A Letter from Laeeq Babree, Feb. 28, 1971

Laeeq Babree. Letter from Laeeq Babree. To N. M. Rashed. Feb. 28, 1970. 2 pp. 1 sheet. 8 x 10". Blue ballpoint pen on white paper. Letter from Laeeq Babree to N. M. Rashed. Letterhead: "Dr. Laeeq Babree, Department of French, Government College, Lahore". On top of first page the date 6/3/71 is written. Urdu. Box 2. Folder 3: Correspondence. 012. Digitized by Zain Mian. Catalogued by Yasmin Rashed Hassan. Donated (2015) by Yasmin Rashed Hassan to the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal. Full text here.

The modernist Punjabi poet Laeeq Ahmad Babree (1931-2003) is one of the most interesting lesser-known figures represented in the Archive. Babree was well-acquainted with the works of French modernists, and particularly with Baudelaire, whose Spleen de Paris he had translated by 1982 (as Paris kā karb). Babree had completed his Doctorate in French Literature at the University of Paris in 1968. After returning to Lahore, he became a professor of French at Punjab University. His correspondence with Rashed as preserved in the Archive begins in 1969.

This letter to Rashed, written on February 28, 1971, appears to have been received by Rashed on March 6, 1971. In it Babree mentions the appointment of the psychologist Makhdum Muhammad Ajmal (1919-1994) as principal of Government College, and Ajmal's willingness to invite Rashed and Faiz Ahmad Faiz to an event at G. C. in March. He is in contact with Munir Niazi, who had published Rashed's Lā=Insān in 1969; as well as with Rashed's correspondent the Urdu poet Qayyum Nazar, who was the first professor of Punjabi at Punjab University. Rashed's and Babree's shared love of French modernism made for a warm correspondence, and Babree was able to use his academic position to give the admired modernist pioneer a forum to speak at Government College, which was then in its heyday.

An abstract of the letter:

Babree has received the programme of Rashed's upcoming trip to Pakistan. The principal at Government College is Muhammad Ajmal, formerly head of the Psychology Department, for whom Babree has words of praise. Babree has suggested to Ajmal that when Rashed comes in March they should invite him to Government College. Ajmal immediately agreed, and suggested that he should be invited for March 25th. Dinner would be given by Government College and Faiz Ahmed Faiz would also be invited. Ajmal must leave Lahore for a science conference around the 28th or 29th of March.

Babree meets with Munir Niazi regularly. Two or three days ago there was a Punjabi majlis chaired by Munir Niazi. Babree believes that Punjabi is slowly being recognized as a language of the shurafā. Seven or eight years ago when he wrote his first Punjabi poetry, he was mocked. Now Punjabi has been established as a subject at Punjab University, with Qayyum Nazar teaching. Beginning tomorrow, Punjabi news will be broadcast over the Lahore-Rawalpindi-Multan national hookup radio. 

When Babree had sent Rashed his Punjabi poem "Pinghoṛe", Rashed had asked him about the word "tuhoṛ," which Babree will explain when they meet. He is sending a copy of his Punjabi poem "Gāhaṛ." His Punjabi collection Ghugghū ghoṛe is about to be printed (1971). There is an inside joke in the title. Qayyum Nazar has also received Rashed's letter. He no longer works for Pakistan Council; he now works for the Textbook Board.

The collection of Punjabi poetry to which Babree refers, Ghugghū ghoṛe (Clay Horses), would be published a few months later on June 10, 1971 by the Majlis Shah Husain in Lahore. This book, which is rare in the West (the only holding appearing in Worldcat is in the British Library), had a print run of 500 copies and sold for Rs. 300.

Babree writes that the title of this collection, "Clay Horses," involved a hidden satire. A blurb pasted into the book suggests to us that the short symbolist poems it contained are each like small playthings. The symbol of the ghugghū ghoṛā or clay horse plays with the relation between silence, noise, and speech. "Ghugghū" alone means a hollow clay toy which makes a noise when blown into. But when referring to a person "ghugghū" indicates they are dumb or stupid. Thirdly there is the ghugghū ghoṛā, a mute, knobbly plaything of clay. A blurb pasted into Babree's book suggests the relationship between the title and the book: The short symbolist poems are the clay horses themselves. "Ghugghū ghoṛā" is therefore a description of Babree's poetry. How so? Supposedly poetry tries to communicate something to its audience. But Babree's poetry, in keeping with symbolist precepts, presents the reader with its mute texture and its sound, attempting to withhold the kernel of Meaning. Babree knew the symbolist movement well. Apart from his thorough familiarity with Baudelaire, another evidence of this is his participation in the Société de Symbolisme's May 1966 conference in Paris on "Symbolism and Language."

We thank Babree's wife, Khalida L. Babree, for her kindness in providing us with a copy of Ghugghū ghoṛe, which has been deposited in the Islamic Studies Library at McGill, along with other materials to aid our research on Laeeq Babree, his literary work and his relation to Rashed.

