NOON Meem Rashid (August 1, 1910-October 9, 1975) is among the writers of Urdu who are becoming more and more popular as time goes by. That Rashid’s importance is increasingly recognised as a great poet who helped popularise modern Urdu nazm, or poem, as a genre and helped embrace its modern sensibility is evident from the large number of books, research papers and periodicals’ special issues on him that have appeared during the last few years.

It shows that our interest in N. M. Rashid’s life, works and his thought has increased manifold recently. Rashid’s centenary celebrations in the year 2010, too, played a role in it. And as a result we have seen, for instance, the arrival of Hasan kooza gar by Tehseen Firaqi in 2010, Kis dhanak se mere rang aae by Tehseen Firaqi and Zia-ul-hasan in 2010, Noon Meem Rashid: siyasat aur shaeri by Fateh Muhammad Malik in 2010, special issue of Urdu adab (Delhi) in 2010 and special issue of research journal Bazyaft (Lahore) on Mir Taqi Mir and Noon Meem Rashid in 2011.

This, of course, is not a complete list of works on Rashid and before these we had had many works published on him, such as, Noon Meem Rashid: aik mutal’a by Jameel Jalibi (1986), the special issue on Rashid of Naya daur (Karachi) published just after Rashid’s death, Maqalat-e-Rashid by Sheema Majeed (2002), Noon Meem Rashid: shakhsiyat aur fun by Dr Zia-ul-Hasan in 2008, and Noon Meem Rashid ke khutoot by Naseem Abbas Ahmer (2008) — to name but a few.

Rashid was not only a poet but was a thinker, translator and critic as well. In addition to a few critical essays, his prefaces to his own books, too, reveal his critical thought. Of late, his critical works too are getting more attention and respect. His book Jadeed Farsi shaeri (Modern Persian poetry) is an invaluable critical piece on the modern Persian poetry, modern Persian poets, their thought, sensibility, neologisms and the revolution that the Persian poetry went through in the 20th century. In fact, it is a treatise on the modern Persian poetry and, as Dr Fakhr-ul-Haq Noori has put it, a practical manifestation of the great love that Rashid had for Persian poetry, the love that had grown into an obsession when Rashid stayed in Tehran during the last few years of his service.

But this book of Rashid’s has a bit of interesting history and Dr Fakhr-ul-Haq Noori has narrated it in the introduction to the book that he has compiled. He says it first appeared as a 42-page booklet in 1969. It was, in fact, an article read out by Rashid at a conference held in Lahore and was meant to be distributed among the delegates of the conference. It appeared in a full book form in 1987, spread over 400 pages. Lahore’s Majlis-e-Taraqqi-e-Adab had published the work that included Rashid’s 50-page foreword and 60 selected poems of 19 modern Persian poets in original Persian along with translations in Urdu prose. It also gave brief introductory sketches of the poets.

The fact that Rashid’s article (that later made the foreword of the book published by the Majlis-e-Taraqqi-e-Adab) and the translations from Persian into Urdu were penned on the insistence of Dr Jameel Jalibi, who was editing Naya daur at that time, was acknowledged by Rashid himself in an interview as well as in the preface. Dr Noori has mentioned that Jalibi Sahib had published the translations in Naya daur first and wanted the article, also, to appear in his journal but with its appearance in a booklet form Jalibi Sahib was reluctant to publish it. When Rashid insisted that it should be considered unpublished since its circulation was very limited, Jalibi Sahib published it in Naya daur with minor editing. Then Sher-o-hikmat, a journal published from Hyderabad Deccan published it in its special issue on Rashid in 1970.

But Rashid had kept on adding new thoughts and new poets to what he had written in the first place. He personally met with many modern Iranian poets, too. When he finalised the manuscript, Muneer Niazi, the poet who was running a publishing house in those days, showed interest in publishing it. Another publisher from Allahabad, India, was also interested. But none of them could get it published. Dr Noori says the manuscript was handed over to Suhail Ahmed Khan who passed it over to Faiz Ahmed Faiz who in turned gave it to Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi. Qasmi Sahib at that time was heading the Majlis but could not publish it as the original Persian poems were missing. Finally, Punjab University’s Dr Aftab Asghar researched and found the original ones except for a few. Some of the translations had to be axed as their original Persian text was missing. So the book consisted of 60 poems by 19 poets.

When Fakhr-ul-Haq Noori began research for his doctoral dissertation on N. M. Rashid, he found the material that was not included in the book. He also noted that there were some discrepancies in the published work. Having completed his PhD, Dr Noori kept on searching for the missing links and luckily, in 2010, had a chance to travel to Iran to attend a conference. There he was able to obtain all original Persian poems — except one — that were missing from Rashid’s manuscript. The result is his book Jadeed farsi shaeri (N M Rashid ke ghair mudavvan Urdu tarajim). Published by Lahore’s Mavara publishers, in addition to a detailed intro and a section on Rashid’s critical acumen, the book includes 23 Persian poems and 24 Urdu translations that were not part of the book when first published in 1987.

The problem with Dr Noori’s book is that it does not give the poems and translations included in the original book published in 1987, though his research work and extreme hard work must be acknowledged. This would have, perhaps, made the book too voluminous. But the original book has been out of print for long.

However, the readers and the lovers of Persian and Urdu poetry must thank the Oxford University Press as it has come up with a new edition of the book. So, putting together these two works, we can now have the complete and authentic text of this marvellous work by N. M. Rashid.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com