Haiku — capturing beauty crisply
By Sohail Ahmed Siddiqui
“In his well-known book entitled, Haiku, the English poet R. Blyth said that Haiku, together with the music of Bach and Chinese painting, gave him the purest and most lasting pleasure.”— Nagata Ryutaro, Editor, Haiku International, Tokyo Haiku is the most precise, compact and condensed form of verse. It is a three-liner and is all about the relationship of man with nature. In Japan, haiku provides a kind of spiritual nourishment and is rooted in Zen Buddhism. It now covers every aspect of life. The Zen philosophy of ‘Satori’ (enlightenment) is still practiced for studying nature through meditation. The Japanese immerse themselves in a natural scene or phenomenon and then express their feelings in a haiku.Barrister Syed Hasan Abid Jafri was the one who introduced haiku to Urdu. He wrote an article, “Japani shairi par eik nazar” (A random look at Japanese poetry) for Nigar (Lucknow) in December 1922. For over a decade there was a meaningless silence on the subject. In 1936, Saaqi, another esteemed literary journal, launched a ‘Japan number’. The translators of Japanese poetry included Aziz Tamannai, Fazle Haque Qureshi and Ali Zaheer. Noorul Hasan Barlas, who had lived in Japan for a long time, played a vital role in providing material for this issue.A wave of translations attracted enthusiasts from 1938 to 1980s. Among the most prominent names were Hameed Nizami, Meeraji, Zafar Iqbal, Kaleemuddin Ahmed, Abdul Aziz Khalid, Qazi Saleem, Tasadduq Husain Khalid, Dr Muhammad Amin, Mohsin Bhopali and Dr Pervaiz Pervazi.Who was the pioneer in original Urdu haiku writing? The answer to this question is shrouded in mystery. Afaque Siddiqui claims to have been the first, as he wrote haikus as early as 1970. Qazi Saleem’s verses (1966) were not accepted true haiku, on technical grounds. But the famous Urdu poet Himayat Ali Shair has quoted an original haiku of Meeraji, composed some time back in the 1940s or 1950s.In 1960, the Sindhi language embraced this foreign genre through some translations rendered by Dr Tanveer Abbasi. This endeavour opened the floodgate of original Sindhi three-liners. A friend of Tanveer and a popular Urdu poet, Mohsin Bhopali, translated some of his haiku into Urdu in 1963.In the 1970s, Dr Muhammad Amin, a penman from Multan, visited Japan and started writing original Urdu three-liners and published his maiden anthology, Haiku in 1980. Three years later, in 1983 the first Urdu haiku mushaira was held under the auspices of the Japan Cultural Centre in Karachi. The Centre also organized Urdu haiku recitals, under the guidelines and coordination of Professor Dr Syed Abul Khair Kashfi. Soon the new genre became popular in the national language, as well as regional languages and dialects. Some fifty Urdu anthologies and many collections in regional languages have so far appeared. However, there is no authentic bibliography of collections.Just like the ghazal, almost every poet tries to compose haikus, but not every one can write it properly, as is the case with the ghazal. Enthusiasm alone, with no (or little) knowledge of the genre, is not enough to explore the words and ideas of this form of poetry.The ‘anti-haiku’ critics usually condemn the rise of this unique genre in Urdu. I would like to invite their attention to this excerpt:“The falling leaf has been the metaphor of a brief human life wherever autumn comes. The leaf can fall from a paulowina in Japan, a maple in New England or a vine in Greece. The sadness is universal, the tree is specific to the place and time and the leaf to the particular moment.”— Susumu Takiguchi, Chairman, World Haiku Club, London (UK) [The Twaddle of Oxonian, AMI-Net Intl.Press, England]Nature is everywhere and no one can write anything on beauty, ignoring nature’s bounties. Nature-lovers are found in every nook and corner of this beautiful world.The ‘haiku-haters’ in Pakistan usually say that Urdu and Japanese are poles apart in aesthetics. Things like a frog or cricket can never be assimilated into Urdu. See how it has been disproved:• Sadmay bouta hai
Aangan kee weerani mein
Jheengar routa hai(Afzal Murad)• Manzar pur asraarJungle ke sunnatay mein
Mainduck kee awaz(Sohail Ahmed Siddiqui)In 1998, I launched a multilingual haiku journal of South Asia, Haiku International. The Karachi-based journal has brought out seven issues, including four special numbers on Pakistani haiku masters, namely, Mohsin Bhopali, Wazahat Naseem, Iqbal Haider and Professor Muhammad Rais Alvi. Of these, Iqbal Haider has received the title of “Ambassador of haiku” from the Japanese Consul General for excellence in the field. nWriter’s email: canopus_393@yahoo.com
Daily Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan dated February 22, 2004