Keywords: #Laeeq_Ahmad_Babree, #Khalida_Laeeq_Babree, #Charles_Baudelaire, #Qayyum_Nazar, #Makhdum_Muhammad_Ajmal, #Faiz_Ahmad_Faiz, #Punjabi_language_&_literature, #Punjab_University, #Government_College_Lahore, #Université_de_Paris, #Sorbonne, #Paris, #French_language_&_literature, #Ghuggu_ghore, #Pinghore, #Gahlar, #Majlis_Shah_Husain, #Société_de_Symbolisme, #radio, #modernism, #symbolism, #silence, #letter, #handwritten, #Lahore

N. M Rashed's "Tamhīd" (Preface) to Ghulam Abbas' Jārē kī chāndnī

N. M. Rashed. “Tamhīd.” Jāṛe kī chāndnī. By Ghulam Abbas. 1st ed. Karachi: Sajjād and Kāmrān, 1960. 7–16. Islamic Studies Library, McGill University, Montreal. DS432 P4 J3 1960. Full item here.

In 1960, when the writer Ghulam Abbas published his second book of stories, Jārē kī chāndnī, the collection featured a preface written by N. M. Rashed. Rashed’s preface to Ghulam Abbas’s work seems to have resisted scholarly compilation—it remains absent from the central collection of his prose, Shīmā Majīd's Maqālāt-i Rāshid. Given this absence, following a request on the Noon Meem Rashed Archive Facebook page, we have received permission to publish this preface alongside the documents in the Archive. In so doing, we hope to preserve the full variety of Rashed’s prose for posterity. This copy of Jāre kī chandnī, a first edition, comes from the Islamic Studies Library, McGill University. Rashed and Ghulam Abbas were friends and associates; Ghulam Abbas wrote about their relationship for the journal Nayā daur (issues 71-72). A summary of Rashed’s “Tamhīd” is below:

Rashed notes that it has been some years since Abbas’s story “Ānandī” was published. For Rashed, this story cemented Abbas’s rank amongst Urdu’s finest short story writers. Rashed explains the crucial concerns of Abbas’ work. He finds that at root it asks us whether there is any unity in good and evil, or if both values instead remain discrete and irreconcilable. He asks: “Does good always lead to good, or do some kind-hearted men, despite their intentions, not cause irreparable harm?” Abbas’s work is not only an allegory of Urdu’s cultural progress for Rashed, but he also finds in it the ridicule of “those pure-hearted individuals who, despite all experience, still believe that evil will disappear if they excise it from their bodies and surroundings.”

Rashed praises Abbas’s treatment of women in his work. He notes that Abbas does not fall into the tradition of intellectualizing and degrading women’s existence, as other writers and scholars have done in the past. Abbas does not include women in his stories so that he may write half-ethical, half-philosophical treatises on them, but rather makes their presence a window through which to examine the eternally self-deluded male, his mental contradictions, and psychological dualism. In addition to this, Rashed also notes that the men in Abbas’s stories are manifestly different from those typical in Urdu fiction. These men are not always slaves to their own desires, but rather become the protectors and well-wishers of Abbas’s women. Though Rashed acknowledges that these men may nurse their own dark thoughts, he finds it praiseworthy that they are able to contain these desires in order to help the women around them, even if they do so ostensibly only out of concern for religion or society.

Rashed deems Abbas a unique writer. He criticizes Manto, Muhammad Hasan Askari, and Aziz Ahmad in his comparison to Abbas. Rashed suggests that Ghulam Abbas is “the little man’s storyteller [dāstāngo],” a great writer that picks his characters from the most far-flung neighborhoods and from the most remote of villages. Abbas constructs an entire world around these individuals as he finds it inconceivable that a man could live independent of his surroundings. In examining the psychology of Abbas’s characters, Rashed notes that most of these individuals nurse titillating desires that remain hidden from view, desires that never emerge because of the bonds put in place by society and by other people. Rashed finds that these nascent desires nonetheless remain alive. They subconsciously inform each character’s actions. And since these characters mostly remain unconscious of their own thoughts, this means they are forever tied to the struggle between ethical action and fulfillment of immoral desire.

Rashed is insightful in recognizing this particular dualism (sanawiyyat) in Abbas’s work. He notes that many of Abbas’s characters have two faces: one that is superficial and which they keep for the world, and another that is a window to the heart, which consists of desire unfettered by the restrictions imposed by society. Rashed points out further that Abbas also constructs many parallel (mutawāzī) characters. He lists these characters and notes that they are not so parallel that they do not cross paths, nor are they exactly the same. Rather, their existence is such that if we were to place them on opposite pans of a scale, this scale would balance. 

