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The danseuse’s swansong
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Urdu poetry arouses itself when dusk takes on the hues of early night, says R.V. SMITH recalling the evening when Niazi brothers thrilled a select gathering with their rendition
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The muse of Urdu poetry survives on the nuances of the evening, unlike English poesy which haunts glen, thicket, hill and dale from forenoon to the late afternoon, when Little Boy Blue blows his horn and calls the cows in the meadow and the sheep in the corn.
The kavita of Hindi begins its day even earlier when the first sunbeams strike the temple shikaras – “Jyoti kalash chhalke”, takes a look at the stone breakers at ‘dopahar’ with the sun at its zenith, then lights the oil lamps for the beloved – “Jab sham dhale aana” – and finally passes the long night in the ashram of some yogi, like the guilt of an asylum seeker at the gate, as wide open as the eyes of a dejected lover.
Urdu poetry sleeps in the day and arouses itself when dusk takes on the hues of early night. The best time to hear shairi, therefore, is the first half of the night and this tradition has been maintained even in this day and age by some. Among them was the forever youthful danseuse and little-known patron of arts, Pushpa Dogra, who died a few years ago, not suddenly, but like the oil lamp battling the night, after a bitter struggle of eight months with thrombosis. She was just 45.
Memory brings to mind a winter evening at her Yashwant Place flat in Chanakyapuri when the Niazi brothers from Karachi enthused a select assemble of Delhi’s elite with their qawwalis. This performance was later to be replicated by the Pakistani poet Ahmad Faraz on a summer evening when hostess Pushpa served chilled melon slices and sherbet to the gathering. But Faraz offered a different fare, the romantic tapestry of the ghazal. Abdullah Manzoor Niazi and Makhmoor Niazi performed with great elan under the aegis of the Society for Promotion of Performing Arts in the Capital with which they had old links. Their father, Haji Manzoor Niazi, was born in Delhi in 1922. His grandfather was Haji Mir Qutub Baksh, who was awarded the title of Tan Ras Khan by Bahadur Shah Zafar and also the honorific of Nawab Atmadul-Mulk for his loyalty.
House of music
Haji Manzoor Niazi and his sons now stay in Mosiqui Manzil, Karachi. The name means house of music. Abdullah and Makmoor Niazi sang so well that evening that one was convinced they were indeed products of the bower of symphony. They created an ecstatic mood with their rendering of Baba Bule Shah’s verses ‘Purdah nahin jab Khuda se, tab insaan se purdah kya’ (when there’s no purdah with God, then why observe purdah with man). These words had also formed part of the song sung by Anarkali in the film “Mughal-e-Azam”, with Madhubala at her best.
They then rendered “O, Lalini mera piya ghar aaya” and other pulsating rhythms; the “piya” here is the divine visitor and the beloved is God’s devotee – a typical Sufi interpretation of spiritual love. Some must have heard the Sabri Brothers singing it. “If music be the food of love, play on”, observed Shakespeare. He was giving expression to a universal truth, for music cannot be contained within national boundaries.
So good music from any country finds avid listeners. Even though the language might not be understood, the rhythm acts as interpreter and one begins to sway to unknown symphonies and extract delight from the soul of music. This is what the Niazi brothers were able to achieve for many in the assembly who couldn’t understand the Persian-Arabic-Urdu diction of some of the compositions and yet could decipher the sentiments that motivate the entire family of man. That evening turned out to be Pushpa’s swansong.
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