Islamabad
The single timeless theme of love has had countless outpourings, but creativity is often lacking. However, Shakeel Jazib has done an admirable job. His cadenced poetry collection ‘Jab saanse mein girhain parti hain’ covers love's many facets.
Being an archivist of human feelings, dreams, full of imagination, emotional equilibrium and versatility, he shapes his poetry skilfully:
Jazib jo har ek kaid se dayti hai rehayee
Mast wohi rakhti hai griftaar mujay bhi
Juz nahale aarzu seenay mein kia rakhta houn main
Koi bhi mosam ho yeh pouda hara rakhta houn main
A few would expect a poet in his youth to expand his formal range of subject matter, yet Jazib has done it, and to good effect. Jazib watches his own life with a mixture of insight and detachment which makes everyone of his ‘ghazal’ and ‘nazm’ the record of his life, complete in itself; and stirring:
Bas younhe ek zid mein saari zindgi barbad ki
Jaanta houn rog kia thay aur madawa kon tha
Gumaan ki dhund se rasta ata hai
Wagarna du kadam par tu khara hai
If Jazib had excluded poems, which mainly deal with recollections from early age; this collection wouldn’t have been a lesser achievement; it would still have deserved praise.
However, to whatever extent we might feel alienated from our past, we have an imaginative relationship to it, one that can be changed, and that can change us. Jazib's following verses speak of how:
Hasile umr hai jo aik kask baqi hai
Meri sansoun mein abhi teri mehak baqi hai
Ek doojay se dur hain lekin phir bhi Jazib zinda hain
Us kay bhi sab wehm ghalat thay meri souch bhi baatil tehri
Khair ho teri beniazi ki
Ab naheen khudparast thay bhi agar
He remains a classical poet in his finish, his neatness, his balance, his restraint. The concrete language of Jazib’s poetry makes a stronger impact on the reader’s sensibility.
Some of his verses leap
off the page through sheer energy born out of the fountainhead of his imagination:
Day koi wahshat mujay aay aarzu
Be janoon phirta houn ghabraya hua
Aaena tamsaal dil ka kia karoun
Shehr ka hai sher pathraya hua
Ab kia karain moamla dil ka tha jaane mun
Kutch itnay bekhabar bhi naheen thay zian se hum
Jazib is classical poet in another sense. His poetry is indeed individual in that every word does its special work:
Laaya hai yahee jurm sare daar mujay bhi
Dayta tha dekhayee pase diwaar mujay bhi
Kia tuj se lraee ho kay khud apni safoun mein
Aatay hain nazar teray tarafdaar mujay bhi
Jazib’s poetry is so rich and satisfying that we hardly feel any need to look for a consistent philosophy in it or to ask what his ultimate vision of life is. He is content to interpret what comes to him through the mood and insight of the moment. His intellect never detaches itself from his emotions. He analyzes what he feels with creative sheen and piercing openness:
Jaanta houn khudfrebi shehr ka dastur hai
Tu bata main teergi ko taabo tub kaisay kahoun
Kisay khabar thi keh charagaroun kay shehr mein bhi
Milay gi zeest hamain darde laadwa ki tarah
Several collections of poetry are published annually that sound roughly like poetry, resonant, but not always enjoyable. No matter what the critics blurb, in the kingdom of poetry, Jazib can be counted without question among the number of the elect.