By Mushtaque B Barq
Professor Ghulam Nabi Firaq (15 July 1927–17 December 2016) was an eminent Kashmiri philosopher, a prolific poet, thoughtful essayist, contemporary translator, and literary critic, as well as a dynamic educator. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his poetry collection, Sada Te Samundar. He was co-founder of Standard Public High School (a group of educational institutions), established in 1975 in downtown Srinagar, Kashmir. The renowned Kashmiri literary critic, Mohammad Yousuf Teng, in one of his literary essays, equates Prof. G. N. Firaq with that of Akhtar ul Emaan for the apparent reason that both legends emerged as incredible literary voices after 1950.
Pleasure and pain represent the essential measures of our reality. Pain has inevitably, like pleasure, inspired the bards of yore to register their grief. Social separation has been an unending source of pain for any living being; even animals and birds weep, but the terrible agony that the human heart has endured since its inception has given rise to a literary genre. In his essay, Shakse Marsiya, G.N. Aatish, a reputed writer, mentions that Wane Garie and Reint Gore, expert women and men, would be traditionally employed to wail in the form of Waan in Pandit families and Reinth in Muslim families at the time of death. This cultural tradition is still in considerable vogue, but the proper form and distinctive style have been modified accordingly. Most of the elegies in Kashmiri literature are either dirges or funeral eulogies in lyrical verses and couplets, but Firaq has expressed his grief by producing a unique blend yet achieved the desired result of creating an elegy in verses, keeping other requirements into consideration.
G.N. Firaq’s Ravan Tuel is an elegy of an atypical kind for the emotional reason that it has set its own ethics, contravening the orthodox setup of elegy writing. An elegy typically consists of three distinct modules: grief, praise of the dead, and consolation for the loss. Like in all other cultures, Kashmir too has its own history of elegy writing. It is believed that the first ever elegy was written by Sham Ded on the demise of Hazrat Sheikh ul Alam Noor Ud din Noorani (RA). The trend was followed by Mehmood Gami. According to Wali Allah Mattoo’s Masnavi, Hemal Mehmood Gami’s mourning song, which he composed on the death of Kak Sahab (elder brother of Wali Allah), reads as :
Too early you have gone missing oh Friend!
Too hard to bear separation oh Friend!
Aided with grades me in ruins oh Friend!
The silvery frame is murky oh Friend!
The elegy of Mehmood Gami is a melodious dirge. A complete elegy with modifications and experimentation has been composed by Firaq in the Kashmiri language, keeping other necessary fundamentals into consideration to make it unique in style and format. The others who wrote elegies in the Kashmiri language are: Nazim, Maqbool Shah Kralvari, Haji Ilyas, and Peer Mohi-ud din Mahzoon.
In his elegy, Prof. Firaq has intensified the grief in the form of metrical couplets, utilising innate experience by applying the garden-fresh Kashmiri idiom. His grief is enveloped in severity on one hand, but on the other hand, it captures the attention of poetry lovers who measure the merit of verses by means of poetic techniques and devices. The elegy that Prof. Firaq has seamlessly woven is simple in its distinctive texture. It consists of mesmerising verses all over, which only fits his class of poetry. For a common man, the death of a beloved ends with the ceremonial funeral, but Prof. Firaq has festooned even the moved coffin of his beloved with the nosegay of his verses. His poignant pathos is like a pulsating heart that sighs and promptly sends shock waves across the peripheries of mortal extremes. Every couplet represents a storey in itself, revealing the saga of life, parting, memories, and reverberations. All the couplets in the extensive collection are either wailing like a widow at the shattered window witnessing the casket of the beloved being carried to the graveyard or like an everlasting monologue, often turning into soliloquy to soothe his anguish by taking safe shelter in the company of his pen. This evident distress oscillates like a pendulum, typically resembling the poet’s changing moods. With the instantaneous change in temper, the lyrical verses typically follow suit. Every so often, he gently scratches his core to voluntarily recall his pleasant times and honey-raw days, yet at times he pierces through the veil of patience and openly wails. He has decked up his fierce cries with the sighs of apt metaphors and alliterations. This elegy seems to have been composed in an excruciating state of mind for the reason that it has either surpassed the formal elegy format or maintained the essential link between the essential components. This parenthesis is obvious as the grief of a wailing poet is private and he wants to register it in the form he finds it in. So one can definitely understand that most of the verses in the collection are a product of spontaneity recollected in tranquility. Prof. Firaq’s elegy is neither pastoral in texture nor like a Latin elegy in mood. It is not marked as a dirge or eulogy. His elegy is unique for the reason that the content of the verses and the melancholy of the bard are in harmony with his psychological agony. It is not, indeed, like the conventional Marsiya that follows a particular pattern consisting of six-line units, with a rhyming quatrain and a couplet on a different rhyme, characterised by six-line verses in an AA, AA, and BB rhyme scheme. They are traditionally either recited by Marsiya-Khwans or sung by Marsiya-Soz. A classical Urdu Marsiya usually follows. a prelude (chehrah) of poems of praise, descriptions of the morning or night before the battle, or a general introduction to the hardships faced by Hussein (AS); a description of the poem’s hero, whether Hussein (AS) or one of his companions, and his virtues; The lament (Bain) begins with the leave-taking or departure for the battlefield (Rukhsat); the entry onto the field (Aamad); a declaration of the hero’s martial prowess (Rajaz); the battle (Jang); the martyrdom (Shahadat); and finally, the lament (Bain). To this, one could add the topical focus (Maajrah) and the prayer (Dua).
