dair-o-haram meN mil na sakaa hai agar Khudaa
hogaa vahaan zaruur chalo maikada chaleN
dil ko sukuuN milegaa kahaaN soch lijiye
masjid hai ghar se duur chalo maikadaa chaleN
These are two of the few couplets of Urdu poet Afzal Manglori that have caused a controversy in Western UP. Voices of Manglori's boycott are growing shriller apart from little-known organisations issuing statements that term his poetry as un-Islamic.
There are charges that in his ghazals he has mocked at Ulema. First of all, there is nothing objectionable about these couplets. Such thoughts abound in Urdu poetry and he is no exceptionally good poet either. In fact, Urdu poetry has been historically liberal and only those with no understanding of literature can make such a hue and cry over these couplets.
Meer, Ghalib and other greats took much greater liberty with religion. Had they been in our times they would have been labelled as 'mushrik/mulhid' innumerable times and God knows what would have happened to them. What surprises me is that this is just a non-issue and there is hardly anything worth a protest in these couplets.
Now Manglori is showing his divan to all and sundry to prove that he is not anti-Muslim. As far as Ulema is concerned, the Shekh/Naseh/Waaez has always been a target in poetry.
Manglori says that his family has been associated with the dargaah at Kaliar Sharif and affirms that he believes in Islam.
With these couplets here on the left, he proves his credentials. (He should also realise that these are no less dangerous because many people would not know that the metaphors of intoxication are commonly used to express devotion to the beloved who can be anyone including a holy person).
Yes, even these couplets, who knows, may provoke those who don't understand an iota of literature and poetry but when it comes to criticism they are always ready to jump the gun.
I wish those who protest like organisations of Bijnore, Najibabad and Rampur, would have done this kind of 'bayaanbaazi and akhbaarbaazi' for victims of Hashimpura or some other cause. Or, at least, they should read classical poetry.
Monday, May 28, 2007
'Blasphemic' couplets or lack of tolerance
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7 comments:
lack of tolerance... point well made.
ya...tolrance kam hota jaa raha hai
Muslims scholars are characterless.
This bothers me a lot. In our country people often neglect their own concrens and make it their business to create tamasha on things they don't even understand.
I think I am going to put up a blog somewhere, where people can come and abuse each other so that when they meet they are more relaxed in person.
AcCha hua Meer sahab bahut pehle faut ho gaye...warna unka bhi dhoom-dhaam sai band-baaja baj gaya hota:
"Kashka kHaaincha, DaiR mein baihTA
Kab ka Tarq Islam kiya"
I love those ash'aar. Though I'm a religious person, they speak well to the insanity of most religious people. Yeah. We're a bit crazy. If we went to relax a bit at a "mai'kada" (metaphorically), it wouldn't be such a bad thing!
Your blog is getting better and better mashaallah.
I BEGAN writing my novel Home Products in the summer of 2003, a few weeks before my wife gave birth to our first child.
But even before I began work on the book I bought a black hardcover sketchbook. In its pages, I started writing down whatever I liked in what I happened to be reading. Among the earliest journal entries is the opening line of a review that had appeared, in the New York Times, of the film "The Hours". This was also the opening line of a novel by Virginia Woolf. I cut it out and pasted it in my journal. "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
There are no notes around that neatly cut out quote but I can imagine why it had appealed to a first-time novelist. You read Woolf's line and are suddenly aware of the brisk entry into a fully-formed world. No fussing around with irrelevant detail and back-story. And I began to write various opening lines.
Read more How to write a novel
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