Kya poochho ho mujh say
meri umr ka qissa
Nau sau bars jiya hoon
mein navvay barson mein
[You ask for an account of my career;
Well, I have lived nine hundred years in ninety]
| O |
On Sunday, August 3, news arrived in Lahore that Dr Satyapal Anand had died at the age of 94.
Earlier, on July 9, three literary luminaries – CM Naim in Chicago, Tasnim Manto in Lahore and Zubeida Mustafa in Karachi – had all passed away on the same day.
The news of a literary stalwart’s death first silences us and then fills us with the presence of the departed. Besides private memories, their writings echo in our consciousness.
When I received the news of his passing, the first thing I recalled about Satyapal Anand - writer, poet and critic in four languages - was the opening lines of his poem Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un (Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed, to Him we return).
Aik murda tha jisay mein
khud akela
Apnay kandhon par uthaye
Aaj aakhir dafn kar kay
aagaya hoon
Bojh bhari tha magar apni
rihai kay liye
Behad zaroori tha keh
apnay aap hi isko uthaoon
Aur ghar say door ja kar
dafn kar doon
[There was a corpse that I all by myself
Carried on my shoulders
I have finally buried it at last
This was a heavy burden but it was essential for my salvation
To bear it myself and to bury it far from my home]
Many writers have composed fine letters of condolence. A collection has been compiled by Dr Aqeel Abbas Jafri. But Satyapal Anand went further. He did not simply write a condolence letter; he wrote from the wellspring of grief itself, a grief from which humanity cannot escape, either in life or in imagining its end.
The fear of “where we will go if we do not find rest even after dying” haunts the human spirit with a strange anxiety. It was this grief that inspired him to write Tathagat Nazmen (Buddha Poems).
Anand, born in 1931 in Kot Sarang, a small town in Chakwal, was educated in Urdu, which had been the medium of instruction in the Punjab since the late 19th Century. Most educated Punjabis from the generation, regardless of faith or nationality, spoke Punjabi but wrote in Urdu.
After Partition, Satyapal Anand’s family settled in Chandigarh. Anand completed an MA in English, which became his means of livelihood. Urdu remained the main language of literary expression for him although he published some books in Punjabi, Hindi and English. His primary identity was always that of an Urdu writer and poet. He produced more than a dozen works of fiction; his autobiography Katha Chaar Janmon Ki; and essays, yet it was poetry that remained the most authentic and distinguished expression of his creativity.
He wrote ghazals too, but was quite vocal in pointing out the limitations of the genre. It would not be inaccurate to say that after Kaleemuddin Ahmad, few people criticised the ghazal with Anand’s intensity. In this regard, he surpassed even luminaries like Hali, Josh and Azmatullah Khan. His opposition stemmed from the dualism established by the Anjuman-i-Punjab and Hali: the view that the ghazal form restricts imagination, whereas the nazm affirms the freedom of poetic expression. Of course, the debate continues to this day.
In 1988, having moved to the United States where he would teach comparative literature (he also spent about two years in Saudi Arabia from 1992-1995), he published a series of poetry collections in quick succession: Dast Barg, Vaqt La-Vaqt, Aanay Vali Sahar Band Khirki Hai and Mujhay Na Kar Vidaa’. He possessed an extraordinary understanding of the poetics of the modern poem, its evolution and its contemporary concerns.
After 1990, he also translated some Pakistani poets’ work into English and wrote about it. He described three Rawalpindi poets - Ali Muhammad Farshi, Naseer Ahmad Nasir and Rafiq Sandelvi - as imagist. This description had a lasting impact. On the one hand, it led to a deeper appreciation of the three; on the other, some of the later poets struggled to gain similar recognition.
Anand himself made abundant use of imagery in his poetry, favouring artistic expression over disclosure. He sought to keep Urdu close to the Ganga-Jamuni civilisation, blending Muslim and Hindu cultural traditions. His poems Bu Ali Andar Ghubar-i-Naaqa Gum, Fatakallamu Ta’arafu and Inni Kuntu Min az-Zalimin are striking examples of this approach.
Many writers born before independence saw “a quest for the lost” as one of their main concerns. Satyapal Anand shared this preoccupation, asking where the Anand in his name came from. He wondered if it was linked to nanda, the first disciple of Buddha: the precise nature of that connection was unclear.
To pursue the question, he carried out research in Chandigarh. He concluded that he was related to the Kakhrain, a branch of the Kshatriyas. After embracing Islam, the Kakhrain became Khokhars. The Kakhrain of Chakwal lived in the region of the Gandhara civilisation, an area rich with Buddhist temples and monuments. It was here, according to one tradition, that a group of monks once arrived under the leadership of another nanda.
Satyapal traced his lineage to this character. His research, initially focused on family history, led to an important work: Tathagat Nazmen (2015). These poems are voiced through Buddha’s first and most devoted disciple.
Urdu literature contains some significant poetry on Buddha and Buddhism. One recalls Miraji’s Ajanta Kay Ghaar and Aslam Ansari’s Gautam Ka Aakhri Va’z.
Satyapal’s book, though less widely read, is a work of great importance. It tells the story of Buddha, nanda and the Buddhist philosophy of life and nirvana, retold by an nanda of the 21st Century.
Here’s a part of a poem from the book:
Paer kaato gay, kya
milay ga tumhen?
Sirf lakri, jalaanay
ki khaatir
Jhaar jhankaar, murda
patton ka
Konpalen, pattiyan,
ghani shaakhen
Chaaron jaanib zameen
peh bikhri hui
Ghonsalay bikhray,
tootay phootaye huay
In parindon kay jo hain ab be-ghar!
Paer kaato gay, kya
ganvao gay?
Chhaaon jo dhoop
ki tamaazat mein
Aik chaadar ki tarah
bichhti thi
[Cut a tree and what do
you get?
Just a little wood you can burn,
A tangled thicket of dead
leaves
Buds, petals, thick
branches
Scattered on the earth all around
Nests scattered, broken
into pieces
birds turned homeless!
Cut a tree and what do
you lose?
The shade which in the
glow of sunlight
Used to spread like a (shielding) sheet]
In Anand’s passing, Urdu has been deprived of a strong voice for a collective culture. May he find anand (comfort) on his final journey.
The writer is a critic,translator andresearcher.He is currently translating AbdullahHussein’s novella Qaid intoEnglish. He may bereached at razanaeemhotmail.com. He tweets raza_naeem1979