One day, after trudging aimlessly on the long highways of the city, when I reached home, I found my hunger slumbering. My sleep remained awake with me for a long time. At that time, I put my poem in my hunger. Every morsel of my imaginary meal was transformed into the metaphors and my thirst descended in my glass. I tried to gulp down the dryness of my throat ... time was flowing from my fingers and I was calling for every passing moment.”

With these words Jan Khaskheli introduces his poetic process in his new collection Khwaaban Jay Mausam Jo Hik Geet [A Song of the Season of Dreams]. This is his second book. His earlier collection of Sindhi-language short stories Gum Thee Wayal Manhoo Jo Safarnamoo [Travelogue of a Lost Man] was published in 1996.

Khaskheli is a well-known journalist, short story writer and poet who has written extensively on the environment, climate change, wild and marine life, agriculture, livelihood, culture and literature. He has won prestigious awards for his work on the degradation of the environment and biodiversity in the coastal areas of Pakistan, and his articles have been translated into several languages, including Russian. Presently, he is associated with a Karachi-based English-language newspaper.

Regional language poetry moves away from traditional settings and themes

Khwaaban Jay Mausam Jo Hik Geet is a slim volume containing 62 poems that were penned over a long span of nearly three decades. For a prolific poet, it seems to be a very modest anthology — poets are not usually sparing when it comes to publishing their poetry. For them, excluding even a single line is sacrilege. Khaskheli, in not including much of his poetry in this volume, seems to be aware that good poetry is not only about what you write, but also about what you leave out.

Most striking about the collection is its rather urban tone and themes. The rhythm, tone, imagery, sensibilities and setting of Sindhi poetry is usually related to villages and deserts. Sindhi poetry has not yet migrated from its rural background to the urban landscape. Khaskheli’s verses are a departure from the prevalent trends; he does not choose classical genres such as bait, vaee, or even ghazal, nor does he adopt a rustic setting or language for his expression. Instead, he chooses free verse, which is a suitable medium to explore the intricacies of the complex realities of urban living.

Karachi and its turbulent history feature prominently in Khaskheli’s poetry. Karachi adopted Khaskheli when he left his village in the early 1990s. He developed an affinity with the city, as is obvious from many of his poems that sensitively delineate the landscape and the wounds of Karachi. No modern Sindhi poet has chronicled the tumultuous past of Karachi and the trauma experienced by Karachiites, especially during the ’90s, as eloquently as Khaskheli does in Gulan Tiraran Jee Mausam Mein [In the Season of Blooming Flowers]: “Today in our land/ Bullets are freely dancing in the streets/… At the city crossroads/ Along with heroes of stories, history/ Songs and poems/ Our longings are also burnt.”

Khaskheli witnessed Lyari, where he mostly lived, transform from a peaceful multi-cultural, multi-ethnic locality to a dreaded hub of gang wars. This painful transmutation finds expression in his verse: “Pain is like a bell/ When it tolls in the streets of Lyari/ The Leva dance starts.”

In ‘Manora’, Khaskheli paints his anguish at the vandalisation of the temple at Manora during riots: “This sea and temple of Manora/ And that church/ Oh, Time! Come and command all your strength/ To silence the unbearable noise of the sea/ And wipe out the smell of hatred.”

On Sept 14, 2009, when a crowd of needy people gathered in Jodia Bazaar to receive free rations for Eid, in the ensuing melee many people, including women and children, were trampled to death. Khaskheli records this tragedy in ‘To the Moon’: “Attraction for wheat flour forced poverty to join a crowd/ Suddenly the laughter of death frightened poverty/ Hope got trampled/ Wheat flour was kneaded with bodies/ The sun’s rays wept.”

It is not only the pain of Karachi that finds voice in the poetry; Khaskheli is a chronicler of pain everywhere. A quick glance at the titles of his poems suggests his wide range of themes: ‘Tamil Girl’, ‘In Memory of Nelson Mandela’, ‘ Prayer of a Palestinian Mother, and ‘To Goethe’ indicate that Khaskheli’s sensitive soul records the torments of writhing beings everywhere in the world. Similarly, Khaskheli is conscious of the sufferings afflicting his own land: ‘To an Evening of Hyderabad’, ‘Martial Law’, ‘Neelam Valley’ and ‘A Blurred Picture of Thar’ show his concern with what is happening in his own country. ‘Corpse of Honour’ heart-wrenchingly describes the plight of women in Sindh: “The judge pronounced his decision/ She was freed/ But all ways entangled her legs/ The baby fallen off from her breast/ She was hacked into pieces/ Blood of relations drained/ The sun saw/ O, Sindh/ Tell us where to bury this dead corpse of honour.”

As well as writing about the exterior world and its happenings, Khaskheli also writes some fine poems expressing the happenings within. Memories, longing, separations, lovers’ secret trysts in the darkness, nostalgia for idyllic scenes of the villages — all find beautiful expression in his verses. ‘Longing’ articulates all the shades in the ambit of that feeling with a melodious rhythm and play of words: “The rain brings forth all the memories/ A memory of pain and torture/ A memory of love and smiles/ A memory of fulfilling all the promises/ A memory of secretly meeting you/ In the dark of night/ A memory of all the traps on the way/ A memory of fears of tall boots/ On the way to our destination/ A memory of a child weeping and sleeping/ Biting the milkless breast of the mother.”

Some poems seem anachronistic as they are related to incidents that are now forgotten, but such is the pitfall of poetry anchored in a particular milieu. On the whole, however, this slender collection is a departure from the norm, and will surely be a very welcome addition to the burgeoning corpus of Sindhi-language poetry.

The reviewer is a translator and short story writer

*Translations by historian, translator and teacher Muhammad Habib Sanai

Khwaaban Jay Mausam Jo Hik Geet
By Jan Khaskheli
Indus Valley Publications, Hyderabad
111pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, October 29th, 2017