Rashed finds that Abbas is an artist of the calm, peaceful home. He notes that Abbas’s stories emerge naturally when this peace is upset, either by the death of a loved one, or as when beautiful children suddenly become stuck in “the whirlpools of life.” In Abbas, Rashed finds a writer that wishes all his characters well. Rashed notes that Abbas least of all wants the lives of “fallen” women disturbed further. In fact, Abbas lends a certain positivity to their present state. He sees these women freed of the chains that are everyday social expectations. As such he does not wish that any man should try save them by imposing these same restrictions on them once more, particularly as this same man is likely plagued by his own carnal desires. 

Rashed notes that Jārē kī chāndnī is Ghulam Abbas’s second collection of short stories. He compares this collection to Abbas’s Ānandī. He singles out stories that he feels will be as everlasting as those from Ānandī. Rashed suggests that Ghulam Abbas’s work has not remained alive by virtue of its association with politics or sexual conflict, as has been the case with some writers. He instead locates this persistence in Abbas’s affection for life. Rashed finds this same affection diffused within Abbas’s work. He suggests that this love is precisely why Abbas declines to impress his own ego onto his stories, and why he refuses to simply strip life bare. Instead, Abbas makes life his confidante, as Rashed informs us. He whispers secrets into its ear and listens as it whispers back.

Review of Rashed's Lā=Insān by Safdar Mir, April 6, 1969

Mohammad Safdar Mir. N. M. Rashed's New Work. Apr. 6, 1969. 2 pp. 2 sheets. 8 x 13". Xerox. Review of NMR's Lā=Insān. Appeared in The Pakistan Times. English. Box 2. Folder 2: Articles written on NMR in various newspapers and magazines (clippings), English, and Urdu. 003. Digitized by Zahra Sabri. Catalogued by Zain Mian. Donated (2015) by Yasmin Rashed Hassan to the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal. Full item here.

In 1969, Mohammad Safdar Mir (1922-1998) reviewed N.M. Rashed’s Lā=Insān. Mir was a journalist, poet, and playwright, most famous for his work with The Pakistan Times, where he authored a weekly column under the name “Zeno.” Mir worked for the Times from 1961-1977, before which he was a professor of English Literature at Government College, Lahore. He would later go on to write for The Muslim, MAG, and Dawn, before his eventual passing in 1998.

Lā=Insān is Rashed’s third collection of poetry. It was published by Munir Niazi’s Al-Misāl Press in 1969. The publication of Lā=Insān formed a pivotal moment in Rashed’s career. Following the lukewarm reception of Irān meñ ajnabī, Rashed was weary of being written off as a marhūm (dead) poet. Thankfully, his concerns were eased as Lā=Insān raised a storm in Pakistani literary circles (“Pākistān kē adabī halaqoñ meñ khāsī halchal machā dī hai!”).¹ Rashed exclaims as much in a letter to his daughter Yasmin Hassan, which we review here.

Mir’s review was one of many positive ones for Lā=Insān. A summary follows:

Mir highlights the immense impact Rashed’s Māwarā had on the sensibility of his contemporaries. He compares Rashed to Faiz and Miraji, and proclaims them the “holy trinity” of a new movement in Urdu literature. Mir notes that while Faiz’s poetry remained traditional in its technique and Miraji’s in its metaphoric structure, Rashed revolutionized both technique and allusive structure in his work.

Mir admires Rashed’s trenchant critique of colonialism. He notes that Rashed has expanded his political landscape to include “the entire Afro-Asian colonial reality.” For Mir, it is Rashed’s commitment to clearly-defined values that makes his work great. Mir notes that Rashed is committed to the notion of “cosmopolitanism” as opposed to that of “internationalism.” He champions the inclusive humanity inherent in Rashed’s work, and finds that Rashed’s intensity has grown and his sensibility has mellowed.

Mir notes that the introduction to Rashed’s book takes the form of an interview he conducted with students of Urdu in the U.S. He mentions that while certain poems in the collection have appeared previously, most of the material is new and unpublished. It exhibits a “philosophical” mood and a “materialistic mysticism” that is in keeping with Rashed’s style. He likens Rashed’s desire “to see life in its totality” to that shared by Ibn al-‘Arabi and Rumi. Furthermore, he feels that Rashed’s book will leave a lasting impression on the new movement in Urdu poetry, even as it does not retain the pure shock value inherent in Māwarā.

