Damodar Das Gulati was the first to compose the legend of Heer in the Punjabi language though it had already become a popular tale. Relying on internal evidence, literary historians generally agree that Damodar wrote it in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. That the story was embedded in the mass psyche can be gauged from the fact that defiant poet and mystic Shah Hussain, contemporary of Emperor Akbar, used characters and events from the tale as metaphors and symbols in the lyrical genre called “Kafi” that he himself created. “The Kafi” became hugely popular and was later adopted by almost all the spiritually inclined poets in the Punjab. Damodar lived and wrote the tale in Jhang, the birthplace of his great heroine. Sadly his tale gathered dust for centuries somewhere in an unknown umbra-filled cellar till its two scripts were discovered by Bawa Ganga Singh Bedi in 1927. It was an invaluable gift, a serendipitous find of the century that not just transformed the traditional view of the history of the tale but also catapulted a little known figure from the forests of Sandal Barto to the stage that was the exclusive preserve of the greats of the Punjab.
Creative genius of Damodar remains largely unappreciated and undervalued although the characters especially the leading protagonists he created are still highly relevant in the never-ending struggle for human emancipation which has uncertain origins and equally uncertain future. Scores of poets after him tried their hand at the tale including great Waris Shah [whose narrative is the most popular] but no one has been able to alter the symbolic meaning and significance Damodar imparted to the characters. They have only built on what he erected with his matchless vision and imagination. His heroine has come to stand for eternal defiance against patriarchy and a sublime symbol of undying human love. Highly complex human predicament finds expression in a perplexing denouement when Heer, captured along with her partner Ranjha, is presented in the court for flouting the established norms. Advocating her case she declares ironically in a philosophic tone in response to the order of the judge to produce witnesses in her favour: “Listen to our petition judge, unutterable this tale to recite/ stone tablets, empyrean throne, no canopy in sight/ space, time, moon nor sun, light in a body of light/ if anyone was from then, as witness I’d invite”.
Muzaffar Ghaffaar’s translations of Heer Damodar have been published by Ferozsons, Lahore, in four volumes. The publication, part of the “Within Reach series of Masterworks of Punjabi Sufi Poetry”, in the words of publisher “is an attempt to bring the outstanding works of major Punjabi Sufi poets to an English reading public”. The book has an interesting format as it has original text in “Nastaliq, Gurmukhi and Roman” along with “extensive glossary, poetic translation and line by line discourse”. One can imagine the sheer hard work that must have gone into it. Muzaffar Ghaffaar is a poet, scholar, translator and cultural activist with a lot of oomph. He has translated a number of classical poets into English. Heer Damodar is a voluminous book comprising more than 900 stanzas. But one can surely contest the notion of Heer Damodar as being a Sufi corpus. The tale is a chronicle of our mundane world treated in such a creatively materialist manner by Damodar that it reveals all the sublime mundanity and mundane sublimity of our strife-ridden earthly life.
The book can be a real help to students, lay readers, even scholars interested in discovering the richness of much neglected classical Punjabi poetry. And this is precisely the declared aim of the series. The author gives us a researched account of the poet’s times but he is wide off the mark when he attempts a literary evaluation. His assertion that “in terms of vocabulary and diction Damodar’s Heer is close to the works of Qadar Yar, a substantial and significant bard of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” is not only inapt but also misleading.
In terms of vocabulary and diction Damodar is a unique poet in our history. He was perhaps the first to discover the rich nuances and rhetorical power of Lahndi dialect for the expression of his universal vision of man-woman relationship in a concrete cultural context. He is poles apart from Qadar Yar who by no means is a bad poet but Damodar is a far greater poet. Only those who are incapable of understanding the complexity of Damodar’s linguistic constructions and range of vocabulary can dare to compare him with Qadar Yar. So moral of the story: a translator should desist from assuming the role of a literary critic. Muzaffar Ghaffar is a fine translator who works meticulously. His command over English language is flawless. His “rhymed and metered translation” is impressive. But one hopes he is not averse to prose translation of the Punjabi classics as it creates for a translator a bigger space to communicate a literary text conditioned by specific cultural context. Muzaffar Ghaffaar’s Heer Damodar is an important literary event. The book must be on your reading table if you in any way are interested in poetry. — soofi01@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2017