LITERACY NOTES: Qamar Rais shines as a poet

Professor Dr Qamar Rais, well-known Urdu critic, has been in the lime-light for the last 45 years ever since his book Urdu Drama (A Selection) as published from Aligarh in 1961. Dr Qamr Rais's is the first Urdu scholar to have written a Ph.D. dissertation on Munshi Prem Chand, the pioneer of Urdu short-story. At present he is the president of All India Progressive Writers Association (Urdu) and lives in Delhi (India).
What makes him a writer under discussion in this column is that he has come out with his first collection of poetry Sham-i-Nauroz (2005), after almost having relegated his position as a poet in the background for more than 30 years. As we know he started off his career as a poet and was published in almost all the important magazines of the sub-continent. Then, all of a sudden, he appeared to be paying less attention to poetry and emerged as a progressive critic - a critic whom Faiz Ahmed Faiz rated as one of the five important critics along with Zoe Ansari, Dr Mohammad Hasan, Khaliq Anjum and this scribe, in his interviews available in Hasan Rizvi and Sheema Majeed's books Khud Kalami and Faiz Ki Batain.
Faiz Ahmed Faiz was himself a critic of stature but he didn't devote any attention to criticism as a career for the simple reason that his stature as a poet was so great that it didn't admit of any necessity of taking up criticism seriously. Faiz Ahmed Faiz believed that literary criticism was an interdisciplinary field and it required a great deal of serious study of the factors influencing the creative process. Perhaps he kept in mind F.R. Leavis, Wilson Knight and Lionel Trilling all of them being important critics but none of them being a poet.
Qamar Rais's collection Sham-i-Nauroz has come as a surprise for many poetry lovers. They didn't expect such a bonanza from a critic who had almost given up poetry.
Some of Qamar Rais's poems such as Sarab-i-Dusht-i-Imkan and Maan are superb therefore is beautiful confessional poem written on the eve of poet's 70th birth day. He recounts his moments of triumph and dismay with regard to his ideology as well as attachments. Both saw waxing and waning from time to time. The poet has, however, accepted that it is not the philosophy behind his ideology which is to blame but some other reasons one of them being lack of adequate dedication and synergy.
Qamar Rais has used an admixture of free verse and prose-poem technique to good effect and some of his lines are so touching that one cannot escape from feeling his complete mastery over the marriage of Contents and form. His poem 'Maan' is also beautiful poem. Poems of poet's experiences of Uzbekistan life are moving and the readers feel attracted to the people and landscape of that beautiful country where Qamar Rais has spent many years. His poems Manj-o-Mahi, Ibadat, Ham Se Kiya Hosaka, Ab Ke Baras, Rut Pat Khar Ki, Naisti Ki Taraf, Buzdil, Shab Chiragh and Zakhmi Parinday Ka Khwab are commendable compositions.
An Uzbek book Sherlari published by Fine Arts Publishing House, Tashkent (1973) is a proof of his popularity in Uzbekistan. Qamar Rais has also published his appreciation and translation of Uzbek poets under the title 'Shura-e-Uzbekistan'.
Another important book which has recently appeared is Zaheeruddin Babar, Shakhish, Shakhsiat Aur Shaeri. It is perhaps, the first translation of Babar's selected Persian ghazals. Qamar Rais has acquitted himself well with this assignment and his effort has been appreciated by all reviewers who were interested in the founder of Mughal dynasty of India. Babar looks like another Omar Khayyam in the translation of his work. Published by Irtiqa Matbooat, Al-Hamd Mansion, University Road, Karachi, as the Pakistani edition of the work. This work should be read against the Naqshbandi background of Emperor Babar who is also the translator of Khwaja Abdullah Ahrahi's Masnawi Masnavi-e-Mubeen, being shortly published by Pakistan Historical Society, Karachi. It is a good news for research scholars of Babar's poetry that a complete edition of his Persian and Uzbek poetry is being published by a Swiss national, Dr Abdul Subhan very soon.
However, the credit goes to Dr Qamar Rais that he pioneered studies on Munshi Prem Chand as well as Zaheeruddin Babar. It is Babar's Mughal dynasty which has been hailed as an Indian dynasty by no less a scholar than Dr Tara Chand. Babar's successors entered into an unwritten compact to be partners in Indian governance with the Rajput rulers and this trend lasted until the very end. It is believed that even the pensioner - King Bahadur Shah Zafar had a Rajput wife in his 'Harem'.
Both Sham-i-Nauroz and Zaheeruddin Babar's poetry in Urdu translation amply confirm that it is not possible for an Urdu poet to do away with the Persian tradition of poetry. In verse-libre or prose-poem the inherent music of lyrical thought has to relate itself to some traditional structure of poetic composition. This is, perhaps, the natural hangover of traditional music which keeps on achieving itself in our ears even when the cause was gone.
I wish that some discriminating Pakistani publishers take up Sham-i-Nauroz for its Pakistani edition. It is a collection of good and authentic poetry - specially from a poet whose concept of Love is not Platonic. There is hardly any collection of poetry in Urdu which has allowed the ecstasies of Love resound so honestly without appearing pedestrian.
Qamar Rais knows how to spiritualise the intimate relationships.