Understanding Parveen Shakir

Lecture delivered at Alliance Francaise centralises Shakir’s journey as a female poet.

KARACHI: Wo kahen bhi gea lota to mere pass aea, Bass yahi baat hai achi mere harjai ki.

It’s been two decades since Parveen Shakir left us but her verses and anecdotes are still fresh in the minds of her fans.During a session organised at Alliance Francaise on Monday in Karachi, Hidayat Hussain a translator, researcher and author said, “People in general tend to forget that Parveen Shakir was not only a sentimental poet who had deep sensitivities but they must also remember she had a psychological journey from her first collection titled Khushboo to the last one Mah-i-Tamam, which trace her emotional journey of being from where she started till the very end of her life.”

He further added that in her poems we see a sensitivity of being and refusal to submit, leading to a more rebellious woman. This also transpired in her poems that highlighted the intolerance during the bleak times of General Zia.

While reading out her poems, Hussain said: “From Karachi ki akhari sham to Daiera, we find her as a very determined woman but at last a weak being. It is she who feels for the necessity of support.”

Hussain also brought to attention that Shakir’s work was barely recognised in foreign countries. Only about three years ago did it come to France when her works had been translated into French.

Guest speaker for the evening and scholar of Parveen Shakir’s work Ambreen Haseeb Amber said, “It is certainly not an easy task to understand her work. For example, one needs to draw a line between a sensitive woman and a romantic poet which she was.”

She brought to the audience’s attention to how Parveen was the amalgamation of what different female poets of the 20th century offered individually. If Zehra Nigah’s work revolved around morality and Fehmida Riaz and Kishwar Nahid wrote romantic poetry, Shakir had that all in one.

Shakir’s greatest critics were writers Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi and Nazir Siddiqui who found her work to be profound and wrote excessively about her brilliance as a poet. “Her insight into drawing what a lover is to the beloved is very complex, we find it true in every other verse and well, it goes beyond that too,” said Haseeb.

She believes that Shakir rebelled against the dichotomy of the times, which dictated on terms of stereotyping women and asking them to submit. “That’s when she deferred and revolted. If literature throughout history has objectified woman, then Shakir has in all certainty revolted against such a system. Finally attributing women to stand up and speak for her own-self,” she said.

Shakir passed away on December 25, 1994, in a car accident.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2015.

Like Life & Style on Facebook, follow @ETLifeandStyle on Twitter for the latest in fashion, gossip and entertainment.