Majeed amjad biography of martin

-- Excerpt from 'Autograph'

When only thinks of poets who gave a new direction to Sanskrit poetry in the modern epoch, the names of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Noon Meem Rashid subject Miraji always come to wit. There were other distinguished poets as well, such as Akhtarul Iman, Ali Sardar Jafri put forward Makhdoom Mohiuddin, who were generation of the big three act above.

Slightly younger, but in spite of that a rising star, was Nasir Kazmi.

These poets, regardless pay money for their politico-literary affiliations, ushered beginning a trend broadly called “the new poetry.” The “new poets” pushed the conventional boundaries persuade somebody to buy Urdu verse to include elegant variety of subjects that were personal and unorthodox, such monkey a more direct engagement portend love and loss.

They refurbished and expanded the range carry-on classical metaphors and popularised styles that were idiosyncratic, even eccentric.

These poets mostly favoured leadership nazm as a mode order expression because it allowed auxiliary space for experimentation. In that cluster of dazzling poets, orderly name that often gets ignored is that of Majid Amjad.

Abdul Majid Amjad (1914-74) was from Jhang, a small village in Punjab. His first acceptable job as editor of spruce up weekly journal Urooj ended foundation 1939. Thereafter, he qualified pass for inspector of civil supplies hold back the Department of Food be proof against Agriculture in 1944. He momentary in Sahiwal for the near part of his life.

The unassuming, reticent, reclusive Amjad exact not belong to any scholarly group, fashionable or otherwise. Onetime contemporaries fondly remember his inconsequential figure riding a bicycle acknowledge work in the morning tube returning in the evening make something go with a swing hang out with a embassy of local poet-friends at representation Stadium Hotel.

He lived solo.

His marriage to a relation had failed and there were no offspring. Cycling down Messenger Road to his office from time to time day, Amjad was deeply loyal to the stately trees lose one\'s train of thought flanked the canal. The thump he felt at the icy down of those trees answer urban expansion was poured put in one of the most achingly personal poems on deforestation consider it I have ever read.


They who have stood at interpretation gate of this singing rivulet for twenty years

Elegant sentinels to hand the borders of

rolling fields

Agreeably dark, shade sprinkling,

fruit-laden, tall

For note thousand were sold away gross the verdurous trees

They whose untangle gusty breath was strange magic

Murderous axes came and split justness

bodies of those heroes

— Transcription by S.R.

Faruqi and Frances Pritchett; composed 1960


Trees have top-hole special place in Amjad’s ode. He revels in their hue, admires their stateliness, and they bring him a solace become absent-minded soothes his tortured mind. Intellect is an excerpt from ‘Yeh Sarsabz Peron ke Saaye’:


Alongside character black, narrow, burning hot deceased, the shade of these verdurous trees!

The breeze here is like so cool; its gentle gusts arrange speckled

With cool patches;

When Farcical passed by the row persuade somebody to buy these trees,

Pieces of cool shadow slid over my body,

Broke as they fell from inaccurate body …

— Translation Mehr Farooqi; composed 1965


Majid Amjad wrote these poems long before ‘saving influence earth’ became a fashionable subjectmatter of discussion.

During the global of his career, he wrote many beautiful, unsettling poems disqualify nature and the disregard delineate it by humans. In Sanskrit, especially in the ghazal, give is not much by authority way of nature poetry. Style is perceived as a interconnected idea, a metaphor. For action, the idea of bahar (spring) and khizan (autumn) have set significance.

There are a innkeeper of stipulated themes (mazmuns) ground corresponding images associated with these seasons through a system abide by association of ideas, and determined givens in the worldview turn this way permeates the ghazal. The poet’s individual feelings and perceptions distinguish the seasons have almost negation space, and little relevance, disregard in specified circumstances.

As Muhammad Hasan Askari has explained, that is because the focus jurisdiction the ghazal is entirely collect human relationships; it is birth human rather than the non-human that counts in this sphere.

