A tribute to Akhlaq Mohammad Khan Shahryar, the poet, the lyricist and an academic par excellence
Mohammad Sajjad Aligarh
To pen down something in memory of somebody who kept me so dear to himself is too difficult a task. I am choked with emotions too deep, even though since the last so many months, we knew that the cruel hands of the greatest truth called death is going to snatch him away from us.
Munhasar marney pe ho jis ki ummeed
Naa ummeedi us ki dekha chahiye (Ghalib)
My friend, Syed Ekram Rizwi, devastated with the news of Shahryar’s death, called me saying, ‘only dust is left in Aligarh now’:
Hadd-e-nigaah tak yahan ghubaar hi ghubaar hai
While joining the namaaz-e-janazah at the AMU Graveyard [Minto E], I could recall what he had said few years back, when he was about to retire from the services as professor of AMU. He was living in the type ‘A’ quarters of AMU located just across the graveyard separated by the ‘Gulistan-Syed’ which was then a desert-like field. Somebody reminded him, ‘Sir, you will now have to quit the university quarters and you are yet to have a house of your own’. To this, pointing his fingers towards Gulistan-e-Syed, in his characteristic way, Shahryar sahab said very casually, ‘ab makaan wakaan kya banana, ab to sirf yeh maidan paar karna hai.’ He had also composed a poem, Ghar ki taameer tasawwur hi mein ho sakti hai, apnay naqshay ke mutabiq yeh zamin kuchh kam hai.
When I had come to Aligarh as a student, I was already some sort of a fan of Shahryar, the poet who had composed beautiful songs for a marvelous film of Muzaffar Ali, Umrao Jaan. I was dying to see him, and when I saw him on a 50 cc Hero Majestic moped, the naïve and innocent student in me was struck by his simplicity -- in contrast to the ‘professors’ I had been familiar with, before coming to Aligarh, who would ride Bajaj scooters or 150 cc Rajdoot motorcycles, if not cars. The ‘film’ of Shahryar, moving on that moped, remains preserved in my memory, quite indelibly.
In the last 12-13 years, he made me become much closer to him, sharing so many things about the culture and politics of AMU, about some interesting people of the campus and other things. By late 1990s, we had started feeling much agitated about certain aspects of AMU. In order to comprehend these, we started looking into the history of AMU; in order to share our feelings we resorted to pamphleteering which was also a kind of catharsis. In this way we came across one of his poems, ‘Muslim University ki Fariyaad’
Mujawiron ki
bheerh ney
Mujhey phir ek
qabr mein badal diya
Main keh raha
der sey
Main zinda hoon
Meri sada mein
baaz gasht kyon nahi
Merey khuda
Mujhey sazaein
jitni de
Pe yun nahin
This particular poem increased our appetite further to get closer to him in order to have more frequent and longer sessions of conversations with him; he used to offer us cold drinks, which was an added incentive. However, he remained reluctant about sharing his feelings and observations which had moved him enough to compose this kind of poem, which is his angst against the deeply entrenched vested interests of his alma mater. When we told him that his poem had been used in one of our pamphlets, he seemed glad about it but simultaneously expressed his mild disapproval, and then went on to say with a lovely smile, “aap log to hamari nazm ka siyasi istemaal kar key mujhey merey apnon se door karna chahtey hain, aap ke liye apney idaray mein khushgawaar tabdiliyan aham hain, hamarey liye to merey zaati taaluqaat aham hain, khwah woh ‘un mujawiron ki bheerh’ hi mein kyon na ho.”[You people are making political use of my poem and thereby you intend to create a gulf between me and my acquaintances. For you more important is bringing about pleasant changes on the campus, for me more important is continuing good relations with the people, howsoever they might be the vested interests spoiling AMU]
We recalled his lines,
Tujh ko ruswa na kiya khud bhi pashemaan na huey
Ishq ki rasm ko is taraha nibhaya ham ney
He would then ask us to be a bit pragmatic, by exercising certain degree of restraint in our pamphlets. Simultaneously he would also add, “betey inhin kaawishon se likhna parhna aur duniya ko samajhna bhi seekh paogey, halaan ki aisi targheeb de kar main tum baaghi naujawanon ki tez dhaar ko kund karney ka gunaah bhi kar raha hoon” [My son, with such efforts you would grow intellectually and also become worldly wise, however by asking you to be moderate I am also committing the crime of blunting the edge of the productive rebellion in youth] He would further say, “I am no pessimist, yet I must say that you and your friends were engaged in letting flowers blossom in the desert of AMU, it was an exercise in futility, yet, this was undoubtedly an exercise worth doing at least for sometime in the prime of youth.”
