THEY say that Majeed Amjad, the Jhang-born poet who lived in Sahiwal, was a recluse; he shunned social life and had almost no friends. But, then, a fascinating irony is hidden behind this aloofness — Majeed Amjad The Poet had rehabilitated himself into the world of nature, a non-intellectual world with inviolable rhythms of being, a world that in the general run of things never transcends itself beyond its own immutable laws, unblemished by the machinations of philosophical quibbles. So he cultivated an affectionate relationship with birds; he emulated their chirping in endearing sound patterns, he spoke to them in musical conversations as if with boon companions, he told them his own life stories and wondered about theirs. The poet lived in a multitude of friends.

Then, there were trees too — lush green trees rich in verdure; trees lining narrow walkways and winding roads; trees standing along river banks, casting shredded shadows on the gusts of winds and staining them with dark spots. And more, there were those trees too which had surrendered themselves to their decrepit age and to the sinking hollowness of their trunks, and there were those that were being torn asunder by murderous axes serving a widening cityscape. Majeed Amjad saw all these stations and settings of these friends of his. They knew him; he knew them. Indeed, I wish to emphasise that our poet’s relationship with nature and particularly with trees, a relationship brought elegantly into focus by Mehr Afshan Farooqi and studied earlier with critical acumen by Wazir Agha, is both symbolic and concretely real. For Majeed Amjad trees are not only poetic symbols, playing an exclusive metaphorical role; no, they are at the same time imposing physical entities, real corpora populating his natural environment in Jhang and Sahiwal and Lahore.

Once we open a window inside Majeed Amjad’s poetry, we begin to understand him perhaps a little better. So it seems: it is through internal evidence, it is by looking at him ‘inside out,’ that we might be able to befriend him. One can see rather clearly that he is inextricably linked to the quasi-rural natural surroundings of his town of residence Sahiwal, and that his imagination is shaped in some direct manner by real, temporal experiences, experiences that serve as his locus of poetic departure. True, the process of poetic creation must ultimately remain a mystery, Ghalib called it the voice of an angel, but it may be possible to give a kinematic account of Majeed Amjad’s creative thrust. With this qualification one may tentatively declare this: Majeed Amjad wrote poetry for himself, not for an outside human audience. There is a haunting subjectivity in his verse, and then there seems to be a cultivated solitude that by dint of romantic irony serves as his companion. We note that generally his addressee is the non-human world of nature, or it is himself, or (temporarily) he directs his speech to his German “beloved” Shālāt. Majeed Amjad does not write in a mode that addresses a cheering crowd in an assembly or a mushā‘ara or fellow poets. See how intimately, how lovingly, he talks to a little bird —

Listen, O little bird, listen:

Why, sitting in that small opening in the wall

You were gliding, suddenly—

In what rapture, O little bird?

Why fall for your honour thus!

Do you know what lies outside?

Every evil eyeball lies in wait for you!

And among the fondling ones

A whole world is your adversary!

Little bird, O little bird:

So simple you are, so naïve—

Flying like this, fluttering your wings,

Why did you make your station here, O little bird?

This is the cage of my heart, and you

Come here looking for the little pieces of your happiness …

How rich, how adorable and meaningful the imagery is — a little enraptured bird gliding into the heart of the poet, looking for the tiny little strewn pieces of its happiness. Note also the metre, reminiscent of Mir Taqi Mir, reminding us of some of the most sonorous ghazals of the Khudā-e Sukhan that constitute the enduring classics of Urdu poetry. This poem of Majeed Amjad is representative of his expression in general, embodying a subjectivity that is laced with melancholy, a glowing sadness centred in the deep recesses of the interlocutor.

One can say, and legitimately so, that there is subjectivity also in other Urdu poets, such as Noon Meem Rashid. But there is a crucial difference — Rashid’s subjectivity is cosmic; that of Majeed Amjad is individualistic. The latter recoils back into his own being; the former radiates forth into the cosmos. It is for this reason, it seems, that throughout his life Majeed Amjad published only one collection of his verse, the Shab-e Rafta (Night Receded), even though there existed a heap of poems held tight in his custody, unpublished. The Shab-e Rafta was printed by Lahore’s Naya Idara in 1958. Indeed, it was after his mysterious death in 1974 that a Majeed Amjad Publication Committee was formed and we saw the publication of Shab-e Rafta ke Ba‘d (After Shab-e Rafta). But one ought to be particularly thankful to Khwaja Muhammad Zakariyya for painstakingly collecting the legacy of our poet — to Khwaja Sahib’s personal efforts we owe the Kulliyāt-e Majeed Amjad, published for the first time in 1989 through Mavara Publishers in Lahore. Then he also updated it with scholarly care and annotations and this updated work can now be accessed through the website of Sajjan Lahore. There are textual variations in different versions and so one wonders how Majeed Amjad himself would have edited them, and this is a creative vacuum we can never fill.

Again, it is Majeed Amjad’s self-recoiling subjectivity that explains the plethora of themes and poetic forms in his workshop. He wrote free verse, classical verse, blank verse, and, of course, ghazals. One feels that he writes without regard to any designed coherence of forms or themes, as if he writes by the promptings of his whims. Yes, as I have already observed, it seems to me that he wrote for himself, not for an external social audience; he wrote about whatever sprang to his heart or mind, and whenever. One can say that there is a thematic disorder in Majeed Amjad.

It is difficult to place Majeed Amjad in any particular mould or taxonomic category or poetic vogue. He is not a Progressive poet, he is not classical in his style or metaphorical holdings that we find in Nasir Kazimi, he is not traditional in his symbolism so masterfully appropriated by Faiz. So how does one describe him? Given the uniqueness of Majeed Amjad, we cannot box him into any typology. Perhaps we can only describe him via negativa, by virtue of what he is not.

And perhaps this is the reason why, despite his enormous poetic worth, Majeed Amjad has receded into obscurity like the receded night that became the appellation for the single collection he himself published. He is unique. His language is close to his real abode, far from the Persianised verbiage and diction of Noon Meem Rashid, and away from Faiz’s romantic reconstruction of the figurative stock of the classical ghazal. He utters Indic words and phrases and idioms plentifully; he is soft and uncomplicated in his poetic demeanour, exuding charms that are often so very local — charms of surroundings that have verdurous tress, and where the gusts of winds are stained by shredded shadow cast by these trees. And then there are birds seeking their happiness in the heart of the poet. To describe Majeed Amjad one needs a new vocabulary close to the earth.

Majeed Amjad would have been one hundred years old in 2014. But he was found dead in Sahiwal at the age of 60; it is reported that Intizar Husain had dreaded this. His centenary was commemorated but sparingly, one gathering here, one there, including a seminar at Punjab University. Yet, we saw some perceptive articles this year coming from Mehr Afshan Farooqi, a column by Rauf Parekh, and a detailed study by Nasir Abbas Nayyar that Lahore’s Sang-e Meel published as a full-length book. Ah, this is such a small harvest!

(Translation is by Syed Nomanul Haq)