Celebrating Shiva And Multiculturalism Of Urdu Poetry

Note: This story was originally published in October 2022 as part of Outlook issue 'Recasting Shiva'. It is being replugged on World Poetry Day 2023 as Outlook revisits the power of poetry in a world marred with injustice, inequality and hate

Some years ago, I set myself the task of looking into the mirror of Urdu to see how the Urdu poet had viewed the other. My sense was that a poet seldom, if ever, falls victim to bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness; a propagandist or publicist might, but not a poet. And the Urdu poet, in particular, has always been known to be liberal, even iconoclastic. Even in matters of religion, the Urdu poet has always spoken for qaumi yakjahati and muttahida tehzeeb, on communal harmony and co-mingling of cultures.

There are love jihads and there are love jihads. Mine was a labour of love — that eventually took the form of fortnightly columns for an online portal — to present the range of concerns contained within Urdu literature. I found myself on a self-appointed crusade to excavate how catholic and diverse the concerns of the Urdu poet have always been, and how Urdu poetry is NOT poetry by Muslims for Muslims, nor is it chiefly concerned with the travails of the shama and the bulbul (the popular tropes of the candle and the nightingale) as often erroneously assumed.

The search yielded delightful results. I found vast amounts of poetry written by Hindu and Sikh poets on Eid and Milad-un Nabi as also large numbers of soz, marsiya, naat, manqabad on subjects culled specifically from Prophet Muhammad’s life or the early years of Islamic history, such as the events pertaining to the battle of Karbala. In equal measure, these explorations revealed large numbers of Muslim poets who have waxed eloquent on Holi, Diwali, Janmashtami, Gurpurab, Christmas, Basant, Rakshabandhan, not to mention many heart-warming poems on Ram, Krishna, Shiva, Guru Nanak, Buddha, Mahavir and Christ (Isa Masih, considered a prophet in Islam).

Many of these poems on religious figures are grouped under headings such as ‘Hamarey Mazhabi Rahnuma’ (Our Religious Guides) in anthologies; others are seeded in collected works such as Maulana Hasrat Mohani’s many odes to his beloved Krishanji Maharaj, which find pride of place in his kulliyat. Still others are stand-alone texts such as Khwaja Dil Muhammad Khan’s delightful verse translation of the Bhagvad Gita, titled, aptly enough, Dil ki Gita, first published in 1944 from Lahore. Of the several hundred versions of the manzum (verse) Ramayana in Urdu, some of the best known are Ulfat ki Ramayana and Rahmat ki Ramayana.

With Urdu gradually freeing itself from its ‘Muslim’ tag and reclaiming its rightful place as a people’s language, perhaps it is time to re-visit these texts. Written by both Muslim and non-Muslim poets at a time when inclusion and pluralism were the norms rather than the exceptions, they need to be revived and re-read not only for their evocations of communal harmony and goodwill but also because many contain some fine poetry. For this special theme issue on Shiva, let us see what the Urdu poet has to offer by way of aqeedat ke phool (flowers of faith) to the Blue-Necked One.

Of the many Shiva Puranas written and translated into Urdu, the most well-regarded is the one by Munshi Shankar Dayal Farhat, published by Nawal Kishore Press in 1870.  Each adhyay (chapter) begins with a prayer ‘Sada Shivji ki nigah lutf idhar ho’ (‘May Shivji’s benevolent gaze be upon us’), and goes on to describe in lyrical verse the essence of the original Sanskrit texts. The mythology of Shiva and Parvati as well as the essentials of Advaita philosophy are made accessible in a homely manner such as the story of the hunter and the deer thus: “Eik hiran ka paani pina taalab mein aur sayyad ka teer khenchna bel ke darakht se.” An older version by an unknown author from Rai Bareilly has a Tamhiid (Preface) outlining the aims and objectives of the text followed by a Dibacha (Foreword) that, in keeping with the tradition of Urdu treatises of the times, begins with a hamd  (usually in praise of Allah).

