When in the
1940s Jamiluddin Aali made his debut as a
poet (all Loharu-walas are compulsive poets)
he did not adopt any of the modern verse
forms, such as the nazm, free verse or blank
verse, as his preferred form of expression.
Instead, he stayed with the ghazal. Gifted
with a melodious voice and with his
familiarity with classical music, he recited
his ghazals in a most charming style and was
immediately in great demand in mushairas.
Not much later he was also exposed to the
charms of folk poetry and music through folk
melas in the suburban environment of
Bulandshehr and Meerut which he had the
chance to visit frequently. This captivated
his imagination and it did not take him long
to adopt the folksy geet and doha as his
favourite mode of expression. This also gave
his poetry an identity of its own. At the
time he was perhaps the only poet of Urdu
writing dohas.
The doha within its two rhyming lines is
able to express a complete thought. In this
it is not unlike ghazal in which too a
single couplet conveys a complete thought
with powerful imagery. The doha however is
traditionally more down-to-earth both in its
content and its imagery.
Unlike the ghazal, the doha generally
expresses an everyday experience in a simple
uninvolved language. The doha, especially in
the form adopted by Aali, stays close to the
style of Hindi poetry and the framework of
the classical music compositions. Aali's
style of reciting his dohas with his
understanding of classical music is
inimitable and seldom fails to captivate his
audiences. It has made at least one
particular critic wonder whether the
applause at the end of his recitals would be
the same if "he simply read and not sang his
dohas".
Calm Under the Whirlpool is a
compilation of some 170 of Aali's dohas,
selected from three collections of his
poetry, with their English translation. The
text of the dohas has also been
transliterated into Roman (English) and
devnagri scripts. The translators are
Canada-based civil engineers, Dr Baidar
Bakht (originally from Dehli) and Dr
Marie-Anne Erki (a Frenchwoman). They are to
be admired for their dedication to Urdu and
to Aali's poetry.
The foreword by Dr Baidar Bakht provides a
useful introduction to Aali's literary
accomplishments and to the origin and
characteristics of the doha. The translation
into English of a quaint verse form of Urdu
(or to be exact Hindi-ized) form of poetry
could not but have been a most painstaking
job. Dr Baidar Bakht points out that Aali's
dohas do not conform to the metre of the
doha as it is traditionally composed in
Hindi.
He quotes another critic Dr S. Ashrafi who
says that Aali's dohas should really be
described by another name. However this is
not to detract from the literary quality and
charm of Aali's dohas.
Unfortunately, the problem with Calm
Under the Whirlpool plainly is that the
English translation cannot be said to have
done justice to Aali's original. It has
failed to carry the artistic style and
content of Aali's work, reducing it to
unattractive prose. Take the following
example.
Sukh ban-tay, dukh mol liye, jal ban-ta
khai aag, Phir bhi man papi, dasay hai ban
kay nag
In translation it reads: I sold comfort for
pain/Gave away water to eat embers/ But my
sinner heart/ Still stings me like an adder
This is much too literal and devoid of the
subtlety and cadence of the original to make
any impact.
Dr Erki's incapacity to grasp the mood and
music of the original dohas is perhaps
understandable as she is French and a
stranger to the subtleties of oriental
poetry and music. However, Dr Baidar Bakht's
performance, considering he enjoys a good
deal of standing as a scholar of Urdu comes
as a sad disappointment.
True the doha is a verse form too deeply
rooted in the tradition of Hindi poetry and
does not lend itself easily to translation
into English. But this is always a
challenging task. |
|
|
