NEW DELHI, June 8: A Karachi-based journalist once asked Ali Sardar Jafri, ``Don't you feel like settling down in Pakistan?'' ``Certainly not,'' came the prompt reply. When the journalist looked a little puzzled, Jafri explained: ``You see young man, I belong to the Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh and the arhar dal here is very famous, in fact it is the staple diet. And I can't stop eating that dal.''While saying that he still has an emotional and literary link with Pakistan, Lahore especially, the Jnanpith award winner adds, ``Pakistan was not a solution to the problem. I am not denouncing Pakistan now but merely analysing in retrospect the sad event of Partition.'' And in the face of nuclear tests and increasing tension between the two countries, his only hope is: ``Today we can only try and maintain peace between our two countries.''Referring to the arhar-dal conversation again, Jafri says: ``The gentleman probably thought I was joking. But no, patriotism has some relation with aperson's body too. It is the elements of the place which bind a person to it - the earth, the water, the air - all these things matter. Don't those who migrated from UP miss the dal, don't the Punjabis who had to leave Lahore cherish memories of the place? Of course they do! When the first Indian Airlines plane was hijacked to Lahore, a Punjabi writer lamented, `Arre Sardar, How I wish I was on that aircraft.' I was a bit puzzled and asked him why. `I would have just got down and touched the earth of Lahore, that's all,' he said. This is the sentiment by and large.''Others his age may have gone bald with pessimistic anticipation of a bleak future, but the poet's eyes continue to twinkle and he smiles as he runs his hands through his long salt-and-pepper hair. His hair has always attracted people, especially women. Girls would flock to him in college, with clips in their hands, using it as an excuse for conversation. But Jafri says: ``Many have been intrigued by my long hair, but there is nothingto it. I just like it this way.''Born in Balrampur, Jafri was sent to an Arabic school from where he promptly ran away to join an English-medium one. He joined the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 1936 but had to leave because of his role in the strikes. He moved to Delhi University to complete his BA and even enrolled in a law course. But this was subsequently abandoned after a friend once said: ``What are we doing here? We are the outlaws.''While the period between 1933-39 saw dramatic changes in the existing world order with the rise of fascism in Germany and Italy, India's anti-imperialist struggle and the first rumblings of World War II, Jafri was fighting his own battles at AMU where he was a ``leftist socialist''. Later on at Lucknow University - where he started an MA in Literature - he became actively involved in the student's union. Always a rebel, he was arrested for the first time in 1940, and held at the Lucknow and Benares jails.Jafri was in excellent company in the Lucknowdistrict jail, surrounded by Bhagat Singh's friends. Jafri wrote the poem Why Can't I Sleep from Nasik central jail, on his son's first birthday and sent it to his wife Sultana:``Beautiful is the night/ Why can't I sleep. Everyday in the night/ Sleep evades my eyes;Leaves me alone,/ Goes out from the prisonTo the city of Bombay/ Knocks at the door of my houseFills the drowsy eyes/ Of a babyWith the sweetness of dreams;/ As a beautiful fairySings a lullaby and/ Rocks the cradle.''At the end of the recitation he says it is his favourite. Jafri saw breath-taking beauty in that night as he lay in a tiny cell, away from his wife and child. Jafri's indefatigable spirit is always amazing, his energy is almost effervescent as he shuttles between his home in Mumbai and the capital. There are always poems to write, seminars to attend and awards to receive. And while others spend a lifetime in search of God, the poet spends his time in search of man.
