Baba Guru Nanak, the great seer of Punjab, glorifies the word thus: “Dhann so kaagad, kalam dhann, dhann bhanda, dhann mass/ Dhann likhari Nanaka, jin naam likhaya sach (praised be the paper/praised be the pen/praised be inkpot/praised be the ink/ praised be the writer whose words name the truth).

The seer, born in the ancient town of Rai Bhoe ki Talwandi, now called Nankana Sahab, close to Sheikhupura, saw the authentic word as real embodiment of truth. A few centuries later another man, Waris Shah, the poet, following in his footsteps expressed his belief in the magic of the word that enabled him to recompose a legend and immortalised it. Baba Guru Nanak and Waris Shah both were the residents of the most celebrated Sandal Bar, a very large forested swathe between the rivers Ravi and Chenab that starts from Shekhupura and goes down to Jhang /Shorkot. The Guru talks of spring and buzzing bumble bees in the Bar in his sacred verses. Waris Shah likens a bevy of young women that includes her heroine, to a flock of dears in flight in Sandal Bar. His inimitable predecessor Damodar Das Gulati who lived at the other end of the Sandal Bar, says: when Heer moves, people feel as if they are face to face with a dreaded white lion that roams the forest.

We cannot conceive the modern history of Punjab without these highly civilised sons of Sandal Bar whose residents in later times were declared “Jaangli (people of the jungle)” in derision by settlers and migrants after the occupation and colonisation of Punjab by the British. “Jaanglis” can highly be proud of larger than life individuals they have produced such as Baba Guru Nanak, Heer, Mirza, Sahiban, Damodar Das, Dullah Bhatti, Sultan Bahu, Nijabat (who exposed in his epic the Nadir Shah’s invasion for what it was), Hafiz Bakhurdar, Siddiqe Lali and Bhagat Singh, to name a few.

How can a poet, who was born and brought up in Nankana Sahib, possibly write good poetry without being inspired by the great literary tradition nurtured by the poets and writers of the Sandal Bar.

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Rai Mohammad Khan Nasir, a remarkable poet, is heir to the cultural assets produced over centuries in the culturally rich area of midlevel and modern Punjab. By imbibing cultural ethos of the Bar, he has assimilated the culture of Punjab which is reflected in his poetry and personality.

Being scion of a well-known landed family of Nankana Sahab, he got the opportunity to spend some of his early years at an elite educational institution, the Atchison College; known for producing some of the most ignoramus snobs and obnoxious panjandrums. He left the college half way due to his early marriage and went back where he belonged. Surprisingly Rai Nasir not only remains unaffected by the elitist ethos, but in fact represents the opposite of it; the people’s culture. He is humane and modest to the extent that he is indistinguishable from common folks. And that is not something unusual. All the great poets of our land have lived among ordinary mortals and created ethereality from mundaneity.

His is a music loving family. So he was exposed early in his life to the magic of performing arts. His father and uncles were very well known to Bade Ghulam Ali khan Sahib, the sweetest giant of classical music, and had the privilege to arrange his concerts at Nankana Sahab. They also regularly invited inimitable Zahida Parveen to their place for musical soirees. Rai Nasir loves music and films but what haunts him more is the word and the mystery it is emblem of. He started composing poetry as a young man in Punjabi and Urdu. But with the start of 21st century he gave up writing in Urdu and focused on writing in Punjabi, his mother language over which he has far greater mastery.

There is nothing surprising about this choice too. Punjabi is his natural language and secondly, he realises the politico-cultural significance of its use. And this is something he inherited. One of his elder, Rai Mansab, was among a few Punjabi politicians who espoused the cause of Punjabi language and supported the movement initiated by writers and intellectuals for the restoration of linguistic and cultural rights of the people of Punjab in 1960s.

Rai Nasir so far has published just one book of poetry, “Hirakh”(sorrow/indignation) which with the quality its verses catapulted him to a very prominent place among the contemporary poets.

Existential angst and anguish in the framework of humanism with mystical underpinnings constitute one of the most visible themes in his poetry. He is versatile. He can write in most of the genres, traditional and modern, with equal facility. Maturity of feelings coupled with poetic insight creates in his poetry an aura of immediacy and thoughtfulness. A fine blend of emotional and cerebral elements is crucial component of his creative expression that makes his poetry highly enjoyable and thus popular. He loves poetry recital and is invariably invited to all the important “Mushairas” (poetry recitals). But fortunately that doesn’t dilute the quality of what he recites which is a no mean feat because obsession with reciting poetry in public usually makes the poets play to the gallery that results in deterioration of quality. When you recite your poetry in public, you have to pander to the lowest common denominator. What is fascinatingly refreshing about Rai Nasir’s poetry is the use of the language; it’s chaste as well as innovative.

A short poem may give you some clue as to the kind of poet he is.

“The northerly wind continued pestering me all the night: for how long my lullaby and your sleep have been on the warpath? / Why do you sit here all alone in this desolate courtyard? /for how many centuries you have sated your appetite for sleep”? — soofi01@hotmail.com