LAHORE: Urdu poet Idris Babur has published, what is termed, the very first book of Ashras in Urdu. The book has been titled as Ashray.

It has a selection of 113 ashras by Idris on myriad topics, including poetry, linguistics, sociopolitical themes, love and personal poems. Most often than not the tone of ashras is satirical with a tinge of humour but there are many others centred around personal experiences and emotions.

Before one gets to the contents of the book, it is the form of poetry that grabs one’s attention.

“It’s a modern form of Shehr-i-Ashob which its obsolete now or it’s not written that much though a university thesis by Murtaza Haider Shirazi from Sargodha on Shehr-i-Ashob has included ashras in it. Ashra is restricted to 10 lines but Shehr-i-Ashob is not,” Idris says while talking to Dawn.

He started writing ashra poems about 12 years back and the book, published with the initiative and help of the poet’s friends, contains a selection of ashras he has written so far.

“When sit-ins of the PTI were happening, I started writing long poems, it was all caricaturish and mockumentary, instead of documentary. It was (is) a generation that wanted democracy but without standing by democracy. They don’t accept free press or free speech but they want democracy. I started writing limerick, which is restricted to five lines but then I realised that the situation needs a bit more space. Hence, I created ashra of 10 lines,” Idris says about the start of Ashras.

In the preface to the book, titled What is Ashra? he writes; “Ashra is the name of poetry consisting of 10 lines which is not restricted to genre, form or rhythm. An Ashra can have elements of ghazal and nazm, qasidah, hijv, wasokht or Shehr-i-Ashob or even hamd or naat, salam or manqabat”.

There arises a question why one would start venturing into a new form for which one has to give so much explanation. To this question, Idris Babur replies, “Ashra is also an attempt to make poetry more grounded in life as opposed to poetry on something non-existent. There is a kind of “sectarianism” in practicing forms of poetry-- ghazal and nazm---as many people still don’t recognise even prose poems as poetry.”

Babur thinks that most of the writers of his generation are done with writing what they had to write and they are now just repeating themselves.

Ashra might be the first 10-line poetic form in Urdu but it was practised in French in the Middle Ages. French poets from the 15th and 16th century wrote 10-liner poems called dizain. The word literally meant ‘10th part’. It contained 10 lines with each line having 10 syllables. The French form had a regular rhyme too which went as ababbccdcd. Among the modern English language poets, Andrew Lang is the one who has written dizain.

Since the origin of Idris Babur’s ashras started in the days of the PTI sit-ins in Islamabad and those having some insight into the state of political affairs, then and now, know what was happening behind the scene, there was bound to be the themes in the subsequent ashras about the country’s messy politics and those controlling it. An ashra, titled Meeting, takes on the theme of the control of the country by the forces and the state of suppression. Another one, titled Faiz Mailay Sey Barah-i-Raast, has these lines, tinkon jesi hasiat wehshi mauj kay aagay/ loag kitnay beybus hain apni fauj kay aagay’. Yet another ashra on the terrorism-ridden country, titled Kahan Hay Quetta, Kaya Hay Quetta, exposes the apathy of the people towards violence and how they get selective regarding the regions where such incidents happen.

Regarding the difficulties in publishing a book of ashras, Idris Babur says he found it hard to publish his collection as many publishers first committed to print it but later backed off. “Due to my ashras, they backed off from publishing even my collection of ghazals. One publisher had even paid me advance money to publish the book but later refused to do so. Though he was kind enough not to ask for his money back.” The first panel of ‘experts’ engaged by the publisher approved the manuscript but “another one” rejected it, he says, adding that the “experts” posed to have objections to the contents and themes of the ashras.

“I wanted to print a book completely different from my first one and this book has fulfilled my wish. I did not have money to self-publish the book but my friends contributed to it.”

Coming back to the form of genre, he says ashra has a format to be written a ghazal of nazm. “For me, it’s where I can be myself without getting on the bandwagon of popularity,” he says.

The book contains a selection of ashras of Idris from 2014 until 2020, excluding many of the ashras that could not be published in Pakistan for obvious reasons.

Published in Dawn, January 22th, 2023