An ode to a Progressive

He would not have gone with Churchill, that consistency was an attribute of donkeys; he would have introduced a caveat: evolution of ideas, faith, tastes was a reality, the denial of which was a function of intellectual retardation. It was in this framework that he saw his own poems written in praise of Stalin or such mindless exuberance as Himalaya pe khara hai Mao.

This sort of Lin Biao line the Naxalites nurtured in the Seventies, Ali Sardar Jafri had embraced soon after the Communist victory in China in 1948.This was not the essential Jafri Saab. The essential Sardar Jafri would buttonhole you in the central lawn of India International Centre, mesmerise you with his gaze and go into raptures on a line from Josh Malihabadi:

quot; Main Hussain Ibne Ali bol
Raha hoon aye Josh.quot;
Oh Josh, this is Hussain, the son of Ali, Prophet Mohammad8217;s grandson, addressing you.

What fascinated Jafri Saab was not reverence but its exact opposite in Josh8217;s poetry. The poet has placed himself on such an elevated pedestal where the prophet8217;s grandson feels the need to address him. This elegant irreverence embellishes much of Josh8217;s poetry. And it is this facet of Josh, among others, which drew a whole crop of young Urdu poets towards Josh Malihabadi during the freedom struggle.

Like Josh, Jafri is a poet of the nazm, the longer, organically complete poem. Josh excelled in Mussaddas or the sestet, a system of quatrain leading to the two final punch lines. His real genius flowered in rubayat or quatrain.

The poets who came under Josh8217;s spell Jafri, Kaifi Azmi, Niaz Haider all spent a great deal of the muscular strength, the rhetorical appeal of the Musaddas and other nazm forms in political compositions, bordering on propaganda.

While Josh was the political guru of this crop of poets, the senior purohit of the Communist Party of India, P.C. Joshi he was the party General Secretary for long years became the ideological mentor. Actors like Balraj Sahni were inducted into IPTA Indian Peoples Theatre and Jafri Saab8217;s group into the Progressive Writers Association. Time was when writers, poets, actors were in and out of the CPI commune on Mumbai8217;s Khetwari Main road, not far from Opera House Jafri Saab, Miraji, Kaifi Azmi, Krishen Chander, Rajnder Singh Bedi, Niaz Haider, Majrooh Saultanpuri, Sahir Ludhianvi, Balraj Sahni, Saiyid Mohammad Mehdi, Munish Saxena and a host of others.

What a colourful place would Aligarh University have been in the early Thirties among the graduate students were Majaz, Jafri, Jan Nisar Akhtar and Moin Hasan Jazbi. Each one a poet and a remarkable non-conformist in the context of the Islamic idiom. They may not have left behind on the campus the imprint of their version of Catholic Islam, but they did determine in large measure the cultural tempo of the campus. It is, of course, the ultimate irony that Majaz, the poet who composed Aligarh Ka Tarana, which Aligarians sing with reverence, died in a Lucknow country liquor shop.

Of all the Urdu poets of his generation, Jafri Saab was probably the most widely read. He introduced poets and intellectuals in his circle to the works of Walt Whitman. He personally knew poets like Pablo Neruda. Anyone interested in the poetry of Mir Taqi Mir and Ghalib must acquire, the collections of the two poets edited by Jafri Saab the editions are in Urdu as well as Devnagari script accompanied by penetrating essays on their works.

He was a quintessential Indian. Born into a Shia Muslim home in Bahrampur, UP, he decorated his mind with the sights and sounds of the Avadh countryside. Ancient Indian classics were always in his ken. He translated Kalidasa8217;s Meghdoot and Bihari8217;s more sensuous verses. Images of sindoor, sandal, mehndi, dawn in Varanasi, the mysterious holiness of the Ganga, the Himalayas embellish his verse. He adored the pranks of Yoshodha8217;s naughty boy at Gokul and, himself played holi with gusto. With equal grace he participated in the staid camaraderie of Id at Lucknow8217;s bara Imambara.