This review was one of three Mir wrote in summer of that year. The others focused on Rashed’s first two books, Māwarā and Irān meñ ajnabī, which had just been reprinted by Al-Misāl alongside the first edition of Lā=Insān. Indeed, it is possible that Munir Niazi himself requested Mir to review the Al-Misāl editions of Rashed’s work. This seems somewhat more likely given the lavish praise Mir heaps on Niazi in his review of Māwarā. Not only does Mir write that Niazi should be “congratulated for making a bold venture in book production” but also that his edition of Māwarā makes the first look “almost pedestrian.” ² Niazi also attached Mir’s review of Lā=Insān to one of his letters to Rashed, telling the poet not to worry about the kharīd o farōkht (buying and selling) of his book. ³

These reviews were not the only times Mir wrote on Rashed. Mir was a prolific writer and given his inclinations as a poet, it is not surprising that we have extensive writings by him both on Urdu literature and on Rashed. The archive holds, for example, a copy of Mir’s review of Rashed’s appearance at the Halqā-i-Arbāb-i-Zauq, as well another describing the ceremony at the Pakistan Council on the 24th of May 1969, where Rashed’s Lā=Insān was introduced. ^{4 , 5}

Plentiful evidence also suggests that Mir held a good working relationship with Rashed, and that the poet appreciated his work. Rashed and Mir collaborated on several translations together, an example of which is reviewed here. Furthermore, Rashed also forwarded some of Mir’s reviews to the American poet Carolyn Kizer, recognising that Mir’s reaction to the “new generation” of poets was worth noting. ⁶ Indeed, Rashed’s recognition of Mir went so far that, in 1970, Rashed requested permission to translate some of his reviews in Urdu. To this Mir replied that it was “a matter of great honour” (‘izzat-afzā’i) that Rashed had requested his work. For him, there was no need for Rashed to have asked. That the poet did so in any case, spoke only to his own magnanimity and fairness.⁷

Keywords: #Safdar_Mir, #Yasmin_Hassan, #Al_Misal, #Munir_Niazi, #Carloyn_Kizer, #Zeno, #S.M., #Pakistan_Times, #Dawn, #MAG, #The_Muslim, #Government_College, #Lahore, #Mawara, #Iran_mein_ajnabi, #La=Insan, #Faiz_Ahmed_Faiz, #Mirajee, #Rumi, #Ibn_ul-Arabi, #Halqa-i-Arbab-i-Zauq, #new_generation, #review, #colonialism, #publishing, #Pakistan_Council

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1 Letter from N.M. Rashed to Yasmin Hassan, May 7th, 1969. Letter in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.
2 Mir, Safdar. "Rediscovering Rashed's Mavara." The Pakistan Times. April 20th, 1969. Review in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.
3 Letter from Munir Niazi to N.M. Rashed, April 10th, 1969. Letter in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.
4 Mir, Safdar. ""N.M. Rashed and New Generation Politics."" The Pakistan Times. Undated. Review in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.
5 Mir, Sadar. "Return of N.M. Rashed: Poor Girls." The Pakistan Times. May 24th, 1969. Review in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.
6 Letter from N.M. Rashed to Carolyn Kizer. Letter in Noon Meem Rashed Archive
7 Letter from Safdar Mir to N.M. Rashed, September 1st, 1970. Letter in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.

A Photograph of N. M. Rashed by Khatir Ghaznavi

Khatir Ghaznavi. Photograph of N. M. Rashed by Khatir Ghaznavi. 1952. 2 pp. 1 sheet. 2 x 3.2". Black and white photograph. Writing in pencil on back identifies photographer as the poet Khatir Ghaznavi. Urdu. Box 2. Folder 1: Abijan's pictures. 005. Digitized by Zahra Sabri. Catalogued by Zain Mian. Donated (2015) by Yasmin Rashed Hassan to the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal. Full item here.

In this photograph from 1952, Rashed poses jacketless in a dress shirt and tie. The photo is attributed on the reverse to Khatir Ghaznavi, whose name is scribbled in pencil. Mohammad Ibrahim Beg "Khatir" Ghaznavi (1925-2008), was an Urdu poet born in Peshawar, who also wrote poetry in Hindko and translations from Pashto (thanks to Mohammad Taqi @mazdaki for providing basic biographical information). Like Rashed, Khatir Ghaznavi worked in radio from the 1940s to the 1960s, and in particular for Radio Pakistan in Peshawar, where Rashed also worked after Partition, as Assistant Regional Director from 1947-1948, and as Regional Director from 1950-1952, making it seem likely that this picture was taken in Peshawar while the two men were working there.¹

According to Rashed's daughter Yasmin Hassan, Khatir Ghaznavi was a friend of the family, and took many photos of the family in 1952 before Rashed began his travels abroad in the same year.²

In his critical work Jadīd Urdū adab, an overview of modernist Urdu literature, Khatir Ghaznavi assessed his friend N. M. Rashed's work in the following terms.

There were many experiments in free verse. The name of N. M. Rashed has a place of pride in the list of those who made these experiments our own, and gave them a permanent place in the Urdu language. His efforts made free verse acceptable to such an extent that a large number of young poets were attracted to it. The influence of Iran is apparent in Rashed's poetry; in his language there is a grandeur, and his ideas are elevated.

