Muqalaat e Noon Meem Rashid مقالات ن م راشد

This is about collection of articles, letters, and essays by Noon Meem Rashid.

I did not know much about Rashid than a few scattered facts.His famous poem 'Zindagi say dartay ho" was in our syllabus in higher secondary. Later I had read his Abu Lahab ki Shadi and a few others. His choice of funeral rites surprising for many of us at that time.

I have not read enough of his poetry to make an opinion on it. He carries the reputation of using difficult diction and not reaching out to common man. He had done various experiments in poetry and is considered one of the pioneers of nazms in Urdu.

Recently there was an event on his works in New York. It was not fulfilling. I mentioned it to Syed Saeed and he was kind enough to lent me his copy of Muqalaat e N M Rashid.

This is a collection of his essays, articles and personal communications over his literary lifetime. Most of them were published in various magazines like Ilham Dehli , Naya Daor Karachi, Nakhlistan Multan, Adab e Lateef Lahore, Aaj Kak Dehli. The writing spans a time period roughly from 1930’s to late 1970’s

Prose has the power to let the person spread out on paper in his own words without the ambiguity of poetry. It helped me know him a lot better and I thank Saeed for that.

Whatever I write here is my personal opinion and may very well be limited and biased. 

Rashid comes across as a part of literary elite, entitled to the peculiarities of that class. He is blunt in his opinion and minces no words. He writes for those who can understand him, and has no extra desire to reach out to those who don’t.

That does not take away from him what he has to offer. I learned a lot from him in this book. He has a burning desire to explain things and educate those who are interested in learning. He is like a professor who is idiosyncratic but is burning with the desire to get the right thing through his students and audience. He does not cut any corners here.

He makes a strong case for Free Verse, Azad Nazm,, with the emphasis on rhythm if not exactly meter or rhyme. He says it opens up a lot of new ideas which the old fossilized construct of ghazal and restricted (Paband) poem cannot deliver.

There is an interesting back and forth correspondence between him and Saqi Farooqi when both of them were in London in 1975. They argue on the future of Urdu poetry and role of various contemporaries. 

He credits Ghalib and then Hali for the new genre of Urdu poetry. Hali introduced new ideas but was restricted to morality and national building issues and had paternalistic attitude.

He was posted in Iran during the war and tells about how he and others were able to introduce Iqbal to Iranians who were not that much aware of Iqbal.

He has a long article on Modern Persian poetry, and compares its poet Nima Yooshij with Meera Ji, although Meera Ji was an urbanite and Nima had rural background. In other ways his poetry is close to Faiz and Akhtar Sheerani, 

In two later articles he talks about two recent Poets of Iran, socialist Abul Qasim Lahuti and Perven Ahteasmi, who died young. but gave voice to the women of Iran, (somewhat like Perveen Shakir)

In an interesting article, 'Urdu adab per maashrati asr" he compares western literature to Urdu. It is hard for Western mind to understand the complexities of Eastern literature. Much of the twists and turns of Eastern literature would be considered lazy, lethargic and handicapped.
He says there are four forces in effect in Indian literature and culture.
First, the Hindu influence in the agricultural and middle class Northern Indians
Second, the moralities of religion of Islam
Third, the Persian mysticism which itself was a mixture of Platonic thoughts and Islamic thoughts
And lastly the Western influence with its materialism, organization and technology.

In the initial period of Urdu literature, 18th and 19th century, there were three obvious movers and influences. Religion, feudalism and homosexuality. 
When Nadir Shah sacked Dehli in 1739 Wali was an old man and Mir was 15 years old. Mir had seen much of social vicissitude in his life and mentions a bit in his writing but could not make his poetry political as it was considered improper. At most the effects of uncertainty in life reflected in his poetry. The next century 19th, was no different either. It is Ghalib and Momin's poetry. Much of religion and its similes are part of the poetry
Effect of feudalism was complex. The feudal lord is there to protect the common man from the effects of dacoits, invaders and famine. (his own exploitation notwithstanding). So, there is a relationship of praise and qasida writing and protection and stipends, Ghalib and Iqbal included. It then has its effect on ghazal which becomes the conversation between the beloved who is now a sort of protector and benevolent figure
Third effect is homosexuality. Women is not given the right space in the society. Moreover she is hidden in the urban culture behind chadar and chardewari. So, talking to or about a woman may be considered cheap and not proper. Moreoever it gives an impression of talking to God, if in masculine.
Nazeer was the first popular poet, born around the time of Nadir Shah's attach and lived for 90 years. Many of his work is like ballads, about common man. Post Mutiny Hali comes with his moralities and poetry full of purpose like  Ay mao bhehno betio etc. Same in the writings of Nazir Ahmed and Rashid al Khairi and Abdul Haleem Sharar, Munshi Sajjad Hussain and Ruswa and their associations with the tawaif culture. 
Iqbal although died in 20th century, but most of his attention was to the issues of 19th century. talking about moralities and humanism and praising the feudal. Later the effects of culture on the society influenced him to be political and think of independence in a certain way. But mostly his poetry is philosophical.
At that time Zafar and Josh were political and so was Premchand in his prose. 
Progressive movement, did show influence of dealing with the issues and left religion and sexuality aside. But had two faults. too much expectations and more emphasis on their way of thought (communist approach) instead of dealing with the problems at hand. 
He prizes Meera ji, Ismat Chugtai, Mumtaz Mufti and himself as pioneers of modernism esp. in breaking the taboos of talking about sexual relationships in the era of religious occult, feudalism and foreign rulers. Then he talks about the relics of progressive movement. Josh, Hafeez and Firaq and in post partition Jalib  and Zafar Iqbal in prose and Qurat ul ain, Abdullah Hussain and Shaukat Siddiqui in prose.
Strange last para of this article: Now the new straight lines have joined the circles and circle instead of vanishing away has changed into an elliptical shape, It is neither moving fast nor slow but still feels the uncertainties of heartbeat introduced by the influence of those straight lines. 

