Mushtaque B Barq
A symbol is an esoteric device that permits a poet to stretch an idea or object beyond the boundaries of literary limits. When a composer in a state of exaltation wishes to broadcast his mystic experience, Pandora’s Box takes off the lid to display the hitherto undiscovered. Traditional symbols actually trigger a poet to create unconventional symbols or images that befit him or his age. Traditional symbols are based upon knowledge of the anthological correspondence of being and existence to remind men of truth. Unconventional symbols, on the other hand, are personal experience, mystic understandings, and the intricate passion of redefining divine experience or intuitive halts. A mystic poet in particular knows how to immortalize the mortal objects that bear a shape, texture, and purpose by unveiling the embryonic membrane from its form, which to him is just a heap of clay yet to attain the formless state. Thus, a mystic poet works on metaphysical principles to explain the nature of poetry, and as such, his poetic creation is the outcome of spiritual and conjoint principles. The verses, as composed in a state of trance, act as a linguistic vehicle of truth that transports a reader beyond the barriers of literary limits.
The below-translated Nazm of Shahida Shabnum is one such excellent piece of poetry that is abundant with symbols and metaphors. The voice of the composer apparently seems fragmented, but when an erogenous eye and wax-free ear are applied to analyze the symbolic beauty, the poem takes us along the poet’s mystic journey. Being a woman, her profundity has masterfully given voice to her agonising experience during her journey. Her companions are not mundane notions and mortal gods, but historic and holy renderings. The poem is a complete journey of a mystic wanderer who, after being initiated, is keen to explore the realms of ‘Beyond’. Her journey is not a cake walk or a strolling across the meadows of mirth but a hard-hitting walk across the mysterious pathways where a breathing spell on the bank of self serves a venomous plate after pulling the thorns after reaching the hall of a tavern where pain is served in the goblets of starry eyes. But the agony of consuming the venom of struggle finds a unification of ‘beyond’ and ‘limit’ at the cost of annihilation. The jewelled goblets ‘the inward eyes’, after attaining a streak of light, pull the traveler out of the tavern to explore an endless darkness, the only light ‘the inward eye’ can explore and extract. It is like a Yogi visiting your dark lawn to direct a traveler to put the most adorable son, ‘Aka Nanda’, after gifting him at the cost of submission in the cooking vessel to make a meal of him. This litmus test for every traveler who walks through an endless tunnel of darkness bearing starry eyelids is like surrendering a drop-down mortal wish list. The five elements befitting the frame are wrecked, and a mystic bathes in the light of love, and the flame of these furious waves wraps him up to enshrine his transformed body. The mention of Hatshepsut, the Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II, and later became the fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, ruling initially as regent and then as queen regnant from around 1479 BC to approximately 1458 BC has connected the poem to history; thus, Shahida Shabnum has not only recreated her image as a symbol of grandeur on one hand, but on the other hand, the poet has perfectly presented a queen of yore to bear the consequences of ‘pride and prestige’
The poem has one more dimension worth mentioning: the agony of the masses and the worst conditions of the Valley. Shahida Shabnum is well aware of the external world from which she cannot detach herself for the reason that the agony of a human race has always compelled the poets to carry on the torment of the masses
From this city
Emerges the flames of fire
Neither anyone festoons the balconies
Nor any one raises a voice
To save a chick from the paws of eagle
The above stanza is ambiguous for the reason that it connects the suffering of the general gender, of which the poet is a part, and the journey through the challenging paths of life and death. She has succumbed to the unifying external struggle of a mortal god and the willful journey of a saint who surpasses the pangs of death.
Nazm
Zeal journey and breathing spell
Pangs of loss
Lineage of agony venom and pain
Decked up hem
Starry eyelids
And this fragile spirit
Eternity without a beginning” and “Eternity without an End”
Are in unification
The dwellers of this patient city’s merchandisers
Are on to sell
Severe insanity
Of jewelled eyes
Adding grace to the soil
By applying threads of a potter
To count on
A dyer devoid of colour
Keep dyeing
A sage
Cradling ‘Aka Nanda’
Directing Sona Maal (Mother of Aka Nanda)
To place a cooking vessel to cook….
An old lady fails to untangle her cotton ball
To procure Yousuf
Eulogizing overmuch
Rendering wings to sweet lips
Even Hatshepsut
Is cascading tears
The Bakunawa of this city
Fails to reach the moon
From this city
Emerges the flames of fire
Neither anyone festoons the balconies
Nor any one raises a voice
To save a chick from the paws of eagle
Here Pharaoh and his ‘Pride’
Here zeal and journey
Breathing spell
Lineage of agony venom and pain.
The symbols have created a circular motion in the poem, like a wheel of fortune that keeps revolving endlessly. From Zeal, it has started to breathe spell, a process that keeps the engine of life pulsating, then the struggle: a linage of agony, venom, and pain, getting through this unenviable situation a unification, but only after sacrificing ‘Aka Nanda’, with mother’s readily expressed wish for human suffering. The repetition of the first few lines at the end of the poem makes it a cycle with spokes of history, myth, and the personal experiential agony of a traveler.
Shahida Shabnum is one of the bull-necked feminine mystic voices that has not only added grace to our contemporary mystic poets but has also contributed a lot to shaping the nazm form in Kashmiri. Her diction belongs to her place and locality, which adds freshness to her voice. The beauty of her subtle and substantial compositions is flawless, as it wrests the reader’s consciousness away from illusions and aids magnitude in recalling the reader’s roots. The mark of true poetry is intimate knowledge of God is located in the heart. The heart, created by God as the locus of the human encounter with Himself, is composed of four layers: sadr, qalb, fu’ad, and lubb. Shahida Shabnum has added the above layers to her poetry with accuracy and excellency. This xbrilliant and piercing mystic voice must be acknowledged, encouraged, and read seriously to derive and delve into her mystic experiences.
Mushtaq B.Barq is a Columnist, Poet and Fiction Writer. He is the author of “Feeble prisoner, “ Wings of Love” and many translation works are credited to the author like “ Verses Of Wahab