Because he lived in Iran during the Second World War, Rashed had a chance to analyze the effects of the war upon Iranian society. In a very poetic and allusive manner, he poured this analysis into his poems. After Māwarā, his second book was Īrān meñ ajnabī (although this book was published well after 1947), which was the bearer of a new formal experiment, which was named the "canto."³

Keywords: #Peshawar, #Khatir_Ghaznawi, #World_War_II, #photograph, #black-and-white, #free_verse, #Iran_men_ajnabi, #Iran, #Radio_Pakistan

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1 N. M. Rashed: Curriculum Vitae to 1973. Document in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.
2 Yasmin Hassan, Email to Pasha M. Khan, August 26, 2015.
3 Khātir Ghaznawī, Muhammad Ibrāhīm Beg. Jadīd Urdū adab. Lahore: Sang-i Mīl Publications, 1985. p. 173. See also p. 189.

"Ai samandar" — Handwritten draft in Rashed's hand

N. M. Rashed. "Ai samandar." Handwritten draft. 3 pp. 3 sheets. 8.3 x 11.6". Pencil on white paper. Pages numbered 28-30. Starting from the 2nd page, there is a difference in line breaks between proof and 1st edition; the lines "chānd kī tūtī hū’ī kashtī ke takhte/... kī bāhoñ par rawāñ" are shortened to "chānd kī tūtī hū’ī kashtī kī bāhoñ par rawāñ". Urdu. Box 2. Folder 14: Gumān kā mumkin kā likhā hū’ā aslī likhā’ī. 011. Digitized by Zahra Sabri. Catalogued by Zain Mian. Donated (2015) by Yasmin Rashed Hassan to the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal.

Rashed's poem "Ai samandar," an address to the sea, was published in his last, posthumous collection, Gumāñ kā mumkin, a complete draft of which exists in our Archive. Gumāñ kā mumkin, which Rashed in his lifetime simply called his "nayā majmū'ah" (new collection), was published through the agency of his friend the lawyer Ijaz Hussain Batalvi in 1976 from Nayā idārah press. Rashed made Batalvi meet with him in London in 1975, not long before his death. During this meeting, Rashed gave Batalvi a brown envelope containing the typescript of the book, with some corrections in his own hand.¹

But at least some of the poems that were published in Gumāñ kā mumkin had lives before their October 1976 publication. "Ai samandar" is one of these. The version that we have in the Archive was written by Rashed in pencil and is part of a nearly complete draft of the collection that would become Gumāñ kā mumkin. Rashed numbered the pages, although, as our researcher Zahra Sabri has noted, neither the numbering nor the order of the poems corresponds to the first edition of Gumāñ kā mumkin. In a number of subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the pencilled draft differs from the first edition.²

To complicate matters further, another version was published in Shamsur Rahman Faruqi's literary journal Shabkhoon in September 1969. As we have seen previously, Faruqi had sent a letter to Rashed, preserved in the Archive, on May 22nd, 1968, soliciting his poetry for the relatively new Shabkhoon, and "Ai samandar" seems to have been the first poem that Rashed sent to have published in Faruqi's journal. Thanks to Sean Pue, we have scans of the 1969 Shabkhoon version of "Ai samandar."

These poems were given pride of place by Faruqi, and published in the opening pages of the issue. The Shabkhoon version differs significantly from the Gumāñ kā mumkin version, particularly in its very different layout, its punctuation, and orthography. In these ways it is also different from the pencil draft. But the Shabkhoon version shares many passages with this draft which are not present in the first edition of Gumāñ kā mumkin. This would appear to indicate that the pencil draft at McGill was written after 1969, but probably before Rashed handed his typewritten proofs to Batalvi in 1975.

Rashed marked stanza breaks in the drafts by drawing a short line in the spaces between the bodies of texts to be separated. The number and order of the stanzas changed from version to version. The fifth stanza in this version contains some particular differences compared to the first edition. The reconstructed second line seems to have been "dekh lekin abr ke aurāq-i kuhnah" ("But look: The cloud's ancient folios…"). But the opening "dekh lekin" is struck out, and in its place Rashed has pencilled in "āj kyonkar." If Rashed at any point meant these words to be part of the stanza, they would have linked it more strongly to the preceding stanza. Oddly, however, "dekh lekin" is neither part of the Gumāñ kā mumkin version nor the Shabkhoon version of "Ai samandar," making it appear to be either a false start or a reconsidered experiment unique to this draft.

Like the Gumāñ kā mumkin version, the fifth stanza continues "āj kyonkar abr ke aurāq-i kuhnah / bāzū-i derīnah-i ummīd par / dūr se lā'e nirālī dāstāñ [...]". However, in the fourth line Rashed has originally written "dūr se lā'e haiñ kaisī dāstāñ," only to strike out "haiñ" and insert "nirālī." This line both begins and ends with a long-short-long syllabic pattern (dūr se and dāstāñ), well-balanced with intervening syllables. Rashed seems to have preferred the assonance of "nirālī" and "dāstāñ" (both bearing the vowel ā), but to fit "nirālī" in he had to excise haiñ, which would have unbalanced the metre. In the Shabkhoon version we find that the line was still "dūr se lā'e haiñ kaisī dāstāñ." The next two lines, describing the broken ship of the moon afloat in the flooding night, are not found in the Gumāñ kā mumkin version: "chānd kī tūtī hū'ī kashtī ke takhte / shab kī tughyānī kī bāhoñ par rawāñ […]." Why these evocative lines were finally removed is a mystery.

