Pr GH Mohiuddin Mir.
Eversince i read Dr Rafeeq Masoodi’s first collection of Kashmiri poetry,,Panun Dooud Panene Dug,,i could easily perceive that moment that there seems a growth and evolution in his poetry and in near future his poems would be mature,symbolic and with certain bold messages like loss of our Nostalgia,the parent children generation gape,the ultimate inhalation of physical life (Death) and a philonthropy towards the ailing and diseased.
In a poetic sense Dr Masoodi seems to make a connecting link between classical romanticism and postmodernism with some mystic touch as often trying to express his spiritual feelings which he had in Mecca and Medina Sharif.Unfortunetly some other translation for his first book was published and mine remained dormant
Therefore i did not critically analyse that collection because unless author and critic negotiate certain basic ethics of writing,the art goes in a daydreaming like a haze.It doesn’t mean that the poet’s poetic acumen is not valid and worth analysis.
The present poems,, Anjaam,,and others are extraordinary so far as emotional Nastalgia in them is concerned.Masoodi relies much on mystic love than reason which has put him as a poet on a different track and becomes unlike from ,Shafie Shouq sb,Rafiq Raz sb and even Shahnaz Rasheed sb.Although in my average opinion as an average student of science and literature Dr Masoodi is close to Pr Rehman Rahie so for as his diction, symbolic affluence and mystic emotional stance is concerned . His poetic poemness also seems to close to the astonishing symphony of Gowhar Sopori.
Critical analysis of few poems
The poem Anjaam is the actualization of the real physical death when all nears and dears leave one on a desolate dark shore of the life of which there is neither any companion nor any welwisher.All worried about the burial and finishing rituals, therefore the second phase as shown by poet is an interrogative phase in a land of which the deceased is alien and helpness.This Anjaam through it’s actualization express how one’ jerk of ferocious and Levithanic power of death buldozes all our future dreams,arrogance,status, wealth,health even all the empires,forts and pretentionof being the Super power in the world.
There it seems significant to reveal the poetic translation of Dr Rafeeq Masoodi’s some poems so that a person not acquinted with Kashmiri poetry also feels the pain of poet’s heart.
Beauty of these few poems is that they straightly pierce heart through the arrow of actualities which makes it near to the classics among his contemporaries.
He as a humble soul exhibits the throbbing his heart so that world will read his ❤️ heart and acknowledge that there was once some poet who too had feeling and succeeded in giving them an expression .This expressiveness of the poet initially as free verse builds sea out of drops and Dr Masoodi seems still lingering between first and second phase of his artistic evolution,but he is well directing his themes fantastically.
Here i am adding the poetic translation of one of his poems Anjaam in this brief writeup.to substantiate my view point about Dr Rafeeq Masoodi’s poetry.The Anjaam is here as glaring example and evidence
Anjaam
Poetic translation.
The culmination
In the dark desolete room
After sealing the mouth with the scarf
They all left like strangers
They all resided under my eyes pupil
But i wasn’t in anybody’s eye’s pupil
I agonizingly cried
How much hue and cry i raised
But none turned back even a single glimpse
Scattered like strangers
Leaving me all alone in this dark and desolete room
Who is this duo
To my right side and to my
left side
A kind of an interview i am facing
A kind of an objective test
No,not at all it is not the ave
It is a beast, terrifying, with huge Levithanic teeth and the ember like tongue
It started to eat me up in pieces
,,oh mother it has eaten and swallowed me,,
This my agonizing and helpless cry was not even heard by anyone
Who has this elderly old mother come with a paper in hand
,,oh leave him,he used to feed me and take care of me,,
,,Oh God,who was she,,
All these insects,aves,beasts had vanished
Oh i don’t comprehend what had happened to me and what bizarre condition has dawned upon me
Who were they?
Who was this elderly grand mother
I am not in a position to comprehend.
Therefore this poem exhibits man’s helplessness before ferocious death and poet’s artistry to convey its horror through a dream like situation and symbolising good deeds in the guise of the mother and beasts,insects etc as various agencies of punishment.The symbolic aspect of the poem is of course dominant but the free verse and simple word choosing by poet is thematically fantastic for which poet must be appreciated.
Professor Ghulam Mohiuddin Mir
HOD english GDC women’s Nawakdal Srinagar
Department Higher education UT JK.
The author is an english poet,critic,book reviewer and poetic translator of Kashmiri and urdu poetry into English.