He would often say, “In AMU, those who are today expressing their grievances against infirmities of Indian secularism, are/ were the worst kind of communalists”, while saying so he was also equally critical of the ‘progressives’ and Leftists of the campus. According to him, quite a lot of such ‘progressives’, have also degenerated into ‘vested interests’, i.e. ‘mujawiron ki bheerh’, who have turned AMU into a qabr, a dead place.
Having heard such remarks from him more than once, I once mustered the courage of submitting a request to him: “kindly write down your memoir.” For sometime he prevaricated on the issue and maintained silence or gently pushed it aside by bringing in other subjects. As I persisted with this demand, he passed a highly pertinent remark, “betey, khudnawisht to bahadur log likhtey hain jin ke andar apney gunahon ka aitraaf karney aur sach likhney ki jasaarat ho, aur main to nihayat buz dil insaan hoon” [my son, autobiographies can be written only by the brave people; those who have the guts of confessing their follies and have the courage of speaking truth; I am too timid a person].
Later, he elaborated upon it and said that if he had to write his autobiography he would end up antagonizing too many people close to him, and that was, by his own admission, quite unaffordable for him. He however later on composed a poem with this line:
Buz dil honey ka khamiyazah sapney mein bhi bhugta hai
He then gifted me Wahab Ashrafi’s autobiography, Qissa Be-samt Zindagi Ka, and said, “You should appreciate one good thing about this autobiography that the author is frank about the indignities he inflicted upon himself just in greed of a position [jaah-o-martaba ki lalach] - that of the Chairman of Universities Service Commission.”
Once I wanted to know his views and observations about anti-Bihari prejudice among some sections of AMU-ites. I thought this particular query of mine would be quite provocative. But that was not the case. He narrated, “You see, the Muslims of UP, particularly the decadent feudal elites, take pride in their chaste Urdu, which they are abandoning or unlearning for whatever reasons. In comparision, the Muslim students from Bihar as well as from eastern UP, are generally well versed in Urdu, with an appreciable degree of interest in creative literature, regardless of their preferred disciplines of studies.” He would then add with a smile, bordering on laughter, “meri beti ney to shaadi ke liye ek Bihari ko hi pasand kiya, aur Patna ke hukkaaam aur siyasatdanon se lekar Bihar ke adab dost log to mujh se itni zyada mohabbat kartey hain ki agar sachai kuchh aur bhi hoti to main Bihariyon ki himayat mein hi kharha rehta, itni dayanatdaari ki tawaqqo to mujh se rakh hi saktey ho.”
In 2009, in the Wisconsin journal, Annual of Urdu Studies, I published a long essay on a novel dealing with naxalism in Bihar. This was an outcome mainly of his persuasion. As I said earlier, most often, he disliked the idea of talking about his own poetry, and in order to push it aside he used to bring in other issues. This is how he enquired about my opinion on the origin, development and trajectory of the naxalite movement in Bihar. After listening to me, he asked whether I had read Dhamak, an Urdu novel by Abdus Samad, as my answer was in affirmative he immediately issued a sort of command to write something on it. I gladly abided and having taken help of a few more well-wishers, when finally I showed him the published version in print, he was very happy to see it. As he saw his name acknowledged by me in the essay, he became dismissive about his role in prompting me to do the job. Then he went through my essay on the (under)depiction of 1857 in the fiction of Qurratulain Hyder which I had presented in a seminar in BHU (now published in a volume edited by Rakhshanda Jalil); he asked me to render it in Urdu and sent it to Humayun Zafar Zaidi to publish it in a volume edited by him, and published by the Maktaba Jamia. The academic-literary world of Urdu in India is said to be bitterly divided between two groups, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi and Gopi Chand Narang. Shahryar sahab was dear to both. Only a lovely person like him could manage such things so beautifully.