Rashed seems to have been conservative in matters of spelling. He spelled the verb guzarnā with a zāl, reflecting its etymology, instead of increasingly current guzarnā with a ze. Similarly, in spite of living so long in Iran and reading and publishing so much modern Iranian poetry, he spells ā'indah with a hamzah, instead of āyandah with a ye. Faruqi appears to have agreed with him, as he left these spellings undisturbed in Shabkhoon, but in Gumāñ kā mumkin they have been changed.

Below is the poem as represented by the N. M. Rashed Archive draft in pencil, followed by a list of modifications occuring between the draft and the first edition of Gumāñ kā mumkin. While the changes in line breaks and punctuation may appear to be minor, it may be that Rashed saw them as altering the sound of the poem when recited.

اے سمندر

اے سمندر،
پیکرِ شب، جسم، آوازیں
رگوں میں دوڑتا پھرتا لہو
پتّھروں پر سے گذرتے
رقص کی خاطر اذاں دیتے گئے،
اورمیں، مرتے درختوں میں نہاں،
سُنتا رہا۔۔۔۔
اِن درختوں میں، مرااک ہاتھ
عہدِ رفتہ کے سینے پہ ہے
دوسرا، اک شہرِ آئندہ میں ہے
جویائے راہ۔۔۔۔
شہر، جس میں آرزو کی مَے انڈیلی جائے گی
زندگی سے رنگ کھیلا جائے گا!

اے سمندر،
آنے والے دن کو یہ تشویش ہے
رات کا کابوس جو دن کے نکلتے ہی
ہوا ہو جائے گا
کون دے گا اس کے ژولیدہ سوالوں کاجواب؟
کس کِرن کی نوک؟
کن پھولوں کا خواب؟

اے سمندر،
میں گنوں گا
دانہ دانہ تیرے آنسو
جن میں اِک زخّار بے ہستی کا شور!
اے سمندر،
میں گِنوں گا دانہ دانہ تیرے آنسو
جن میں آنے والا جشنِ وصل نا آسودہ ہے
جن میں فردائے عروسی کے لئے
کرنوں کے ہار
شہرِ آئندہ کی روحِ بے زماں
چُنتی رہی۔۔۔۔
میں ہی دوں گا جشن میں دعوت تجھے
استراحت تیری لہروں کے سوا
کس شے میں ہے؟

رات اِس ساحل پہ غرّاتے رہے،
غم زدہ لمحات کے ترسے ہوئے
کتّوں کی نظریں
چاند پرپڑتی رہیں
اُن کی عَو عَو چاند دورتک لپکی رہی!

اے سمندر،
دیکھ لیکن آج کیونکر ابر کے اوراقِ کہنہ
بازوئے دیرینۂ اُمید پر
اڑتے ہوئے
دورسے لائے ہیں کیسی نرالی داستاں!
چاند کی ٹوٹی ہوئی کشتی کے تختے
شب کی طغیانی کی باہوں پر رواں!
شہرِآئندہ کے دست وپا کے رنگ
۔۔۔ جیسے جاں دینے پہ سب آمادہ ہوں ۔۔۔
دست و پا میں جاگ اٹھے
راگ کے مانند،
میں بھی دست و پا میں جاگ اٹھا!

اے سمندر،
کل کے جشنِ نو کی موج
شہرِ آئندہ کی بینائی کی حدتک آ گئی
اب گھروں سے ۔۔۔
جن میں راندہ روز و شب کی
چاردیواری نہیں،
مرد و زن نکلیں گے،
ہاتھوں میں اٹھائے
برگ و بار
جن کو چھو لینے سے لوٹ آئے گی
روگرداں بہار!
اے سمندر۔۔۔۔۔۔

Stanza 1:
Line 3 indented in 1st ed.
Line 5 guzarte spelled with ze in 1st ed.
Line 5 final comma omitted in 1st ed.
Line 7 pesh on suntā omitted in 1st ed.
Line 8 comma omitted in 1st ed.
Line 11 ā’indah spelled āyandah in 1st ed.

Stanza 2:
Line 7 zer omitted from kiran in 1st ed.

Stanza 3:
Line 6 zer omitted from ginūñgā in 1st ed.
Line 8 li’e spelled liye in 1st ed.
Line 10 ā’indah spelled āyandah in 1st ed.
Line 11 pesh omitted from chuntī in 1st ed.

Stanza 4:
Lines 3 and 4 combined in 1st ed.

Stanza 5:
Lines 3 and 4 combined in 1st ed.
Lines 6 and 7 replaced with a new line in 1st ed.
Line 8 ā’indah spelled āyandah in 1st ed.

