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' Two
Poets of the 19th Century Dawn, Saturday - March 19,
2011 Shafqat Tanvir Mirza DHOLIAN DA BADSHAH research
and compilation by Muhammad Azhar Virk; pp 128, Price Rs500 (hb);
Publishers Ravi Kitab Ghar, Shah Kot district Nankana Sahib, (Punjab).
Dr. M.A Shahid, a Punjabi
poet and a famous nuclear scientist, belonging to the same area to which
the compiler belongs says: Muhammad Azhar Virk just did that and in the
presence found a unique gem of Punjabi literature Dhole.
Mian Raja’s dedicated
followers scattered around Punjab had lovingly preserved this treasure in
their hearts. Azhar Virk took his recording device and went from one
village to the next to first collect and then commit to writing this
precious treasure of Punjabi literature. His dedication to serve his
mother language Punjabi deserves our appreciation.
Mian Raja was born in 1850
in Shahkot -- the eternal abode of Abul Khair Naun Lakh Hazari. Young Raja
was not educated in a formal school. Instead he was given the traditional
education which in those days from local scholars who were usually
attached to a mosque as pesh imams -- prayer leaders.
He proved to be a natural
poet who excelled in and acknowledged as a pioneer of Dhola poetry. He
became famous for his dhola narration of folk lore of Sassi. As a daring
poet he went to the experiment with novel ideas and greatly expanded the
horizon of the dhola literature of Punjab.
Dhola like mahya is a
unique form of Punjabi poetry. It is composed in free verse. General
perception is that the war themes are the main stock of dhola. For
example, Noori Kamboka, who was a contemporary dhola poet Mian Raja, had
composed his dholas on the war theme only (also on political events of
1947 before and after).
An interesting encounter
between Noori and Raja in a dhola reciting gathering shows how Mian Raja
has cleverly folded all forms of human experience in his dhola poetry.
Mian Raja died on Oct 11, 1942.
Azhar Virk has collected
dholas of Raja on Sassi-Punnu and those pieces are 15 in number. The rest
are on religious themes, devotion, Heer-Ranjha, Karbala, a dhola addressed
to a contemporary poet living on the right bank of river Chenab Mian
Ghulam Muhammad Khaman, dholas of spinning wheel and dholas of Allah.
Mian Raja belonged to the
family of Mujawars of the tomb of Naun Lakh Hazari, a very senior saint
whose mausoleum, the mother of Baba Nanak had visited with the devotion.
She offered prayer for children. When the colonization of Sandal Bar and
other Bars started, his family was given a vast tract of land in
Faisalabad district and Raja also settled in a newly populated Chak No
211-RB in Jaranwala tehsil which was also known as Chak Mujawaran… that
is how the family of Raja was known.
In Nankana and some areas
of the Sandal Bar Noori Kamboka was a dhola writer whose main themes were
political events, feuds between different groups of tribes and love while
Raja devoted his energies to religious themes and folk tales through which
he expressed his mystic views. Love, sorrows and the tragic end are his
favourite subjects.
KULIYAAT HAFIZ RAHEEM
BUKHSH GUJJAR edited and translated into Urdu prose by Dr Amjad Ali Bhatti;
pp 271; The publisher Al-Mir Trust Library distributes its publications
free of cost; Publishers Al-Mir Trust Library, Bhimbar Road, Gujrat. AFIZ Raheem Bukhsh was H
born in 1853 in a village Ma’roof located on GujratJalapur Road in a
learned family. He was born blind and received traditional education and
imparted education to students of his area. He was a respected scholar and
poet of four languages Arabic, Persian, Punjabi and Urdu. His poetry was
usually calligraphed by his students but major portion of his poetry was
lost.
An example has been quoted
by his great grandson Iftikhar Ahmad Chaudhry that when he was studying at
the Zamindar College his two respected teachers came to him through a
friend, Aasi Rizvi, who borrowed some rare books from the library of his
great grand father never to be returned. One of them Prof Ahmad Hasan is
dead now while the other Ahmad Husain Qiladari is still alive.
That is how many
manuscripts of Raheem Bukhsh were also lost. Iftikhar is the first person
among the children of Raheem Bukhsh who with the cooperation of Arif Ali
Mir has brought this collection of Punjabi poetry under print.
Raheem Bukhsh is a poet of
traditional style with themes related to love and mysticism. He excels in
the genre of Si-harfi plus Baranmah, satwara and Charkhanama. Raheem
Bukhsh was the senior contemporary to Muhammad Boota Gujrati, Maulvi Nek
Alam, Ahmad Yaar Maralvi, Pir Nek Alam and Imam Shah.
Raheem Bukhsh died in 1938
and the language he used is the traditional Lehnda as used by all the
great mystic poets of Punjabi from Baba Farid to Khwaja Farid. The
following lines of Si-harfi prove that point beyond any doubt.
HE lines are about the time T when one passes the phase of death and he stands accountable for his worldly good or bad deeds. There are two forms of future tense which are as old as the language is. The other side of the matter is that former district of Gujrat consisted of areas where three different dialects central Punjabi, Lehnda and Potohari or Pahari are spoken. The difference erupted much later when the prose writing was initiated by the writers from the central Punjab. In poetry they used the same two forms of future tenses and original vocabulary but not in prose. Anyhow the classical literature of Punjabi is a great proof of the fact that in Punjab there is only one language and rest are its regional dialects. — STM
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