Eastern Vagabond

Essays on travel, cities, memory, and the unnoticed textures of the world.

Tag: humanity

  • Baal-e-Jibreel I

    Baal-e-Jibreel, put simply, is Iqbal’s monologue with God except that the persona they both take on is not the traditional, master’s and slave’s; but somewhat mystic, lover’s and beloved’s (though Iqbal is not to be confused with Sufi poets). The verses ooze with fierce, unintimidated love instead of respectful, humble worship. The first few odes that basically set the tone for the entire collection come out as quite aggressive. You feel the raging passion of a daring, cocky lover addressing his Beloved, telling Him that the obstacles in the way of love suit his adventure-thirsty nature just fine. If you wish to see how perfection borns out of the imperfect, you need to read the following couplets wherein a weak man can be seen to be begetting strong love. The stark contrast drawn between the guilty self of a man and yet the unapologetic love he is capable to experience is simply awe-inspiring. Understandably, the references to the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve, and good and evil, are numerous throughout the thread.

    قصور وار ، غریب الدیار ہوں لیکن
    ترا خرابہ فرشتے نہ کر سکے آباد

    خطر پسند طبیعت کو ساز گار نہیں
    وہ گلستاں کہ جہاں گھات میں نہ ہو صیاد

    مقام شوق ترے قدسیوں کے بس کا نہیں
    انھی کا کام ہے یہ جن کے حوصلے ہیں زیاد

    As you read on, you know Iqbal is not an ordinary lover who is too wasted by passion to acknowledge reality. His extensive use of hyperbole and visual imagery, which is comparable to the ancient epics, does in no way make him depart from the subject which is exploration of self and God. Instead they empower him far beyond this by enabling him to take quick, pithy jabs at philosophical conundrums of his time. For instance, the wonderfully poetic way he addresses the contemporary problem of Zaat (Essence) Vs Siffaat (Attributes) is mind blowing. No wonder his daring takes (بت کدئہ صفات) have oft landed him in hot water with the religious establishment of his time.

    میری نوائے شوق سے شور حریم ذات میں
    غلغلہ ہائے الاماں بت کدئہ صفات میں

    When it comes to ‘yearning’, Iqbal has a lot to say. Man’s yearning, as he sees it, has led to the creation of churches and synagogues and the same yearning has destroyed the idols of Kaaba and Somnaat. In a way, Iqbal is not-so-tacitly coining a similitude between God and Man – each engaged in a passionate cycle of creation and destruction to find the other.

    گرچہ ہے میری جستجو دیر و حرم کی نقش بند
    میری فغاں سے رستخیز کعبہ و سومنات میں

    And here goes one of my most favorite couplets.

    متاع بے بہا ہے درد و سوز آرزو مندی
    مقام بندگی دے کر نہ لوں شان خداوندی

    The universal tragedy of the inhabitants of the gray world that they don’t belong anywhere, could not be better put.

    اپنے بھی خفا مجھ سے ہیں ، بیگانے بھی ناخوش
    میں زہر ہلاہل کو کبھی کہہ نہ سکا قند

    When yearning suffices the yearner, there’s hardly anything of substance that can be snatched of him, least of all, his happiness.

    ہر حال میں میرا دل بے قید ہے خرم
    کیا چھینے گا غنچے سے کوئی ذوق شکر خند!

    And a sweet end to the daring opening part of the book.

    چپ رہ نہ سکا حضرت یزداں میں بھی اقبال
    کرتا کوئی اس بندہ گستاخ کا منہ بند!

  • Whore

    It’s fashionable to write about prostitutes these days. Men generally write because they want to be looked upon as compassionate beings, capable to view the misery of prostitutes above and beyond their own assaulting nature. Women write because they have a continuous need to be hailed as feminist warriors. Nothing else seems to catch as much public attention on the media. Clerics write fatwas, reporters about raids on brothels and all this drama interests an ordinary man very much.

    Teenage writers are perpetually on the hunt for such hot topics to get noticed so I, once one, jumped the bandwagon and began a story with: Once upon a time, there was a whore.

    I knew the opening line was good and the content could not be a problem as i knew reasonably enough about the prostitutes from Hollywood and hearsay. But then i found myself confronting the question if that would be honest to ascribe the character of glamorized fictional prostitutes to the genuine character that took birth in the opening line. Then i asked myself if i could state the facts. More importantly, if i knew the facts. Even more importantly, if i could put them down while not trying to tip-toe about the taboos. These rather unlikely questions brought me some insights that i felt i should share.

    It’s really easy to create literature and make a seemingly intelligent drawing-room talk when maintaining contact with reality is not a constraint. One might even get some applause but not knowing the difference, one ends up turning a prostitute into a whore that way. At the end of the day, i don’t feel it’s a good bargain. A quintessential writer, you may disagree, creates all his characters from first-hand experience. The technical difficulty in creating a prostitute’s character, however, is that one, in our conservative society, most likely never has an experience with a prostitute and therefore all one’s ‘observations’ and details about one are actually only speculations based on hearsay, and hence lay invalid.

    I read the opening line back and though hard it might be to trace them earlier, it was replete with insensitive inaccuracies. I realized there was no “once upon a time” because every conceivable story about a prostitute is already cliched. Secondly, there was no such thing as there was. The story ran in the present – in the very moment that ticked by. Thirdly, i was not sure if “whore” was the right word for a woman who left her bastards every night to be able to put food on their table but only managed to produce more of them in the struggle.

    I backspaced and the words disappeared fast until i was left with a clean sheet staring back at me. I absently typed “whore” at the top again and flinched; old habits died hard. I backspaced once again and this time, not knowing why, I typed “human” instead. It felt better. Acknowledging the humanness of a downgraded human fellow always makes you feel better somehow.