Stanza 6:
Line 3 ā’indah spelled āyandah in 1st ed.
Line 7 final comma omitted in 1st ed.
Lines 8 and 9 combined in 1st ed.
Lines 10 and 11 combined in 1st ed.

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1 Batālwī, I‘jāz Husain. "Ākhirī majmū‘ah, ākhirī mulāqāt." in Rāshid, N. M. Gumāñ kā mumkin. Lahore: Nayā idārah, 1976. p. ix. Batalvi does not mention the date of the meeting, but says that Rashed was living in Cheltenham after leaving the apartment he was renting in Chelsea, London. On the basis of the letters of congratulation in the Rashed Archive (box 1, folder 17), Rashed had retired in 1973. His addresses on his letters to his daughter Yasmin Hassan show that in January of 1975 he was living in Chelsea, but by the beginning of February 1975 he had moved to Cheltenham. Since Rashed passed away in October of the same year, he must have given the draft to Batalvi between February and October 1975.
2 The final version of the poem is in Rāshid, N. M. Gumāñ kā mumkin. Lahore: Nayā idārah, 1976. pp. 46-49.

Keywords: #Ai_samandar, #Shabkhoon, #Shamsur_Rahman_Faruqi, #orthography, #Guman_ka_mumkin, #Ijaz_Hussain_Batalvi, #Naya_idarah, #publication_history, #pencil, #handwritten, #poetry, #London

"Ai samandar" in Shabkhoon

We saw in a previous article that in 1968 Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, the young editor of the new Urdu literary journal Shabkhoon, wrote to Rashed for the first time to solicit his poetry for the journal. Sean Pue has provided scans of the first poem that Rashed sent to Faruqi, "Ai samandar," published in the opening pages of the September 1969 issue of Shabkhoon (pp. 3-4):

This version of "Ai samandar" differs significantly from the version finally published in Rashed's last book of poetry, Gumān kā mumkin (1976), in its spacing, its line breaks, its punctuation, its wording and the order of its stanzas. On the other hand, it is more similar to a draft of "Ai samandar" that Rashed wrote in pencil, which exists in the N. M. Rashed Archive. The pencil draft is more similar in its format to the 1976 version, but retains some passages that existed in this 1969 version.

A transcription of the 1969 poem is below. The eighth line, "—jis pih jal jāte haiñ hāth—" is found neither in the pencil draft nor in the 1976 version.

اے سمندر! پیکر شب، جسم، آوازیں
رگوں میں دوڑتا پھرتا لہو
پتھروں پر سے گذرتے، رقص کی خاطر
 اذاں دیتے گئے،
اورمیں مرتے درختوں میں نہاں سنتا رہا۔۔۔۔
ان درختوں میں مرا اک ہاتھ
عہد رفتہ کے سینے پہ ہے
۔۔۔جس پہ جل جاتے ہیں ہاتھ ۔۔۔
دوسرا، اک شہر آئندہ میں ہے جویائے راہ
شہر۔۔۔جس میں آرزو کی مے انڈیلی جائے گی
زندگی سے رنگ کھیلا جائے گا۔

اے سمندر!
چاند کی ٹوٹی ہوئی کشتی کے تختے
شب کی طغیانی کی باہوں پر رواں

اے سمندر! آنے والے دن کو یہ تشویش ہے
رات کا کابوس جو دن کے نکلتے ہی ہوا ہو جائے گا
کون دے گا اس کے ژولیدہ سوالوں کاجواب؟
کس کرن کی نوک؟
کن پھولوں کا خواب؟

اے سمندر!
میں گنوں گا دانہ دانہ تیرے آنسو
جن میں اک زخار بے ہستی کا شور۔

اے سمندر! رات اس ساحل پہ غراتے رہے
غم زدہ لمحات کے ترسے ہوئے کتوں کی نظریں
چاند پرپڑتی رہیں
اُن کی عو عو چاند دورتک لپکی رہی

اے سمندر! میں گنوں گا دانہ دانہ تیرے آنسو
جن میں آنے والا جشن وصل نا آسودہ ہے
جن میں فردائے عروسی کے لئے کرنوں کے ہار
شہر آئندہ کی روح بے زماں چنتی رہی
میں ہی دوں گا، اے سمندر! جشن میں دعوت تجھے
استراحت تیری لہروں کے سوا کس شے میں ہے؟

اے سمندر! ابر کے اوراقِ کہنہ
بازوئے دیرینۂ امید پر اڑتے ہوئے
دورسے لائے ہیں کیسی داستاں!
شہرآئندہ کے دست وپا کے رنگ
۔۔۔ جیسے جاں دینے پہ سب آمادہ ہوں ۔۔۔
دست و پا میں جاگ اٹھے
راگ کے مانند، میں بھی دست و پا میں جاگ اٹھا

اے سمندر!
کل کے جشن نو کی موج
شہر آئندہ کی بینائی کی حد تک آ گئی
اب گھروں سے ۔۔۔
جن میں راندہ روز و شب کی چاردیواری نہیں۔۔۔
مرد و زن نکلیں گے ہاتھوں میں اٹھائے برگ و بار
جن کو چھو لینے سے لوٹ آئے گی روگرداں بہار

اے سمندر!

