Remembering Josh Malihabadi: The poet of revolution

The last days of Josh were spent in an atmosphere reminiscent of the final years of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda

Today marks the 121st birthday of one of the finest Urdu poets of the 20th century, Josh Malihabadi. The year 2018-2019 is thus being marked as the 120th birthday of Josh. The last days of Josh were spent in an atmosphere reminiscent of the final years of the Chilean socialist poet Pablo Neruda; both passed away under their respective countries’ worst military dictatorships. The difference being that while no one was allowed to attend Neruda’s funeral, about a hundred-odd people did attend Josh’s funeral, led by the great socialist poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz.

Josh has been christened as the Shair-e-Inquilab, the Poet of Revolution; for others it was his misfortune to be born in the same age as Pakistan’s national poet Muhammad Iqbal and other peers like Firaq Gorakhpuri, Majnoon Gorakhpuri and Jigar Moradabadi, which led to a lack of critical attention towards his voluminous work, and outright censorship and persecution in Pakistan.

Photo: Oxford University Press


This belated tribute to Josh by Fahmida Riaz, in a poem titled simply as Josh Malihabadi, forms part of her last poetry collection Tum Kabeer and is being presented here in original English translation in the hope that it will stimulate new, deserved interest in Josh’s life and works for the younger generations in the 21st century, and acquaint the uninitiated with the stormy life of one of the greatest benefactors of the Urdu language.

“When he came with a broken heart to the new land


He brought all the memories, values alongwith the luggage


The moist eyes of the poet had seen centuries melt


The known scene changed instantly, wonder how it felt


The mango gardens had that same fragrance, but there was no pleasure in living


What had one thought and what transpired, a deep wound in the bosom unbecoming


What game politics played, how much we lost in one move


Urdu was expelled from its home and courtyard at a night’s remove


We not only spoke Ganga-Jamuni, it too was the identity since centuries


The songs of freedom we sang, it was the life of songs verily


The spirit of the prince captive within this talking bird


When he had to flee the land, how well would Josh have fared


But in this new land indeed no one could recognize him


It had another map, which could not value him


If he was a blazing flame in the movement for freedom


Who would have cared here, it was a new time and a new direction



Everything upon which we felt proud, lost here its meaning


Those who acquired more, were considered fortunate


Those who inherited this land, were worse off


Than those who were their fellow-travellers, to prison who were carted off


Who indeed was there to value their passion and thought


Who could love them, put a healing hand much-sought


The old age knocked, nerves tired, hearts torn


Alongwith kids big and small, like flowers of the familial lawn


It was insisted here to live by being repentant about the past


That which we had loved all our life, the curses should forever last


The deaf among these classes were used to speaking fearlessly


What to talk of freedom to write, here thoughts were guarded endlessly


Stormy rain, thunder and lightning, and the tired sailor in the boat


Dejected heart, amazed look, the oar lost to float


Then the flowing planks of the boat were at the mercy of the waves


So the life went, so the time was spent, days somehow spent like knaves


When the bond of restraint broke, when such speech issued


We became the target of arrows, stood accursed and subdued


This occurred towards the end of life, such loneliness he could not tolerate


When his life submitted to the Maker, the corpse caused the rulers to fear and hesitate


He sleeps silent in the grave, his funeral a silent affair


No one came to condole, everyone feared the secret informer


I remembered a forgotten tale, and memory is indeed fickle


This is the story of a poet, who got himself into quite a pickle.”

WRITTEN BY: Raza Naeem

The author is president of the Progressive Writers Association in Lahore. He is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and translator. His translations of Saadat Hasan Manto have been re-translated in both Bengali and Tamil, and he received a prestigious Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship in 2014-2015 for his translation and interpretive work on Manto. He is presently working on a book of translations of Manto's progressive writings, tentatively titled Comrade Manto.

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