THE story goes that Chiragh Deen, a tailor based in Baghbanpura on the outskirts of Lahore, often entertained clients with his verses — many of which focused on India’s quest for liberation. Among those who sought out his ser-vices was Congress politician Mian Iftikharuddin.
Delighted by what he heard, Iftikharuddin invited the young tailor — better known by his nom de plume Daman — to recite his poems at a Mochi Darwaza rally circa 1930. Daman recalled that his recital was a much bigger hit than the political speeches. Among the instant admirers he acquired was Congress president Jawaharlal Nehru, who dubbed him ‘the poet of freedom’.
A couple of decades later, Ustad Daman was invited to India. I will directly quote only the final verse of a poem that reduced the audience to tears, and clumsily paraphrase the rest: “We may not admit it, but deep in our hearts we realise we’re lost, and so are you; This independence has brought ruin to both you and us; We hoped for a new life, but you died and so did we … We both slept as the wide-awake vultures plundered us both.” Then comes the blinding blow: “Laali akhiyan di payee dasdi aey/ Roye tussi vi o, roye assi vi aan” (“Our red eyes reveal that you’ve been weeping, and so have we”).
It’s said there wasn’t a dry eye in the house, and that included Nehru, who invited Daman to resettle in Delhi. The poet graciously refused, saying he couldn’t leave Lahore even if he was obliged to spend his life in a prison. He nearly was, during almost every phase of Pakistan’s existence until he breathed his last and was laid to rest 40 years ago today in the courtyard of Sufi poet Shah Hussain’s shrine in Baghbanpura.
That was quite a distance from his dilapidated abode at Lahore’s Taxali Gate, reputedly the place where Shah Hussain had lived in the days of Akbar and Jahangir. Partition proved devastating for Daman at various levels. He was separated from his wife and daughter during the riots; after a belated reunion, neither of them survived the ailments they had acquired. Raging mobs also burned down the Congress-supporting poet’s workshop, destroying all his manuscripts.
Punjab lost a loud voice of reason 40 years ago.
The personal blows were compounded by his angst at separation from his Sikh and Hindu friends. Daman disdained confessional barriers, more than once citing drinking holes as more democratic gathering places than places of worship. His visceral disdain for clerics is reflected in a verse that says: “I’ve dragged the mullah to the tavern/ Even if he doesn’t drink, at least he’ll be defamed.”
After the trauma of 1947, Daman refused to commit his verse to paper. It was all in the mind, and his poetry was published for the first time nearly a decade after his demise courtesy of the Ustad Daman Academy set up by admirers, and housed in the hovel he had occupied for more than 30 years. The shelves therein were bursting with books in the various languages Daman had mastered, from English and Russian to Sanskrit. That was where he welcomed, and fed, a vast array of Lahore’s luminaries, from leading actors and singers to intellectuals including poets such as Habib Jalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz — both of whom admired him immensely, and cited Daman alongside his Sufi predecessors from centuries ago, such as Bulleh Shah, Waris Shah and Shah Hussain, to explain why they chose Urdu over Punjabi as a medium
Daman suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in every decade after Partition, but never reconsidered his lifelong determination to speak truth to power — including the time he was absurdly accused of concealing hand grenades and handguns in his hovel during the Bhutto era, after delivering a playful excoriation of the ruler’s antics. If the door had been wider, he told his persecutors, you’d even have produced a tank.
He could be equally scathing about the politicians in the first decade of Pakistan’s existence, as well as Ayub and his underlings — but reserved a particular disdain for the last dictator he encountered, reflected in the poem that begins: “Meray mulk dey do khuda, La Illaha tey martial law…” (‘We worship two deities in this land/ The One and Only and martial law’).
I would have loved to cite more of his delightfully pertinent diatribes against the excesses and enduring failures of Pakistan’s rocky road from 1947 to 1984, but space does not permit. Suffice it to say that, even though a Daman much diminished from his wrestler-like demeanour took his disappointments to his grave, his pithy takedowns of the nation’s elitist tormentors will unfortunately retain their relevance for a long time to come.
Published in Dawn, December 4th, 2024
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