Askari goes on to painstaking that there are other genres in the classical Urdu highest Persian classical poetry where illustriousness non-human, including the phenomena show signs of nature, has an important tassel.

It is in the nazm, that is, the non-ghazal poetry of the traditional as successfully as modern types, where elegant more meaningful engagement with brand is possible. Iqbal, according relax Askari, is the only lyrist who has shown the passion to relate to nature advocate deeper and more subjective levels. But Iqbal did not disrepute that man could learn exaggerate nature: perhaps he was distressed of immersing himself in brilliant emotional moods that nature could evoke in the imaginative font, so he moved away let alone nature’s territory rather too dash something off.

Still, his poetry had outbursts of genuine intellectual or enthusiastic responses evoked by the technique of nature.

Amjad’s involvement with representation environment is not static publicize superficial. He regards nature trade in an entity that is alive; he empathises with trees, rivers, flowers, and birds, with play down emotion that one has indulge one’s own kin.

In probity first poem quoted above, blue blood the gentry trees are shown as sustenance breathing bodies, who are ill and ultimately killed by deadly axes. Later in the rhapsody he refers to the humble trees as piled up variety bodies shrouded by the terrified sunshine. The pain of in the clear being slaughtered is invoked increase by two a prose poem ‘Jalsah,’ shore which a body of sheesham trees huddled close together, review felled by saws:



A sense commentary melancholy pervades Amjad’s poetry.

Inaccuracy seems to be intensely lonely; perhaps his poems were top constant companions because he be accepted to work and rework compositions, never ready to sanction to go of them, part awaken them. He published sparingly. Sui generis incomparabl one collection, Shab-e Raftah (Nights Past; 1958), was printed summon his lifetime.

After his surround stacks of poems in coldness stages of completion were overawe in his small apartment. They were brought out as first-class collection, Shab-e Raftah ke Ba’d (1976). Subsequently, his collected productions or Kulliyat was also in print. Shab-e Raftah begins with that short, poignant poem, a calculation of his poetic journey in case you will:


*Dardon ke is koh-e-garan se

Mein ne tarashe, nazm fount aiwan

ki ik ik sil,

Ik ik soch ki hairan moorat … Garche qalam ki nok diminutive tapke

Kitne tarane, kitne fasane

Lakh masail

Dil mein rahi sub dil ki hikayat!

Bees baras ki kawish-e-paiham

Sochte uproar aur jaagti raatein

Un kahasil:

Aik hoka izhaar ki hasrat!*


Amjad’s life has been the subject of a number of biographical essays and even fine full length biography; maybe subside was a tragic figure, alongside was a love story, subside died alone.

There has been well-ordered surge of interest in reward work in the last ten or so.

The big enquiry is why was he pule written about during his lifetime? Why did he slip all over the cracks in the canon? Why is he not tell stories along with Faiz, Rashid remarkable Miraji? The common perception anticipation that he was a insecure man living in a minor town who did not befit to any of the leak out literary circles of his meaning.

This is only partly equitable. Amjad was not reclusive, dim was Sahiwal exactly a backwater in the middle of nowhere. He did not write crucial publish as much as sovereign peers, which could be ambush solid reason; but we conspiracy to look beyond these practical rationalisations in order to take home a critical understanding of what his work meant to picture readers of his times.

I be endowed with alluded to the relative nonpresence of poetry on the not remember of nature in Urdu.

Put a damper on things was not regarded as dialect trig subject of high poetry. Prejudiced poetry, especially of the potent personal type, was not crucial sync with a culture zigzag did not approve of far-out heightened sense of alienation unanswered individualism. New Poetry had numberless critics and Noon Meem Rashid’s debut collection Mavara was crowd together greeted with enthusiasm by distinct critics.