Of the poems specifically on Shiva, here is Munawwar Lakhnawi writing ‘Shivji ki Tareef Main’ (‘In Praise of Shivji’), listing the many attributes of Jagat Ishwar, Sansaar ke Swami and concluding by describing him thus:

Rooh ko qaid-e tanasukh se rihaah karte hain
Hamatan lutf hain masroof-e karam rahte hain
Maghfirat Bakhsh jinhein ahl-e nazar kahte hain

(He releases the soul from the prison of transmigration
He is entirely immersed in joy, engrossed in bounty
The discerning call him the Granter of Salvation)

In a hauntingly lyrical poem  entitled ‘Kaash’ (‘If Only’), Sarwat Zehra wishes that the compromises a woman has to make all her life could be eaten like powdered broken bangles, or the ‘poison of solitude’ (‘tanhai ka zahr’) drunk, reworking Shiva’s drinking poison after the samudra manthan:

Shiv ke neel kanth ki tarah
Galey mein rakh kar jiya ja sakta

(Like Shiva’s blue-tinged neck
I too could live with it in my throat)

In a long poem entitled ‘Zindagi’ (‘Life’) by Kaifi Azmi, the ocean itself enters the poet’s room and says:

Shiv ne ye bhejwaya hai lo piyo aur
Aaj Shiv ilm hai amrit hai amal

(Shiva has sent this for you, here, drink it
Today Shiva is knowledge, nectar, action)

The act of churning the dark waters which eventually yielded the ambrosial nectar is aspirational, emblematic though eventually futile for mere mortals as in the poem ‘Zahr ka Darya’ (‘The River of Poison’) by Qaleel Jhansvi:

Woh jis mein Shiv ko zahr peena na parhey
Woh kainat jo sab ko samaan karti ho

(Where Shiva does not have to drink the poison
That universe which makes everyone equal)

That the analogy of swallowing poison continues to impress generations of poets, especially women, is evident from this sher by Aziz Bano Darab Wafa:

Shiv to nahin hum phir bhi hum ne duniya bhar ke zahr piye
Itni kadwahat hai munh mein, kaise meethi baat karein?

(I am not Shiva yet I have drunk all the poisons of the world
Such is the bitterness in my mouth, how can I talk sweetly?)

Then there was Nazeer Akbarabadi, the people’s poet from Agra and one of the greatest chroniclers of his age who has written on the humblest of subjects such as the kakdi (cucumber) seller and of a lived, multicultural, syncretic way of life where Holi was celebrated with as much vigour as Eid. In his ballad-like ‘Mahadeoji ka Byaah’ (‘The Wedding of Mahadevji’) with its opening lines redolent of piety and love, ‘Pahle naanv Ganesh kaa lijiye siis nawae’ (‘Begin with the name of Ganesh with your head bowed low’), he goes on to say how the very re-telling of the incidents surrounding this wedding bring blessings upon the listeners:

Aur jis ne iss byaah ki mahima kahi banaye
Uss ke bhi har haal mein Shivji rahein suhaye

(And whoever describes the glory of this match
Shivji will always keep them in good stead)

An older poet, Munshi Dwarka Parshad Ufaq Lakhnawi, employs the traditional tropes and metaphors of classical Urdu rubaai in his ‘Shankar Darshan’ to describe the beauty of Shankar and Parvati:

Jism ka rang chamkte hue neelam ki misal
Chand ki rukh mein chamak chehre pe suraj ka jalal

(The colour of his body like a glittering sapphire
The glow of the moon in his visage, the glory of the sun on his face)

To come to present times, here’s Ashutosh Rana, an actor and a fine poet, invoking Shiva’s Ganga while writing of his own troubled, divisive times:

Shiv ki Ganga bhi paani hai
Aab-e zamzam bhi paani hai
Mulla bhi piye pandit bhi
Pani ka mazhab kya hoga?

(The Ganga of Shiva is water
So is the water of the zamzam spring
The mulla drinks it so does the pandit
What will be the religion of water?)

(This appeared in the print edition as "Shiva in Urdu poetry")

(Views expressed are personal)

Rakhshanda Jalil The writer is a delhi-based writer, translator and literary historian.