He was a strong proponent of the Latin script for Urdu. That was a movement of the time and favored by the government. Rashid gives the example of Indonesia and Turkey multiple times to emphasize the importance. He claimed that it would increase the literacy rate.

We learn about a lot of people and their literary side from his articles. That include, Mughal Emperor Babur, Empress Noor Jehan, Zaibunnissa, Rehman Baba, Khushro , Hali , Zafar Ali Khan and of course Ghalib.

He has articles about Akhter Sheerani, Mukhtar Siddiqui and on Faiz ( reproducing his preface to Naqsh e Firyadi)

There is an obituary on Mahmood Nizami and Shahid Ahmad

He considers Ghalib as having an epic effect on Urdu. It was him and not his competitors Zouq or Momin who left any influence on the next generation of writers and poets. thus, injecting his influence for generations to come.

There is an interview with Prof Anwar Dil. On Patras Bukhari, he had a long association, initially in GC Lahore as his student, later a coworker with him in AIR Dehli and then in UNO in New York. We learn that Patras was very finicky, aloof and a private person. He was a theatre artist and performed often in the reproductions of English plays in GC College. He delved too much into the work of the government to the detriment to his literary life. Rashid thinks that Patras would have left a bigger legacy in literature had he not been a government employee. With Patras, it seems there were similarities although there were differences. Both had Urdu as a second language, both were anglophiles and worked for the government, British India and then Pakistan. Both were what we may label today as elitist. 

One of the remarkable article. Fruits of Hard Work Are Much Better Than Gifts Of Fortune. Mehnat kay phal muqqar ka tufoon say kaheen behtar hain  is on education and it is at the end of the book. It is written in 1930 and clearly mentions the disgust at the corporeal punishment and the way to educate the kids. It is a very forward looking thought and was surprising to me to read such thoughts existed in the intelligentsia community almost 80 years back.

There is the presidential address to Halqa Arbab e Zouq 17th Annual Session in 1956. He acknowledges the three important contributions of Halqa.
First, encouragement of innovative ideas and modernity
Second, upholding the mantle of constructive and unrestrictive critique of literature thus showing the writers and readers the difference between true and fake literature
And third, protecting literature from those nonliterary influences and groups which were the biggest danger to literature.

In response to an article by Jamil Jalbi, editor of Naya Daor in which Jalbi had emphasized the 'Right Thought" for the Pakistani Identity, Rashid slams Jalbi in the article Pakistan Identity. Jalbi had emphasized three pillars of Pakistani Identity. Islam, Historic virtues and Urdu. Rashid responds by stating that Islam should not be static and should adapt to the present and so the Islam of Pakistan should not be chained to the Indian historic past. Regarding Historic virtues which essentially meant keeping the culture of Delhi and UP alive, Rashid is strongly against it and claims that the land of Pakistani ie the five provinces should have a say in the identity of Pakistan. Lastly, he speaks in favor of local languages exp Bengali. Brave of him to do that. 

Comparing Zouq with Ghalib, he states there is no comparison. Ghalib has ideas, Zouq has only language

In the first editorial of monthly Shahkar Lahore in 1935 he sets up an aggressive agenda. It would have emphasis on intellectual development through literature, and addressing topics of modernity, religion and emphases on eastern cultures and values. 

Many articles are about the addressing the challenging aspects and innovations in literary techniques. He comes across as one of the proponents of breaking the old walls of literary culture and experimenting with new ideas. 

In a series of interviews with Saadat Saeed, he talks about his life abroad and his personal opinions on poetry. In his personal experience of writing poem, he compares it to a sexual encounter when the finalization of the poem is likened to the final orgasm. 

In his reviews of individual works, he writes about Ghulam Abbass' Jazeera e Sukhunwaran, a satire . In it a Nawab of Dehli along with his company of writers and aficionados of literature leave India after mutiny and find an island 'Meena"in Indian Ocean  there they settle down and the whole society is divided into the writers and non-writers. and there is a class system. 

He has a review on Aag ka Darya and Shaukat Siddiqui Khuda ki Basti

There are short travelogues about Iran, Greece and Middle East, ie Iraq, Palestine and Egypt

This book took me to those middle fifty years of 20^th century, spanned across the Partition, and reminded that a vibrant literary culture existed with many literary magazines and circles, where literature was created, showcased and evaluated. A culture of openness prevailed and people debated and challenged difficult issues including religious, national and sexual identities. Their views were debated, appreciated or rejected, but still tolerated. Rashid was an important part of that debate.

A lot of it, and Noon Meem Rashid along with it, have faded since.