Firaq’s elegy is a lament of a wrenched heart, simple in form, aided by stark pain but woven into melodious verses devoid of fixed form, like a painful heart that does not follow a set of overhead lines when the grief is too personal and unavoidable. The format of pain is universal, so Prof. Firaq has taken liberties like a child who knows no rules of wailing.
Sealing the spirit nay apt be
To blow up the self-nay plain be
Bring into the light but a slice of yearning
To live in want, is that so unchallenging!
The component of grief is dominant in his elegy for the reason that the poet feels shattered at the sendoff of his soul mate. The unspeakable agony of apparent death has drowned him to such a considerable extent that his musical verses are intentionally flooded with metaphors relevant to the loss.
Of what hallucination a character I am
In awakening or drowsiness stating I am
A comrade of soul I lost Ah!
See what the life put on show Ah!
The sincere mourner has found himself in a challenging state to spell out as his profound grief has surpassed his creative intelligence, his extrasensory perception, and patient perseverance. He finds himself entwined in a mess because he fails to recognise his state of anguish and honestly exposes his mental state. When the pain overtakes the mourner, he finds it as a connecting thread between his illusions and actuality. The valediction of a companion for a poet is itself a discomfort that bedecks the verses that in reciprocity deepen the chasm in which he finds himself, and from every nook and corner of his isolated state, he only laments the loss of his beloved as an echo in the vacuity to eternalise his obligatory agony for the generations to embrace his pain.
Hay grief, Oh! Grief do listen to me but ever
Be with me I shall serve you with what you utter
Thy origin but from my consciousness evolved,
didn’t you
To me you came to this world through my opinion, didn’t you?
Thy service tell me have I failed to offer
The blaze with me have I failed to inspire
I have but the last wish to make
I shall with you and you too make.
The pallbearer is unswervingly communicating with unbearable grief like a longtime friend and vainly trying to gently persuade him at the daunting cost of anything. The mourner has moved into the whirlpool of pain to look for comfort from the pain itself. In his soliloquy, the lamenting bard reveals that the shrill of pain is his angst-ridden mind’s hobbyhorse, to which he sincerely owes his own foundation. In the same breath, the grief-stricken bard is openly requesting confirmation from the deceased about his abject failures, if at all, that have emanated while serving. The torment has deepened the elegy when the bard has opened up to ensure his everlasting bond and seeks the response as a forlorn lover from the departed soul.
In a grave, by my own hands, you have reached today
Tell me in serving you haven’t I breached today
In the grave are you but not an endless dream witnessing
In the grave, the sweet slumber to you must be favouring
Has the spring shadow ever reached the grave?
Has ever the bright sun shines in the grave
Does ever the moonlight attend the grave?
Does excuse and wishes but speak in grave
In the grave does anyone in sulk stand?
Does anyone therein yearn for some hand?
The above monologue has heightened the poignant grief. The wailing bard is endlessly investigating the situation and years for the response that he already knows, but he submits the frivolous questions as an innocent fawn.The mental power of the mourning poet seems compromised by the creative flow of evident emotions. He allows the stream to wander in the direction of its own without guiding its course. This merciful unconsciousness is deliberate, and any chief hindrance whatsoever would have spoiled the musical movement of suffering sensations. This is what grief is all about; it transcends intelligence and exposes the genuine feeble man who is shattered while saying goodbye to his dearly loved one.
As William Temple says, “When all is done, human life is at its greatest and best, but like a froward child, it must be played with and humoured a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.”
Was this thy only intention Oh! Fatima
Leaving me in the abjection Oh! Fatima
Halfway you left me Ah! Was this the agreement?
Me now, me in isolation Oh! Fatima
You had but generously offered me what style!
You had aided my completion Oh! Fatima
How sweet is the wavering sea of thy kindness?
Can the core fancy omission Oh! Fatima
My anger thy gentleness would calmly ignore
I am fond of thy affection Oh! Fatima
How many concussions I did experience
The only severed concussion Oh! Fatima
Every ill luck I would tackle in thy presence
What if now in subjugation Oh! Fatima
I shall keep the latch of door unfastened for you
Do arrive at the location Oh! Fatima
In mood pensive I returned into seclusions
All bits are in isolation Oh! Fatima
The above monologue is intensely painful wherein the mourner is wailing and recalling the time he spent with his beloved. If this song is taken out of the book, it will unquestionably have its own significance and may be tagged as a funeral song. Firaq has spiced up his own elegy by including a funeral dirge, which he could only do because of his command of versification.
