orders of the politburo.
What disturbs you most is that after almost 45 years of
their 'composition' they are cited invariably to debunk even
the best works (Sultanpuri included) produced during a
period of 30 years when progression was in vogue.
Sultanpuri himself is amused when you ask him to explain
this strange phenomenon. With a twinkle in his eyes, he
would dare you to refute that, for better or for the worse,
it is his poetry which is considered the ultimate in poetic
realisation of progressive thought. His anthology titled,
"Ghazal", was published in 1959 and contained 33 ghazals
created in the peroid from 1944 to 1953. They are still
among the best-known Urdu ghazals which had already earned
the status of presenting a new idiom of progressive poetry.
--
From the RMIM Article Archive maintained by Satish Subramanian