In one such session of conversation, I took the liberty of knowing his assessment of the better known ‘communists’ of AMU. Having said a few good things about them, he shared few confidential anecdotes, taking my strong assurance that I won’t write about them it till he is alive. He said, “I am making a confession- I have partly contributed in recruiting an ineligible candidate as Reader, approved by an Executive Council (EC) member, who was a Dean as well [the member, a renowned academic, is no more now]. I was persuaded by my teacher, a renowned scholar, to persuade an EC member close to me, to do the favour in the EC meeting. I requested the EC member; with a lot of reluctance, he finally agreed to oblige me only by remaining silent on, rather than opposing, the recruitment.” That Reader became Professor and then Chairman, but he never made even a courtesy call [to Shahryar sahab]. He became too belligerent towards the renowned scholar as well, who had curried all these favours for him from the people sullying his own image. Then Shahryar sahab became fairly explicit about the moral of the story. He said, “My son! Here is a lesson for you. Never ever extend such outrageous favours to incompetent people in academia, such people turn very badly unfaithful to their benefactors.” While narrating this painful anecdote, Shahryar sahab was visibly uncomfortable with the discourtesy/perfidy of the Reader who later also became a Professor, and then Chairman of a very prestigious Department.
We had heard [and read] a lot about the angst of Rahi Masoom Raza against some people at AMU. We therefore remained curious about Shahryar sahab’s version. He was generous enough, and had enough love for me to have granted me this liberty, and shared such things. He said that Rahi had some grievances against him also. The reason was that in one of the selection committees for the position of lecturer (temporary), Rahi had not turned up for an interview, whereas Shahryar was called at the eleventh hour by the Dean and gotten selected. Rahi did not turn up as he was told that Shahryar has been called specially by the Dean; that the ‘match’ was already ‘fixed’, and therefore there was no point in appearing before the Selection Committee. Fact of the matter, as shared with me by Shahryar was that one more vacancy had emerged, and therefore there was absolutely no question of substituting Rahi with Shahryar. But given Rahi’s temperament, he never believed this version and nursed the grievances against the ‘system’ (Dean) as well as against the ‘rival candidate’ (Shahryar); in fact Rahi never even allowed anybody to explain the matter. Shahryar was sad about this, but he could not do anything; he was particularly angry with one of their common ‘friends’, who rather than helping reduce the tension, kept working towards widening the gulf between the two. Shahryar valued personal relations to a great extent, yet he suffered the pain of losing relationships.
Probably because of having undergone these experiences, he composed this:
Kabhi kisi ko mukammal jahan nahin milta
Kahin zameen to kahin aasmaan nahin milta
He would often call me at his flat in Safeena Apartment to have long casual chats. Not long ago, he asked me to provide him with biographical accounts of Nur Jahan, the Mughal Empress, but his condition was that it should have some illustrative photographs. The purpose was that his good friend Muzaffar Ali was contemplating the idea of making a film on the subject, and Shahryar was supposed to compose lyrics for the film. I told him that he had so many good friends who are big and highly accomplished historians of Medieval Indian History, that it was therefore strange that he would turn towards me, a semi-literate student of the history of Medieval India. He said, “I don’t have to read serious details of the history of Nur Jahan, I only have to scan through some anecdotes, some photographs which should help me create lyrics for the film.” It was, in fact, merely his tremendous love and affection for me that he indulged me so much. Very affectionately, he would always instruct me to keep producing research, staying away from the ‘bitter factionalism’ within my Department.
His passing away is a terrible personal loss for me.
Mohammad Sajjad is Assistant Professor at Centre of Advanced Study in History, Aligarh Muslim University.