This song doesn’t only praise the deceased soul for being cooperative in her life, but it also serves as a vent to chill the lava that the bard’s serum was circulating in the shallow recesses of his woeful heart. He is wailing like a feminine weeper, as is a custom in certain areas of Rajasthan. The poet, like a skilled mourner, is expressing the grief within himself to avoid sympathy, which he is unwilling to borrow for the reason that he has inevitably fallen in love with the lament. Fatima is frequently addressed as a companion, but her state and station do not correspond to that of a mourner because death creates an unimaginable chasm that is impossible to peer into. But the mourner, like Firaq, is still at the fearful mouth of the chasm, sending bouquets of his spontaneity in the form of verses to be responded to from the unknown gorge. His song is reverberating, and we are all witnessing it today, because he has immortalised his beloved in the form of a song, prompting him to challenge time, as Shakespeare does in his sonnets, where he claims art can triumph over time. He, like Shakespeare, has turned to art to immortalise his bereaved verses, which he had dedicated to his wife. Thus, mortal agony confirms universality. It is the same everywhere, irrespective of space and era. Firaq’s elegy is a blend of poetic creation and lamentation as a common man. The shift in mood has directly fashioned the verses. When pensive, his soliloquies reveal secrets of his torment, and when in the company of nature and situation, he picks up the metaphors from the available Pandora’s Box, which the bard has been gifted by the deity of poetry. He has glorified the death of his wife by enfolding her in the shroud of verses, but he himself has gone to meet her with only an epitaph, inadvertently revealing the date of her death, but before it, he did what a loyal husband and a talented poet ought to have done. Fira’q elegy has one more prominent component in it, and that is satire. He has openly complained about medical negligence. This additional feature has broadened the scope of his agony. His satire is straightforward, like his grief.
Stay for a moment I shall to you convey my tale
Do see by yourself how our own doctors cure the ail
Death to them is an inevitable act of providence
The cure if at all they take but a credit of their brilliance
As far as the second key component of the elegy is concerned, Prof. Firaq has accurately established his own way of praising the deceased. His ecstatic praise is more than just a string of honey-coated adjectives; it is genuine and sublime. To praise someone after giving up the ghost undoubtedly entails steel guts to submit his personal renderings publicly. Praise after the death of a person may be a tradition, but the mourner in this elegy is not a common man, but an eminent poet and well-read scholar, assisted by western and indigenous literature. He used both textures and created a masterpiece as a result. He seems to be the leading elegy writer of his age who has brilliantly blended his grief, employing tools from both cultures.
Thy implanted rose plant in the bed
Up to now, life is as yet red
Of the rose, the mass may favour
In this lawn was a decked lover
With whom shall I share such a look?
She was ah! The most preferred book.
The mourning bard has carefully unfolded his wishful heart, as evidenced by the preceding verses, because he has related to his better half with rose and book. From nature, he has chosen the best and finest entity, and from the literary world, his opt match is the book. Thus, he has blended his verses with two worlds of which he is an integral part.
Firaq’s elegy is different from John Milton’s Lycidas for the reason that Milton has taken refuge from the pastoral setting, aided with Christian themes, but Firaq’s elegy is written in couplets in the language that best suits his overwhelming grief
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
(John Milton)
To conquer death we let the life gasping
Died we in style to let the death teasing
Forlorn is but a man before the death
By fate, the flower has come to last breath (Firaq)
He has not burdened it with hyperbolic descriptions but has kept it simple yet painful. Firaq has kept it around the loss of his beloved without hinting at the salad days.
This type of elegy is not a sombre meditation like Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
Ev’n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires
(Thomas Gray)
And Mona Lisa into the realm returned
Was she ever alive but alive she remained
Do see Noshlab in the treasured flower garden
Her aspirations are but yestereve’s cordon (Firaq)
Adonais by P.B. Shelley is written in the Spenserian style of iambic pentameter and portrays his literary countryman, John Keats. Most other poets in the world have written elegies like In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Walt Whitman, and W. H. Auden. Firaq has added his name to the above-mentioned list by lamenting the loss of his wife in a style and format of his own. The elegy writers in Kashmir must take this collection into consideration to adopt this style, or at least increase their price to seek inspiration.
As such, Firaq like all other elegists, is willingly submitting his will to Fate and, as such, addresses death as an unavoidable agent of divine order. The poet, like a faithful mortal, has accepted the terrible reality of death as an unescapable entity. His verses clearly show that his poetic genius, on the one hand, and his abject submission as a human being, on the other, have bowed politely before the will of the Lord as a personal mark of a faithful husband and mortal.
Death when it comes brings an end to all
All gates to life shall forever fall
Man is temporarily pushed onto this land
The yearning on return waits in silvery band.
Mushtaq B.Barq is a Columnist, Poet and Fiction Writer. He is the author of “Feeble prisoner, “ Wings of Love” and many translation works are credited to the author like “ Verses Of Wahab