“Truth is, without an unconditional acknowledgement of the poetic virtues of Akhtar Shirani, an honest history of Urdu literature cannot possibly be written. After his death, our critics have ignored this unparalleled poet to the degree of cosmic transgression. And yet, glancing at world history of poetry, it appears that sometimes it takes a little long to recognize purity… I am sure that sooner or later the moment will arrive when Akhtar’s unique greatness sees the light of day.”

So wrote Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, a major Urdu literary figure of our times. As a matter of fact, Qasmi, a ranking member of the Progressive Writers’ Movement, was a protégé of Akhtar Shirani — as with many budding writers who clustered around him in Lahore, Akhtar nurtured a young Qasmi, promoted and projected him, even “corrected” his poetic lapses.

One recalls that the very first short story Qasmi published, ‘The Ill-fated Sculptor’, appeared in Rumaan, a semi-literary magazine edited by none other than this mentor of his.

Indeed, so widely acknowledged was this now forgotten poet that two giants of latter-day Urdu poetry, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Noon Meem Rashid, both wrote extensive introductions to Akhtar’s poetic collections. Faiz spoke of his “silky [makhmaliñ] diction”, the “melody [tarannum] of his sounds”, “his dream-creation [khwaab-afrini] of meanings” and the “colourfulness [rangeeni] of his imagination.” As for Rashid, he admits that he was like an awe-struck learner before Akhtar.

While Qasmi wrote his message somewhat ruefully, he does strike an optimistic note at the end, hoping that, one day, the genius of Akhtar Shirani will be brought into sharp perspective for all to see. But we are still waiting in anticipation … waiting for more than 70 years after his death in 1948.

Yes, as Qasmi says, Akhtar seems to have been committed to oblivion, abandoned to rot on the old branches whose leaves have turned pale. The disappearance of Akhtar from our view betrays a multiplicity of historic and literary ironies, paradoxes in fact.

He is all around us in modern Urdu poetry and, yet, we do not see him. We recall that he is a pioneer — or at least the first formidable representative of new poetic forms and structures that have become part of the spirit of our Urdu literary age, our zeitgeist.

Akhtar seems to have been committed to oblivion, abandoned to rot on the old branches whose leaves have turned pale. The disappearance of Akhtar from our view betrays a multiplicity of historic and literary ironies, paradoxes in fact.

He wrote single-line refrains in his nazms, in contrast to two-line she‘rs, played with traditional meters, disrupted traditional rhyming schemes, and ended up creating for us gloriously beautiful “silky” verse. All this we see abiding in Faiz and Rashid, continuing to the present day.

We can also, quite legitimately, call Akhtar the harbinger of today’s prose poems. And when we look at Rashid’s long poems — such as “Hasan Kooza-gar” — we see shadows of Akhtar Shirani lurking about, reminiscent of the sustained flow of the latter’s “O des se aanay waalay bata [Tell me, O visitor from my homeland!].”

Perhaps the most important feature of the conceptual contributions of Akhtar is his transmutation of the “beloved” (yaar/ ma‘shooq/ dost) of Urdu poetry from a disembodied figment of imagination — with standardised attributes of cruelty, inattention to the lover, sometimes even slaying the lover — to a real human embodiment. Both Faiz and Rashid dwell on this Akhtarian feature.

Akhtar grafts flesh on to the disembodied skeleton of the beloved of classical Urdu/Persian poetry, providing it with real historical coordinates. Indeed, he has given this beloved a proper name for real identification — this is his “Salma” (at times he gives us variations on this name). Now when, for example, we read Faiz’s highly original ‘Raqeeb Se’ [To the Rival], we see the spirit of Akhtar Shirani behind it.

But there is more to Akhtar Shirani: he is the begetter of new genres in Urdu poetry. For instance, he wrote in a folk form of Punjabi songs called Mahia — poems with superb rhythm and melody, consisting of three unequal lines. We see Urdu Mahias before Akhtar — but he is the first poet to establish it as a genre in earnest. Then, he also wrote sonnets in Urdu.

Like many of his prominent contemporary literary personalities, Majaz and Meeraji and Manto among them, Akhtar died at the relatively young age of 43.

I must confess that I have a personal stake in him. In his last days, he had become an alcoholic and his father, the scholar Hafiz Mahmood Khan Shirani, incensed at this indulgence, declared that he would never see the face of the son again. When Akhtar visited his place of birth, Tonk in Rajasthan where his father lived, my own father Allama Muntakhabul Haq, who was heading Tonk’s Khalilia Academy at the time, would veil him from Hafiz Mahmood behind a white sheet, for Akhtar would arrive at an ungodly hour drunk.

Interestingly, despite the fundamental difference in their outlook on life, my father and Akhtar were close friends. I heard many stories from my mother about this unlikely friendship.

The Akhtar Shirani legacy is massive. Some nine poetry collections, dozens upon dozens of articles, poems for children, patriotic poems, and an equally large legacy of nazms. We recall that “the first lady of Urdu poetry”, Ada Jafari, was his student. Nasir Kazmi too was guided by him.

The columnist is currently teaching at the Institute of Business Administration Karachi.

(All translations are by the columnist)

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, April 14th, 2024