With the death of poet Anwaar Ahmad (Anwar Jalalpuri) in Lucknow on January 2 at the age of 71, the Urdu language and the secular traditions of the Subcontinent have lost a major proponent of interfaith harmony and intercultural understanding.
In addition to his two ghazal collections – ‘Kharay paniyun ka silsila’ and ‘Khushbu ki rishtaydari’ – he penned at least a dozen books of essays and translations in the Urdu and Devanagari scripts. His writing encompasses a wide array of topics from religion –especially Hinduism and Islam – to a range of literary, social and religious issues.
His poetry in Urdu is impressive and some of his verses have acquired the status of famous sayings in Urdu, which many people quote without realising that they are citing his words. For example, the famous line of his couplet – “Jo log kucch naheen kartay kamaal kartay hain” (those who do nothing, do it par excellence) – has become one of the most common and popular sayings in Urdu. The full couplet is: “Har aik shaiy ki barhi dekh bhaal kartey hain, jo log kucch naheen kartay kamaal kartay hain” (Those who take care of every minutiae, end up doing nothing, par excellence).
Apart from his own poetry, Jalalpuri’s major contribution lies in the poetic Urdu translations of the Hindu religious book, the Bhagavad Gita, and Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Gitanjali’. You may wonder why, in the presence of numerous translations of both the Gita and ‘Gitanjali’, Anwar Jalalpuri’s translations are considered a major contribution. Before we explore this further, a few words about the translations of the Gita are in order. The Chinese linguist and translator, Lin Yutang (1895-1976), in his bestselling book ‘The Wisdom of India’ , gives a complete translation of the Bhagawad Gita and places it after the translations of The Hymns from the Rigveda and the Upanishads.
‘Gita kay Urdu Tarajim’ (Urdu translations of the Gita) is a book by Javed Akhtar Bhatti, which was published in 2015 by Qindeel, Multan. It gives a list of 10 translations done by Hindus and five translations completed by Muslims. With the translations of Hindus, Bhatti includes the Gujarati translation done by Mahatma Gandhi in 1930. In the list of the Urdu translations of the Gita by Muslim, six translators are mentioned – Hakim Ajmal Khan, Nawab Jafar Lakhnavi, Khawaja Dil Muhammad, Dr Shanul Haq Haqqi, Khalifa Abdul Hakeem and Salahuddin (Sallu) Chaudhari.
Surprisingly, Bhatti misses out two important poetic translations of the Gita – Aahang-e-Sarmadi and Irfaan-e-Makhtoom. Furthermore, Anwar Jalalpuri’s translation, published in 2013, has not been mentioned in Bhatti’s book, which came out in 2015. The translation of the Gita by Anwar Jalalpuri took five years to complete – from 2008 to 2013. Its complete title is ‘Urdu Shaeri main Gita’ (Gita in Urdu poetry), with the subtitle of ‘Naghma-e-ilm-o-amal’. Its eBook version is available on the Rekhta website.
With Master’s degrees in English and Urdu, Anwar Jalalpuri was able to consult and review many English and Urdu translations of the Gita before embarking on his arduous journey of translating it into contemporary and easy-to-understand Urdu poetry. The book is dedicated to the peace-loving people of the world. In his attempt to make the Gita comprehensible to all readers and include all the relevant details, Anwar Jalalpuri expanded the 700 ashloks into over 1,700 Urdu couplets. The main thrust of Anwar Jalalpuri’s translation was the message and philosophy of the Gita that has an all-pervading influence on people in India.
As happens with most scriptures, you can only enjoy the melody of its verses when you read them in their original composition or the meaning of its message is lost. Anwar Jalalpuri captured the essence of the Gita with all its mellifluousness. Interestingly, the earlier Urdu translations had drawn heavily from the first Persian translation of the Gita by Allama Faizi done during the Emperor Akbar’s reign in the 16th century. For example, Alam Muzaffar Nagari’s book is almost an exact translation from the Persian Masnavi style translation by Faizi who was a scholar of not only Sanskrit but also of Arabic and Persian.
If you compare the earlier Urdu translations of the Gita – such as Naghma-e-Khudavandi by Hakeem Ajmal Khan (1935), Dil Ki Gita by Khawaja Dil Muhammad (1944) and even by Dr Haqqi’s translation published in 2006 – all of them have an overwhelmingly Arabic and Persian tinge to them. However, Anwar Jalalpuri’s translation is chaste and pure Urdu, with only an occasional Hindi word or two in it. This, by far, makes it an enjoyable read of the Gita in Urdu. It keeps the beauty and balance of the original text intact and bears a touch of contemporariness.
Now, let’s explore the roots some facets of ‘Gitanjali’. Anwar Jalalpuri’s book ‘Urdu Shaeri main Gitanjali’ came out in 2014. It doesn’t claim to be a literal translation of the original text by Tagore in Bengali. Instead, the poet calls his book “a poetic translation of the meaning of Gitanjali”. When Jalalpuri completed his rendering of the Gita in Urdu around 2013, it was already a centenary of the first Nobel Prize won by an Indian in 1913. By winning this prize, Tagore put Indian literature in the global arena. Before he won the Nobel Prize, Tagore was not considered an incredibly important writer – even in India.
Gitanjali is a brief book of divine sentiments and spiritual longings. With only a 100 or more inspirational poems, it shook the Bengali literary scene in 1911. The first translation of these poems from Bengali to English were carried out by Tagore himself and published with an introduction by W B Yeats in 1912. Perhaps the first translation of Gitanjali into Urdu was done by Allama Niaz Fatehpuri. But it was far too academic in nature. The next attempt was made by Firaq Gorakhpuri – not in poetry but in prose – and that too with strong romantic nuances attached to it.
Although Tagore achieved fame as a novelist, playwright, painter, lecturer, and musician, Gitanjali never appealed to me as a great work of poetic importance until I read the translations done by Anwar Jalalpuri. Though spiritual in nature, Gitanjali never presupposes any superiority of one creed over another, which a major problem with most spiritual writings in Pakistan. With Anwar Jalalpuri’s translation, Gitanjali emerged as a work of humanism rather than spirituality.
Through his work, Anwar Jalalpuri fulfilled his vision of bringing people together. He tried to bridge the gap between people living in diverse cultures and following different religions. By doing so, he became a prominent advocate of social harmony in the Subcontinent.
The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK and works in Islamabad.
Email: Mnazir1964yahoo.co.uk