The other day, Alhamra Arts Council Chairman Attaul Haq Qasmi invited Nawaz Sharif, ‘the most popular leader of the country’, as writes the chairman, to meet intellectuals, writers, artists (theatre and film) and singers of the city.

According to an account published in an Urdu daily, Shafqat Ali Khan recited a kafi of Bulleh Shah on which Nawaz Sharif appreciated the singer such a way which implied that he himself knew well classical ragas. It is said that he also has the knack for singing like his brother Shahbaz Sharif who publicly sings the poems of the late Habeeb Jalib. It is, however, not know if any of the brothers has ever tried to sing Bulleh Shah. One is not sure whether the younger brother knows Punjabi or not. During the talks, Nawaz Sharif told the audience that his father, Muhammad Sharif, used to talk to Shahbaz in Urdu. He would also talk to his wife (the mother of Nawaz and Shahbaz) in Urdu, who would in return always speak in Punjabi. It means Punjabi is the mother tongue of Nawaz and Shahbaz but they and their father did not speak Punjabi. If that is the case, Bulleh Shah is very far from Jaati Umra, Raiwind. Bullah is very clear and positive on this point and he says;

Why do you invent all kinds of stories? Why do you quote Gulistan and Bostan? Why do you quarrel without rhyme or reason? Who has taught you Vedas perversely?

Bulleh Shah refers to the stories vogue in the literature of other languages which fanned differences and disputes among the people. In his time, the language of Vedas and Gulistan-Bostan were perhaps the languages of the elite class and not of the common people, which in the poet’s views, created differences while the language Bulleh Shah was creating no problem. It was close to the people and created good mutual understanding. It looks as it was the case of Urdu and English of our times.

Bulleh Shah whose annual urs was observed in Kasur this week was a junior contemporary of Shah Latif Bhittai, of Sindh, and rich tributes were paid to the Punjabi poet by another Sindhi sufi poet Sachal Sarmast who said:

Bulleh koon bairaagi kiteo ee jinhan da shehar Kasur.

Bullah was born in village Pandoki near Lahore in a religious-minded Syed family. His father was the imam of a mosque. His forefathers had come from Uch Sharif which he once visited, and on his way he also visited Abdul Hakeem, a famous sufi. Bullah was in search of a Murshid or mentor. This is stated by another sufi poet, Khwaja Ghulam Farid, of Kot Mitthan, that Abdul Hakeem guided Bullah to go to Shah Inayat Qadri of Lahore (who was forcibly evicted or exiled from Kasur by Pathan rulers). Bulleh Shah met Shah Inayat as per the instruction of Abdul Hakeem. Inayat was an Araeen, which was considered much inferior to Syed. When Bulleh Shah accepted Inayat as his mentor, it created uproar in his family and the poet wrote verse about that incidence.

(To admonish Bullah, came his sisters and sisters-in-law. “Abide by our advice and leave the hem of the Araeen’s skirt. Why you have brought disgrace to the prophet and to the progeny of Ali” … let anyone who calls me a Syed be punished with the tortures of hell. And let him revel in the pleasures of heaven who label me an Araeen)

Prof Sajjad Sheikh says the relationship between Inayat and Bulleh Shah reminds us of the affection between Rumi and Tabrez or Khusro and Nizamuddin Aulia.

Bulleh Shah is the poet of international fame but the Punjab government and its cultural advisers have never bothered to be proud of our sufi poets like Baba Farid, Shah Hussain, Sultan Bahu, Bulleh Shah, Waris Shah, Khwaja Farid etc. Have you ever seen Nawaz or Shahbaz placing a chadar at the mazar of any of the above poets? In March, Shah Hussain’s urs in Lahore went unnoticed. In Ramazan, the urs of Sultan Bahu in Jhang could not attract any governmental functionary and the same treatment got the urs of Waris Shah in July in Sheikhupura. This is the Punjab government being governed by those who once had raised the slogan of ‘Jaag Punjabi jag, teri pug noon lag gia daag’.

In Punjabis mind one thing must be clear that if they cannot care for their mother tongue, the Sindhis, Baloch and Pukhtoons would never take them as the friend of their culture. And this must be noted that even Urdu-walas would never take them the well-wishers of Urdu regardless they may arrange dozens of Urdu conferences at Alhamra or anywhere in Punjab.

Recently, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif requested the Taliban to spare Punjab. There were Taliban in Bullah’s period also and about them he said:

You go to market and there you accept half a paisa and allow the butcher to slaughter the illegal animals. You have a great affinity and affection with butchers. Azazil (the former name of Satan) read a great deal (and became proud of his knowledge) that’s why whatever he got was burnt to ashes. Moreover he had to wear the yoke of everlasting condemnation around his neck. Ultimately he lost miserably.

Beware of your pride, ego and self-centered attitude. Time ultimately never spares those who are out to sell their mother, mother tongue, motherland and cultural values.