Keywords: #Shamsur_Rahman_Faruqi, #Shabkhoon, #Guman_ka_mumkin, #publication_history, #Ai_samandar

A Letter from N.M. Rashed to Carlo Coppola, April 11, 1966.

N. M. Rashed. Letter from N. M. Rashed. To Carlo Coppola. Apr. 11, 1966. 1 p. 1 sheet. 8 x 11.5". Typewritten. English. Box 2. Folder 5: English translations of NMR poetry and letters to editors. 014. Digitized by Zahra Sabri. Catalogued by Zain Mian. Donated (2015) by Yasmin Rashed Hassan to the Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University, Montreal. Full text here.

In 1966, Rashed exchanged letters with Carlo Coppola. Today, Coppola is a distinguished scholar of South Asia and a Professor Emeritus at Oakland University.¹ At the time, however, he was still a graduate student completing his PhD on Progressive Urdu Poetry at the University of Chicago.² Rashed was meanwhile resident in New York, where he worked as Director of the United Nations Information Center for Iran.³

In the letter preceding this one, Coppola solicits an interview from Rashed. This interview is meant for publication in Mahfil, a journal of South Asian literature that Coppola co-founded with C. M. Naim in 1963. Coppola intended this interview for a special issue of Mahfil that would focus on literary culture in Pakistan. In the previous letter, Coppola informed Rashed he would be in New York for the Association of Asian Studies Convention between the 4th and 6th of April. He asked Rashed about the possibility of recording an interview during this time, but mentioned that he would need a tape-recorder as bringing his own would prove difficult. This interview, he tells Rashed, would examine current trends in Pakistani poetry, and address more general questions about the literary situation in Pakistan.

A summary of Rashed’s response is below:

From: N.M. Rashed, Room 1037, United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y., 10017. Written 04/11/1966.
To: Mr Carlos [sic] Coppola, Box No. 39, Foster Hall, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 60637. Replied 05/11/1966.⁴

Rashed mentions he was unable to send a positive reply to Coppola’s letter as he remained unsure of his return from Geneva by April 6th. He has returned to New York on the 8th and inquires about Coppola’s visit and his possible disappointment at not being able to meet Rashed.

Rashed echoes Coppola’s feelings that it would be difficult to record at the Asia Society. He informs him that tape-recording equipment is available at the UN office but it would be unsuitable for such personal use. Rashed mentions that he does not have a tape-recorder at home, but offers to answer Coppola’s questions via post. He suggests having a friend voice the questions on Coppola’s behalf, should recording equipment become available.

As per Rashed’s suggestion, the interview was conducted via post. Rashed was very particular about his interviews: not only did he reorder and remove some of Coppola’s questions, but also insisted on first recording his answers and then having them transcribed. This, he felt, would preserve the freshness of the interview and make it “much more natural” than otherwise.⁵

Despite Rashed’s keenness, however, the idea of an issue of Mahfil on Pakistani literature failed to materialise for quite some time. This likely happened as a result of the numerous difficulties Coppola faced in gathering submissions from other writers and translators, most of whom proved much less forthcoming than Rashed.⁶ Indeed, though this interview was completed in 1966, it did not appear in Mahfil until 1971.⁷ By this time, an Urdu translation had already been published in Rashed’s Lā = Insān, which came out in 1969.

The Mahfil interview can be read here.

Keywords: #Carlo_Coppola, #Mahfil, #Journal_of_South_Asian_Literature, #University_of_Chicago, #New_York, #Geneva, #United_Nations, #interview, #Pakistan, #Oakland_University, #Progressive_Urdu, #Asia_Society, #typewritten, #C._M._Naim, #Association_of_Asian_Studies, #Asia_Society, #La_=_insan

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1 "Department: - Department of Modern Languages and Literatures - Oakland University - Acalog ACMS," accessed August 12, 2015, http://catalog.oakland.edu/preview_entity.php?catoid=20&ent_oid=641&returnto=1555.
2 Coppola, Carlo. "Urdu poetry, 1935-1970: The Progressive Episode." The University of Chicago, 1975.
3 Zakir, Mohammed. Poems of N. M. Rashed: A Poet of the Third World.New Delhi: M. D. Publishing, 1995. p. 29.
4 Coppola’s first name is "Carlo" and not "Carlos" as Rashed has written here.
5 Letter from N.M. Rashed to Carlo Coppola, May 20th, 1966. Letter in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.
6 Letter from Carlo Coppola to N. M. Rashed, September 24, 1966. Letter in Noon Meem Rashed Archive.
7 Mahfil 7, no. 1/2 (1971): front matter.