By Kazy Javed

Date:25-09-05

Source: The News

Sharif Kunjahi is probably the oldest member of our literati who is going to turn 90 in the second week of October. Born on October 13, 1915 at Kunjah, a small historic town in the neighborhood of Gujrat, he is mostly known as a Punjabi language poet. But he also poeticizes in two other languages, Urdu and Persian and his collections of poetry in these languages have been published. In fact, he won his early spurs for his Urdu poetry. It was his poem titled Paspai written in 1940 that introduced him to a wider circle of readers and won him a number of admirers. The poem was published in the Preet Ladi, a weekly literary magazine published by Opindarnath Ashk. Meeraji, a critic of high standing, picked the poem and included it in his selection of the best poems of 1941. Firaq Gorakhpuri too was impressed by the poem and praised it in his article on the topic of new poetry which appeared in the journal Humayun.

Dr. Shaheen Mufti once asked Sharif Kunjahi in which of the three languages that he used for his poetic expression, he felt more comfortable? His answer was simple and clear. "It goes without saying that one always feels at one's best in one's mother tongue. The same is the case with me. I have composed some of my poems in Urdu and Persian in addition to Punjabi. But I feel the Punjabi version is usually the best."

More than 65 years have gone by since he wrote his maiden poem in Punjabi language. It was titled Vun da boota. Those were the days when Amrita Preetam, Mohan Singh Deewana and Ahmad Rahi, three of his eminent contemporaries, had yet to turn to poetry. However, his first collection of Punjabi poetry, Jigrattey, could not be published before 1958 because of the socio-political conditions of the early years of Pakistan which were not favourable to Punjabi writings. Consequently, its first edition was brought out in India in Gurmukhi script. Its Pakistani edition had to wait for another seven years.

Sharif Kunjahi is not a prolific poet. He has published only two collections of Punjabi verse during the seven long decades of poeticizing. Orak hondi Loo, his second book of verse, saw the light in 1994.

But he is a prolific translator. He has rendered into Punjabi or Urdu some very important books.
His translation of the Holy Quran in Punjabi verse was published in 1997. Earlier, he translated Allama Iqbal's lectures on the Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam in 1997. Iqbal's Javeednam and Gulshan-e-Raz-e-Jadeed were also translated by him into Punjabi. The list of books translated by him into Punjabi or Urdu also includes Shabstri's volume of Persian mystic poetry Gulshan-e-Raz, Heer Waris Shah, and Milanda's Swalat.

I have met Sharif Kunjabi many times. Some of these meetings took place at the Punjabi Adabi Board. Once, remembering the days of his enthusiastic association with the Progressive Writers' Movement, he said that the young writers of that time were instinctively drawn to the movement. "I was one of them", he said and added. "Will you believe that I still sometimes feel passionate attachment to the basic ideas advanced by the movement!"

He also counted Niaz Fatehpuri and Bertrand Russell among those writers from whom he had learnt many things.
Some literary organizations of Lahore and Gujrat are planning to celebrate Sharif Kunjahi's 90th birth anniversary in October.