NOON Meem Rashid (1910-19750) is one of the most celebrated modern Urdu poets. It is generally accepted that his four collections of poetry — ‘Maavara’ (1941), ‘Iran mein ajnabi’ (1955), ‘La barabar insaan’ (1969) and ‘Gumaan ka mumkin’ (1969) — were among the texts which paved the way for modernism and modern sensibility in Urdu literature.

Dr Muhammad Fakhrul Haq Noori, a professor of Urdu at the Punjab University Oriental College, Lahore, is spot on when he says: “N. M. Rashid’s modernism was not limited to themes alone… he experimented with form, language and style as well. These epoch-making and trend-setting efforts fascinated the literary world and as a token of appreciation many of his poems were translated into Persian, Arabic and English. And the English translations have surpassed them all in number.”

The English translations of Rashid’s poetry have been so popular that we are surprised to see some anthologies of Urdu poetry’s English renditions as they consist mostly of Rashid’s translations. This fact alone speaks volumes about Rashid’s poetry who himself translated many of his poems into English.

There have been numerous other translations as well. The published ones are buried in dust-covered volumes of literary magazines while some are confined to collections of poetry with a limited circulation.

But looking at Rashid’s poetic genius and the potential in his poetry to transcend borders with reader, it was often felt that collecting these scattered gems was a must.

Luckily, Dr Fakhrul Haq Noori realised that need. He dug up, collected, compiled and annotated all those translations with a scholarly preface. Not only that, he also reproduced the original Urdu text with the English renditions. Just published by Misaal Publishers, Faisalabad, and titled ‘Noon Meem Rashid ki nazmon ke English tarajim’, the book has a treasure of 74 English translations of Rashid’s poems and their Urdu texts. The list of translators includes such big names as F. W. Pritchett, Baidar Bakht, C. M. Naim, Shamsur Rahman Farooqi, Safdar Mir, Mehr Afshan Farooqi, Yasmeen Hameed, Anees Naagi and not to mention Rashid himself.

The book consists of a preface and five chapters. The preface, aside from introducing translations, discusses the theoretical aspects of translation, its need and different views on the art of translation. The first four chapters offer translations of the poems included in the four collections of Rashid’s poetry in a chronological order. The last chapter presents translations of the poems not included in any of Rashid’s works but have caught the fancy of translators. This chapter also analyses and evaluates the translations. At the end, Dr Muhammad Saleem Mazhar, a professor of the department of Persian, Punjab University Oriental College, has eulogised Dr Noori for his efforts towards understanding N. M. Rashid.

Dr Noori has done quite a bit of research for this project and has shared his findings and views with the readers. For instance, he informs us that Soofi A. Q. Niaz’s book ‘Cries in the night’, published in 1955, carried translations of many poets including a few of Rashid’s poems. It was the first book that had Rashid’s translations. From then on we see a string of such books which are now more than 15. The last two in the chain were ‘Pakistani Urdu verse’ (by Yasmeen Hameed, 2010) and ‘Modern poetry of Pakistan’ (by Iftikhar Arif and Vaqas Ahmed Khwaja, 2010). Two books, ‘The dissident voices’ by M. A. R. Habib (Oxford, 1991) and ‘Noon Meem Rashed’ by Riaz Ahmed (Ferozsons, 2000), consist entirely of Rashid’s translations. Similarly, many literary magazines, such as the ‘Annual of Urdu studies’ and ‘Oriental College Magazine’, have also published Rashid’s English translations.

Sifting through all that material and editing it was indeed no easy task but Dr Noori has really done a wonderful job by presenting them in a well-arranged manner. His preface too is an erudite one. In it, he has presented some interesting statistics about these translations. He says that many of Rashid’s poems have attracted more than one translator and his two poems, ‘Be karan raat ke sannate mein’ (In the silence of endless night) from ‘Maavara’ and ‘Saba veeran’ (Sheba Desolate) from ‘Iran mein ajnabi’ have been translated six times each into English by different translators. Similarly, 30 poems have been translated more than once, some thrice and some four times. All in all, of Rashid’s 74 poems that have been translated into English, he has found 131 renderings. Some of the poems sound relevant even today and move the reader.

Here is a translation from the book, rendered by N. M. Rashid himself. The poem is titled ‘A city’:

Here all yearning for self-understanding has vanished in the dark,

The darkness that has no eyes, no ears;

On the pathways looms a mountain of unbounded haste.

The hearts peer like the greed-filled eyes of the hunter,

The valiant men of the West thirst for fresh blood,

As do their own monsters of iron and steel.

All rivers have two banks, this has none,

The black hand is all Evil, the white face all Virtue,

The black hand that covers the crying eyes,

The white face that blooms with laughter.

Where silver and gold are the measure,

All other measures must become futile (obsolete);

Where delirium be the source of aimless action,

Fear must grip and strangle the soul.

These horizontal men and their vertical cities,

Is another wave of time’s torrent in their wake?

Are they all the darling son of destruction?

drraufparekh@yahoo.com