Khalique is most impressive when he reflects on the pains of life with the subversive strokes of his pen. That means he is not only concerned with the socio-political threads in our lives, but also with some inherent dissent and critical insights. Look at this from his poem ‘But Pain... Clings Cruelly to Us’:
“The quiet
Is due to a clog
Clog
Caused by clutter
The clutter of life
Clutter of life…
Is clutter of pain
Spread all over
Skulking inside plugging crevices, holes
Cramming spaces
Seen and unseen...”
A very unusual poem in this collection is titled ‘The Six Emirs’. Though the idea is inspired by the Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke, the poem is a fine description of the six phases in the history of Pakistan. ‘The Six Emirs’ chronicles the main currents under play from the inception of Pakistan to the early 21st century. This long poem contains six sections, each having an interesting subtitle: ‘Founder’, ‘Usurper’, ‘Lecher’, ‘Maverick’, ‘Bigot’ and ‘Smug’. In a few pages, Khalique summarises the features and idiosyncrasies of the rulers of Pakistan. For example, in ‘Usurper’, he writes:
“Eagles hover above
Beaks like swords
Talons of steel
Scorpions, snakes
Swerve, hiss on the ground
Dragons exhale fire
Clutch everything
Guard all wealth
Power and pelf”
It is not difficult to imagine who Khalique is talking about when he writes in ‘Lecher’:
“The sharp scent of treachery
Emits out
Of every palace wall
Servants
Pace up and down
The corridors
Silver platters
Offering guile and sham
The earls, the nobles
Kiss the platters in awe
The emir
Of the land of the pure
Relishes slyness”
It will not be an overstatement to say that after the so-called ‘first-generation’ of English-language poets of Pakistan such as Daud Kamal, Maki Kureishi and Taufiq Rafat, the new generation lacked a strong voice, and that strong voice has emerged in the poetry of Khalique. As a champion of human rights, he is unnerved at the treatment meted out to the followers of religious and denominational creeds other than the majority one. Khalique is vocal in protesting against the injustice to Aasiya Bibi, a Christian peasant woman from Sheikhupura who spent nine years in solitary confinement. The poem, titled ‘Condemned’, is a heart-rending account of this episode.
The terrorism inflicted on the people of this land is portrayed in the poem ‘Gulsher’. You can’t stop your tears when you read about 13-year-old Gulsher killed in the terrorist attack on a school in Peshawar in December 2014.
“Now he will not
Wake his sister up
Now he will not
Hide his grandma’s pen
Now he will not
Pester his mom again
Now he will not
Eye his daddy’s purse
From school today
He came back in a hearse”
Khalique refuses to mould his craft to the needs of state ideology, but neither is he silent at the atrocities committed in the name of religion across the globe. His other poems, such as ‘The Palm Reader: Aleppo’ and ‘The Magician and the Boy’, have been critically acclaimed and analysed widely so I am not discussing them here. Khalique, for sure, has all the ingredients of a great poet in the making. No Fortunes to Tell is definitely a groundbreaking work in Pakistani English poetry and one hopes that soon his work will be recognised internationally and win many accolades.
The reviewer is an educationist
No Fortunes to Tell
By Harris Khalique
Folio, Lahore
ISBN: 978-9697834044
88pp.
Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, April 28th, 2019