WHAT is humour? Somebody has said that humour is realising the fact that no matter how high the throne one sits on, one sits on one’s bottom. Though Will Rogers’ point of view is slightly different and he says “everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else”, one feels that ability to see the lighter side of what is happening to oneself and laugh at it is perhaps one of the most valuable of human traits. As Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi puts it, sense of humour is the sixth sense and if one possesses it, one can laugh one’s way through all the hardships.

In Urdu, Ghalib’s prose has this ability of seeing the lighter side of an unpleasant situation. In his Urdu letters, he laughs at himself. There were many of Urdu’s prose writers and poets who, if not able to see any incongruity in themselves, were able to comment on certain aspects of our culture in a lighter vein. Right from Urdu’s early poets, such as Nazeer Akbarabadi, Insha Allah Khan Insha and Ghalib, through later day poets such as Akbar Allahabadi to the present day humourists such as Inayat Ali Khan and Anwer Masood, one can find amusing reflections on society’s deviation from what is normal.

‘Urdu ki shugufta shaeri aur hamare rasm-o-rivaj’ is an anthology of humorous verses commenting on our social and cultural ceremonies, rites, rituals and festivities. Just published by Karachi’s Fazli Sons, the book covers certain aspects of the subcontinent’s cultural landscape such as Eid, Ramazan, Shab-i-Baraat, Holi, Divali, Basant, birth rituals, funeral ceremonies and, of course, weddings. The selection and editing is done by Shaukat Jamal, who is a poet and a humourist in his own right. Shaukat Jamal also edits a humour magazine ‘Mizah plus’. His keen sense of humour and good taste for poetry reflects in the book as he has collected humorous verses composed by various poets of different periods. The poetry included is in fact a criticism in a lively manner.

What is commendable is the fact that the compiler has not followed the trend of compiling the big names in a blind manner, neither has he restricted himself to a few poets or to a specific era. Rather, he has sifted through a huge body of Urdu poetry and compiled a volume that merits an inclusion on the standard of the poetry and not just the celebrity status of the poet. As a result one finds quite a few not-so-famous poets and some quite new names with stalwarts.

An interesting aspect of literary fame and popularity among the readers is that sometimes quite a good poet does not get the popularity or the fame he or she deserves for certain reasons. Nazeer Ahmed Shaikh and Mirza Mahmood Sarhadi were two such poets. Both were fully aware of the poetic traditions of Urdu and Persian and had a good command of the language. They both had a sharp wit and the gift of repartee. Both were masters of parody. Their poetry is at times truly hilarious. But somehow both of them are not well-known and their poetry is seldom quoted.

Nazeer Ahmed Shaikh has a rare distinction of composing Urdu limerick. He was probably the first and last practitioner of this genre in Urdu. Mirza Mahmood Sarhadi wrote satire that described tragic facts with a broad grin.

It is heartening to note that the book under review has given both of these poets the recognition they deserve by including a good number of their verses. For example, Iqbal’s famous poem Haqeeqat-i-husn, which is included in Baang-i-Dara, was parodied by Nazeer Shaikh. He had named it Aqd-i-saani. The book has reproduced it. Similarly, many of lively and tickling verses of Mirza Mahmood Sarhadi, too, make it to the pages of the book.

 drraufparekh@yahoo.com