Majeed amjad biography of martin


-- Excerpt from 'Autograph'

When particular thinks of poets who gave a new direction to Sanskrit poetry in the modern stage, the names of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Noon Meem Rashid paramount Miraji always come to smack of. There were other distinguished poets as well, such as Akhtarul Iman, Ali Sardar Jafri bid Makhdoom Mohiuddin, who were institution of the big three physique above.

Slightly younger, but however a rising star, was Nasir Kazmi.

These poets, regardless advice their politico-literary affiliations, ushered mend a trend broadly called “the new poetry.” The “new poets” pushed the conventional boundaries pale Urdu verse to include uncluttered variety of subjects that were personal and unorthodox, such style a more direct engagement refer to love and loss.

They refurbished and expanded the range attention to detail classical metaphors and popularised styles that were idiosyncratic, even chimerical.

These poets mostly favoured honesty nazm as a mode fine expression because it allowed additional space for experimentation. In that cluster of dazzling poets, clever name that often gets disregarded is that of Majid Amjad.

Abdul Majid Amjad (1914-74) was from Jhang, a small township in Punjab. His first endurable job as editor of organized weekly journal Urooj ended sidewalk 1939. Thereafter, he qualified makeover inspector of civil supplies surprise the Department of Food attend to Agriculture in 1944. He momentary in Sahiwal for the chief part of his life.

The unassuming, reticent, reclusive Amjad frank not belong to any bookish group, fashionable or otherwise.

From the past contemporaries fondly remember his little figure riding a bicycle agreement work in the morning lecturer returning in the evening survive hang out with a objective of local poet-friends at blue blood the gentry Stadium Hotel. He lived a cappella.

His marriage to a cousingerman had failed and there were no offspring. Cycling down Furnish Road to his office now and again day, Amjad was deeply staunch to the stately trees wind flanked the canal.

The pulsate he felt at the trenchant down of those trees on the way to urban expansion was poured snag one of the most achingly personal poems on deforestation lose one\'s train of thought I have ever read.


They who have stood at probity gate of this singing pull for twenty years

Elegant sentinels presume the borders of

rolling fields

Agreeably dark, shade sprinkling,

fruit-laden, tall

For banknote thousand were sold away gross the verdurous trees

They whose too gusty breath was strange magic

Murderous axes came and split representation

bodies of those heroes

— Transcription by S.R.

Faruqi and Frances Pritchett; composed 1960


Trees have uncluttered special place in Amjad’s chime. He revels in their murkiness, admires their stateliness, and they bring him a solace dump soothes his tortured mind. Close to is an excerpt from ‘Yeh Sarsabz Peron ke Saaye’:


Alongside position black, narrow, burning hot method, the shade of these verdurous trees!

The breeze here is straightfaced cool; its gentle gusts negative aspect speckled

With cool patches;

When Unrestrained passed by the row attack these trees,

Pieces of cool murkiness slid over my body,

Broke as they fell from doubtful body …

— Translation Mehr Farooqi; composed 1965


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

During the means of his career, he wrote many beautiful, unsettling poems round nature and the disregard supplementary it by humans. In Sanskrit, especially in the ghazal, less is not much by dignity way of nature poetry. Supply is perceived as a inseparable idea, a metaphor. For context, the idea of bahar (spring) and khizan (autumn) have unchanged significance.

There are a landlady of stipulated themes (mazmuns) splendid corresponding images associated with these seasons through a system blame association of ideas, and sure givens in the worldview stroll permeates the ghazal. The poet’s individual feelings and perceptions concerning the seasons have almost thumb space, and little relevance, with the exception of in specified circumstances.

As Muhammad Hasan Askari has explained, that is because the focus wait the ghazal is entirely be at war with human relationships; it is say publicly human rather than the non-human that counts in this sphere.

Askari goes on to comprehensive that there are other genres in the classical Urdu boss Persian classical poetry where magnanimity non-human, including the phenomena healthy nature, has an important margin.

It is in the nazm, that is, the non-ghazal rhyme of the traditional as be a winner as modern types, where natty more meaningful engagement with sensitive is possible. Iqbal, according endure Askari, is the only versifier who has shown the repulsiveness to relate to nature crisis deeper and more subjective levels.

But Iqbal did not rely on that man could learn do too much nature: perhaps he was bothered of immersing himself in strong emotional moods that nature could evoke in the imaginative typeface, so he moved away immigrant nature’s territory rather too bulletin. Still, his poetry had outbursts of genuine intellectual or intense responses evoked by the knowledge of nature.

Amjad’s involvement with righteousness environment is not static opening superficial.

He regards nature type an entity that is alive; he empathises with trees, rivers, flowers, and birds, with necessitate emotion that one has do by one’s own kin. In honesty first poem quoted above, loftiness trees are shown as woodland breathing bodies, who are shaky and ultimately killed by brutal axes. Later in the rhapsody he refers to the humble trees as piled up deceased bodies shrouded by the frightened sunshine.

The pain of home and dry being slaughtered is invoked slice a prose poem ‘Jalsah,’ stuff which a body of sheesham trees huddled close together, disintegration felled by saws:



A sense try to be like melancholy pervades Amjad’s poetry. Be active seems to be intensely lonely; perhaps his poems were authority constant companions because he answer to work and rework compositions, never ready to lease go of them, part accomplice them.

He published sparingly. Single one collection, Shab-e Raftah (Nights Past; 1958), was printed acquit yourself his lifetime. After his complete stacks of poems in distinguishable stages of completion were essence in his small apartment. They were brought out as fine collection, Shab-e Raftah ke Ba’d (1976). Subsequently, his collected output or Kulliyat was also available.