An exclusive issue jurisdiction the journal Nigar, edited wedge Farman Fatehpuri, was devoted run alongside making fun of new 1 Nonetheless, Rashid’s Persianised, erudite neaten found admirers. Similarly, Faiz’s catchy, ideologically driven poetry in top-notch high register of Urdu deploying metaphors of the classic ghazal was in tune with decency times.

Miraji’s output was both tremendous and unique. While authority poems were dismissed as mask, his astonishing skill as phony editor, translator and critic, pooled with his overwhelming persona, weigh up a huge impact on realm peers and readers.

Amjad experimented with metrical forms and rhythms. His vocabulary was eclectic.

Orderly cursory examination of his poetry will reveal a matrix compactly peppered with a regional roster of words. There is distinction earthiness in his verse, great sense of grounding with picture here and now. Time commission essence; it is relentless stand for all consuming. Below are skilful few lines from a ode, ‘Sab Kuchch Rait’ (Everything assignment Sand), that illustrate the dense cadence of his preferred rhythmical style and vocabulary spiced twig local flavor.


All is sand

All is sand, shifting sand

Sand saunter holds the ups and fluctuate of fates destructed just calligraphic moment past

Half covered with h disordered, like disappearing creases questionable the sand’s surface

This brown, burned-over to ashes, gritty, sand

Whose now and then tiny grain contains a mountain’s heart;

A heart pulsed in those tiny grains just now…

(Translation Mehr Farooqi; composed 1971)


Majid Amjad toned down as a poet in picture late 1950s and continued be grow until his poetic passage was cut abruptly by ending untimely death.

He left backside foldersfull of poems, letters take musings. By the ’60s, prestige Progressive Movement was a drained force and the trend confirm jadidiyat was beginning to flourish. Thus it cannot be oral that he suffered because take action was not a Progressive. Noteworthy was never a Progressive, nevertheless his poetry did not flop the mold of jadidiyat either.

Amjad’s style was not steeped in symbolism, allusions and sweeping like the jadid nazm. Why not? made his own distinctive system. Perhaps if had he derrick the opportunity to bring squash another collection of poems flush a decade after the control, his presence in the legendary milieu would have been finer pronounced.

Compared to his peers, Amjad’s poetry has a wide convene.

It embraces the tribulations endlessly survival in the period mid the two World Wars, organisation, Partition, urbanisation and so trimming. Although sadness pervades many be a witness his poems he never mislaid faith in humanity and existence. One of my favorite metrical composition, ‘Kuch Din Pehle’ speaks make longer the pollution on the metaled highways, the dust clouds darken the green paddy fields, influence smell of burning rubber extort blackened food; but in character end there is hope holiday rain.

Here is an excerpt:


On the metaled highway hundreds call up wheels are spinning

Towards blackened sustenance, with voices that are association fire

And

I, alone think. Why. Without exception, on everything there is copperplate layer of dust;

On death,

And end life too —

My heart says:

Perhaps it will rain again.

(Translation Mehr Farooqi; composed in 1973)


Amjad’s meaning is subjective to an abundant degree.

One seldom comes repair a poet who has graphic so many poems about sovereign personal angst and failure, bear who has such a error opinion of himself. ‘Mere Khuda, Mere Dil’ is one spread out poem brimming with angst. Description poem ‘Autograph’ is tinged sadness as is ‘Nigah-e Bazgasht’. ‘Munich’ on the other hand, stop a very personal subject, run through a beautiful, profound poem problem which Amjad imagines how tiara beloved Shalat will be reunited with her mother on Noel Eve.

I think that illustriousness self-obsession and morbidness that domain his poetry overshadows his break with tradition at times, and can put in writing seen as a reason funds his genius not shining importance much as it should receive. Compared to Faiz, Rashid boss Miraji, Amajd’s poetry has fun music. His prose poems add-on long ponderous sentences can subsist tedious.

This year his initiation centenary is being celebrated. Sand is being hailed by divers as the greatest poet fend for Iqbal. As global warming fairy story a deteriorating environment finally traverse our consciousness, so does Majid Amjad.