Sachal Sarmast as we all know is one of the great poets who is equally popular across Sindh and Punjab. He was a polyglot and composed poetry of unusual intensity in several languages including Sindhi, Persian and Saraiki/Punjabi. He was born in 1737 at the village of Daraza Sharif in the princely state of Khairpur, now part of Sindh province. His was an influential religious family with connections with the rulers of the area. He apparently had Arab lineage which in no way was a hurdle in his organic relationship with the people and soil he was a part of. It’s pleasantly surprising that despite a long distance between Kasur and Daraza Sharif, he was well-acquainted with the poetry of Baba Bulleh Shah. One can also assert that he was greatly inspired by the vision and poetry of life of Bulleh Shah. Consequently he was nearly as iconoclastic as the latter at least in his poetic expression.

In one of his Kafis paying tribute to Bulleh Shah he says: Bulleh Shah ku Beragi kitoie jinhan da sheher Kasur [You [beloved] made the renunciation fate of Bulleh Shah whose home city was Kasur]’. We come across a score of Sachal’s verses [lyrics] which are directly inspired by Bulleh Shah. One such Kafi which follows reminds us of Bulleh Shah’s celebrated composition ‘Bullha, ki jaana maen kaun [Bullha, how do I know who am I]’. ‘My thoughts are not to eminence inclined nor I ask to be the master/neither then the prelates, elders we became, nor then my name’s Astrologer / Neither Indian, Sindhi, Arab, nor to being a Negro or Turk aver/Sachal nowhere is anyone present, within nothing we occur [Trans by Muzaffar Ghaffaar]’. His non-conformist mind challenges the given and doubts the sacred handed down by the tradition thought to be sacrosanct. His vision of unity of being [Wahdatul Wajud] at times negates the traditional notion of good and evil or blurs the strictly defined boundaries between the two. ‘Ranjhu Khera dohin maen haan, Heer rahi vanj kithay kithay / Beloved Raanjha, Khaera, both are I, Heer went and stayed where O where [Trans by Muzaffar Ghaffaar]’. Beloved Ranjha in the legend of Heer, the female protagonist, stands for good while Khera, the so-called husband of Heer, symbolises its opposite. To cut a long story short, one may justifiably claim that we have a dynamic tradition of shared mystical and spiritual experience that cuts across Punjab and Sindh in historical continuity. Such a continuity has been re-emphasised by Muzaffar Ghaffaar’s book ‘Sachal Sarmast, Within Reach series, published by Ferozsons, Lahore.

The book contains a selection of Sachal’s Kafis and verses rendered into English. The book follows the format developed by the translator for his series titled ‘Masterworks of Punjabi Sufi Poetry’. It contains the original ‘text in Nastaliq; Gurmukhi; Roman’ with ‘extensive glossary; poetic translation; line-by-line discourse’. It’s a valuable book that will be of great help for English reading lay persons and scholars who are interested in discovering the poetry of a unique mystic whose verses are philosophically provoking and emotionally challenging in a tradition-bound stagnant society. Muzaffar Ghaaffaar’s translation is poetic. Poetic translation has an uplifting quality as it uses idiom that’s close to literary tradition but it also has its down side; it may sound outdated, even anachronistic to some in contemporary times which have evolved new poetics. No doubt the translator has done a real hard work especially the glossary is very impressive. The book also provides us with the background of the mystic tradition in a historical perspective that has shaped our poetic tradition. His introductory note vividly portrays the historical times Sachal lived in which were not much different Bulleh Shah’s. This historical era was defined by weekend Mughal central authority, rise of suppressed local political forces and foreign invasions which created social strife, anarchy, economic disruption adding immensely to the people’s sufferings. ‘Twenty years before his birth the famous rebellion of Faqeers under Shaah Inaayat, who had refused to pay taxes to Delhi, was still talked about. Shaah Innaayat …chased away the Mughal presence and had introduced cooperative cultivation. An army had come from Delhi and killed 4,500 persons to reestablish control. Previously Ahmad Shah Abdali and Nadir Shah had come to Sindh’, writes Muzaffar Ghaffaar. The translator uses different text from what is generally available which implies it has been edited. Who edited it, we are not told. The editing of our classics is now the literary fray that offers a sad spectacle of a free-for-all; you can do anything with any text.

Let’s now savour a Dhora [a poetic structure comprising two to four lines]: ‘All this is strolling of the sea, neither any shore nor any dinghy / Into the waters of oneness, fling away this very entity / Cease the moment forget all else, all that bygone history / The future and past abandon, Sachal ask for frenzy’.

Samuel Beckett’s celebrated play ‘Waiting for Godot’ is, as is well-known, a modern classic which has come to stand as an ambiguous metaphor of modern man and society. Written in French some years after the WW11, Beckett treated it as a kind of distraction from what he thought was his serious major work. It was ‘a form of relaxation, to get away from the awful prose I was writing at that time’ he says as he considers himself a novelist. But once written and staged, it put him on international circuit and became a source of his lasting fame which simply proves that a writer is not the best judge of his own writings. The play has been open to multiple interpretations from diverse perspectives. It has existential, Marxist, Freudian and religious interpretations. Therein lies its magic. It’s generally believed that it powerfully depicts an absurd human situation where individual is alienated from society, waiting for future that’s an extension of the present and thus never ends the human agony. Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ recently translated into Punjabi by Shahid Shabbir has been published by Faizan Publications, Lahore. The translation is simple and maintains a conversational tone which apparently seems odd in our language because our playwrights employ heavy dose of bombastic dialogue and theatrical gestures that border on inane rhetoric. But simplicity of a writer like Beckett can be highly deceptive as it has concealed underpinnings of complex experience and profound thought. So creating an aura and ambiance which point to something deeper is a challenge for a translator. Shahid Shabbir‘s attempt is commendable and one hopes he will continue his practice aimed at enriching our language through rendering significant foreign writings into Punjabi. 

— soofi01@hotmail.com