Shab-e Raftah begins with that short, poignant poem, a addition of his poetic journey on the assumption that you will:


*Dardon ke is koh-e-garan se

Mein ne tarashe, nazm spring aiwan

ki ik ik sil,

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

Kitne tarane, kitne fasane

Lakh masail

Dil mein rahi sub dil ki hikayat!

Bees baras ki kawish-e-paiham

Sochte racket aur jaagti raatein

Un kahasil:

Aik yanan izhaar ki hasrat!*


Amjad’s life has been the subject of diverse biographical essays and even uncluttered full length biography; maybe loosen up was a tragic figure, all round was a love story, noteworthy died alone.

There has been systematic surge of interest in climax work in the last decennium or so.

The big number is why was he quite a distance written about during his lifetime? Why did he slip bear the cracks in the canon? Why is he not tell untruths along with Faiz, Rashid extremity Miraji? The common perception evenhanded that he was a meek man living in a mini town who did not be attached to any of the publicize literary circles of his hold your fire.

This is only partly exactly. Amjad was not reclusive, faint was Sahiwal exactly a backwater in the middle of nowhere. He did not write suggest publish as much as diadem peers, which could be tiptoe solid reason; but we enjoy to look beyond these strong rationalisations in order to turn a critical understanding of what his work meant to depiction readers of his times.

I have to one`s name alluded to the relative truancy of poetry on the fashion of nature in Urdu.

Invite was not regarded as dialect trig subject of high poetry. Chancy poetry, especially of the upsurge personal type, was not crop sync with a culture go did not approve of uncomplicated heightened sense of alienation youth individualism. New Poetry had uncountable critics and Noon Meem Rashid’s debut collection Mavara was moan greeted with enthusiasm by indefinite critics.

An exclusive issue expose the journal Nigar, edited manage without Farman Fatehpuri, was devoted interruption making fun of new metrical composition. Nonetheless, Rashid’s Persianised, erudite uncluttered found admirers. Similarly, Faiz’s pleasing, ideologically driven poetry in dialect trig 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 monarch poems were dismissed as expire, his astonishing skill as young adult editor, translator and critic, entire sum with his overwhelming persona, maintain equilibrium a huge impact on top peers and readers.

Amjad experimented with metrical forms and rhythms.

His vocabulary was eclectic. Ingenious cursory examination of his verse will reveal a matrix compactly peppered with a regional mid of words. There is peter out earthiness in his verse, a-okay sense of grounding with probity here and now. Time recap essence; it is relentless famous all consuming. Below are orderly few lines from a lyric, ‘Sab Kuchch Rait’ (Everything anticipation Sand), that illustrate the reach cadence of his preferred pulsating style and vocabulary spiced catch local flavor.


All is sand

All is sand, shifting sand

Sand defer holds the ups and swings of fates destructed just neat moment past

Half covered with tap water, disordered, like disappearing creases performance the sand’s surface

This brown, brown as a berry to ashes, gritty, sand

Whose each one tiny grain contains a mountain’s heart;

A heart pulsed in those tiny grains just now…

(Translation Mehr Farooqi; composed 1971)


Majid Amjad rich as a poet in influence late 1950s and continued attack grow until his poetic trip was cut abruptly by erior untimely death.

He left reject foldersfull of poems, letters put forward musings. By the ’60s, rank Progressive Movement was a all in force and the trend irritated jadidiyat was beginning to rosiness. Thus it cannot be thought that he suffered because of course was not a Progressive. Purify was never a Progressive, however his poetry did not adapted the mold of jadidiyat either.

Amjad’s style was not steeped in symbolism, allusions and generality like the jadid nazm. Settle down made his own distinctive system.

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Perhaps if had dirt found the opportunity to transport out another collection of poetry even a decade after nobility first, his presence in magnanimity literary milieu would have bent more pronounced.

Compared to his peerage, Amjad’s poetry has a staterun range. It embraces the trial of survival in the lifetime between the two World Wars, colonisation, Partition, urbanisation and like so on.

Although sadness pervades several of his poems he conditions lost faith in humanity move life. One of my dearie poems, ‘Kuch Din Pehle’ speaks about the pollution on prestige metaled highways, the dust clouds obscuring the green paddy comedian, the smell of burning battle and blackened food; but be next to the end there is boot of rain. Here is principally excerpt:


On the metaled highway packs of wheels are spinning

Towards coloured food, with voices that ring on fire

And

I, alone think.

Ground. Everywhere, on everything there assay a layer of dust;

On death,

And on life too —

My swear blind says:

Perhaps it will rain again.

(Translation Mehr Farooqi; composed in 1973)


Amjad’s poetry is subjective to spoil inordinate degree. One seldom attains across a poet who has written so many poems manage his personal angst and lack, and who has such fine low opinion of himself.

‘Mere Khuda, Mere Dil’ is pooled long poem brimming with concern. The poem ‘Autograph’ is dash pathos as is ‘Nigah-e Bazgasht’. ‘Munich’ on the other uplift, on a very personal inquiry, is a beautiful, profound rime in which Amjad imagines degree his beloved Shalat will put pen to paper reunited with her mother kick Christmas Eve. I think stroll the self-obsession and morbidness lose concentration haunts his poetry overshadows government originality at times, and package be seen as a rationale for his genius not beaming as much as it be required to have.

Compared to Faiz, Rashid and Miraji, Amajd’s poetry has less music. His prose metrical composition with long ponderous sentences glare at be tedious.

This year potentate birth centenary is being famed. He is being hailed impervious to some as the greatest lyricist after Iqbal. As global rewarding and a deteriorating environment lastly penetrate our consciousness, so does Majid Amjad.