The events of 1971 that took place in the then eastern wing of the country find insufficient space in our literary corpus. The likes of Masood Ashar and Masood Mufti, who wrote some powerful short fiction, are few and far between.

When recounting those times in verse, we continue to refer to a lone ghazal by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, ‘Hum Ke Thehray Ajnabi’ (We, who remained strangers), and a few verses scattered here and there that attempt to capture or comment on that colossal human tragedy.

But there was another ghazal written in December 1971 that, in my view, is an outstanding piece of poetry on the dismemberment of Pakistan. What is both ironic and fascinating is that the same ghazal is now famous as the signature song of one of our most popular television soaps that revolves around a love triangle. ‘Woh Humsafar Tha Magar Uss Se Humnavai Na Thi’ (He was a fellow traveller, but sang his own songs), is the ghazal Naseer Turabi wrote on the day of the fall of Dhaka. It’s ironic that a sharp, creative response to a historic event has become a household tune because of a run-of-the-mill love story. But that is perhaps also a testament to the universality of artistic expression in its superior form. The many layers of emotion, the deep sense of emptiness, remorse and repentance, take this ghazal to a level where it can be cherished by an individual and a whole nation in completely different, but similar ways. Come to think of it, the sibling rivalry between the three countries — Pakistan, India and Bangladesh — does sometimes seem like a love triangle.

Turabi writes in both Urdu and Persian with an expression steeped in the classical tradition of these languages and a sensibility drawing upon Indo-Persian culture. But he uses an entirely fresh idiom in order to share an established metaphor with a contemporary reader. Since bows and arrows and a quiver are liberally used as symbols in our poetry, I would borrow these symbols to say that Turabi’s quiver of poetry is full of such arrows of pointed couplets that pierce through the reader’s heart.

Whether it is the volume of ghazals Aks Faryadi (2000), or Laraib (2017) — a collection of devotional poetry mainly revering the sacrifices offered by the family of the Prophet of Islam (PBUH) — his verse has a definite quality and sound civilisational moorings.

Turabi’s quiver of poetry is full of arrows of pointed couplets that pierce the reader’s heart.

Turabi is more sung than celebrated. Top-notch artists, including Abida Parveen, have composed and popularised his work. He is also admired by audiences in mushairas and literary events in Pakistan and abroad. But he is still not accorded his due status by literary critics. He comes from that rare breed of our poets who successfully blend tradition with modernity, both in terms of language and choice of themes. Besides, he is one of the few left among us who write in Persian as well. That was the practice of almost all of our classical poets. But things have changed over the years in terms of our linguistic and cultural choices, delinking us from the Persian language and its rich literary heritage. This delinking is a result of the ideological position and political alignment of the Pakistani state that effectively denounces the cultural history of South Asian Muslims.

Finally, what elevates Turabi’s status to an erudite poet, as opposed to being simply ‘a poet’, is his book Sheiryaat (Poetics), which was first published in 2012 and has now run into multiple editions. Scholarly and accessible at the same time, the book explains basic definitions, forms, terminology, sounds, the lexicon and the errors involved in writing Urdu verse. Turabi’s work has a visionary undertone that runs through both his poetry and prose.

The writer is a poet and essayist based in Islamabad. His collection of essays, Crimson Papers: Reflections on Struggle, Suffering, and Creativity in Pakistan, was recently published by Oxford University Press

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, June 4th, 2017