Beyond Boundaries

Born in Hyderabad,India,Nigah moved to Pakistan after the Partition. Poetry came to her at an early age,but it was mostly a private endeavour. “Poetry by women wasn’t appreciated and respected in public. Interestingly,there was a different world of poetry in the zenana mushairas. Women poets had their own small nashists (discussions) in purdah,at which they would recite poetry. But a woman in a mushaira sitting alongside men and reciting poetry was something unheard of,” says Nigah who surfaced on the Pakistani literary scene as a child prodigy in the early 50s.

Meeting Indian poet Amrita Pritam though,changed the tide for Nigah. She was 15 when Pritam came down to Lahore for an All India Radio assignment. “She heard me recite a small piece at a local mushaira. She came up to me and said,“ Bahut achha likhti ho,kabhi us paar bhi aao (You write really well. Come over to India sometime.) I was already her fan and was floored,” reminisces Nigah. When she did come over to India ,her mushairas had a host of Indian dignitaries in attendance — from Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Dr S Radhakrishnan,to Lal Bahadur Shastri,everybody dropped in whenever they could. “My poetry was always liked in India as I covered a wide variety of subjects ranging from everyday life to the extremely repressive Hudood Ordinance by Zia-ul-Haque in 1979,” says Nigah.

The request to use her poetry in Pinjar came almost 50 years later when she got a call from poet and lyricist Gulzar,seeking her permission to use Sita ko Dekha as a recurring theme in the movie,which released in India in 2003. “I told Gulzar sahab that you don’t need my permission for anything related to Amritaji. It was my honour to be associated with her in anyway. I however knew as to what I was up against,” she laughs.

Nigah has been associated with movies back home as well,from writing the script of Lollywood’s Umrao Jaan to scripting various Pakistani television serials. “Muzaffar Ali’s classic dramatisation is also beautiful but you should also see the Pakistani Umrao Jaan,” she says.

The bond with India continues to thrive,despite the political tensions between the two countries. “If we can endorse our friendship through cultural alliances,a positive change is bound to happen,” she says. “I am still waiting for the day when I will enter India without a visa,sit with Javed sahab (Akhtar) and recite Mitwa kahe dhadkane tujhse kya,” she says.

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