Tu barae wasl kardan aamdiNay barae fasl kardan aamdi(You are here on the earth to unite/ And not to divide)Jalaluddin RumiSIMPLE. Evocative. Intense. Persian poet Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) shares modern man’s agony and ecstasy. No wonder, in the post-9/11 world, he has found a fabulous following.Film-makers, theatre directors, authors and even Hollywood actors—all want to borrow the ‘divine’ lights from the 13th century sufi poet. Film-maker Muzaffar Ali will soon leave for Turkey, to finalise locations for Rumi, the film he starts in September. “Rumi breaks the barriers. His poetry has universal appeal. The divine ecstasy in his verses has touched millions of hearts across the world,” raves Ali. “My film explores the essence of Rumi.”Born into a Sufi family, Rumi trained under the renowned Persian Sufi poet Farid Attar. Impressed by Rumi’s poetic excellence, Attar is said to have told Rumi’s father (Baha): “Soon this son of yours shall set the spiritual world afire.” Attar’s words proved prophetic. Rumi went on to compose Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabrizi, comprising over 60,000 verses, mostly ghazals. However, Rumi’s most famous work is Mathnawi, a compilation of over 20,000 verses. Jami, another Persian poet, dubbed Mathnawi as “the Koran of the Persian language.” Written in six volumes, the masterpiece took four years to complete. It is said its composition continued till Rumi’s death and it was never completed. Written mostly when Rumi was in a state of ecstasy, Mathnawi’s verses have a rhythmic feel about them. Professor Ahmed Ansari, former head, department of Persian, Mumbai University, says: “It’s about human values, fascinating tales and great history.”Rumi has fascinated the Western world for long. If scholars like Nicholson and A J Arverry popularised Mathnawi through beautiful translations, Rumi found an able ‘ambassador’ in American scholar Coleman Barks who set the poems in fluid, casual verse. His translations set to music have sold nearly a million copies and even featured on Billboard’s Top 20 list. New age guru Deepak Chopra has recorded some of Rumi’s love poems too.The saint-poet also has many takers in Hollywood. Recently actress Jerry Hall (Mick Jagger’s ex- wife), was in India working on the BBC documentary, Searching For The Egoless State. Between Ayurveda massages in Rishikesh and meeting with Art of Living guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Texan siren sat with Ali who recited Rumi’s poems on camera.When Lillete Dubey needed a poem for one of the three stories in her latest theatre production Womanly Voices, she didn’t look beyond Rumi. “In Gita Mehta’s story The River Sutra a character sings a poem. I needed a better poem and searched on the net,” she says. She found a fascinating poem of Rumi which “talks about surrender of man to God”. “I was amazed by the pathos in Rumi’s poem,” she says.Legend has it that Rumi predicted his own death and composed a ghazal just before he died. It opens: “How do you know what sort of king I have within me as a companion?/Do not look at my golden face, for I have iron legs.”Always, Rumi emphasised action and loathed lethargy. “There is a light seed grain inside you/You fill it with yourself or it dies.”
