‘It reveals my secrets, however much I conceal in privacyPoetry speaks with true accuracy’– Shayiri Sach Bolti HeIn the rank of progressive poets, Qateel Shifai – born a hundred years ago this week in Haripur in what was then the North West Frontier Province of India and is now Khyber Pakhtunkhuva in Pakistan – belonged to a group which was romantic by temperament yet was drawn to the movement because of the demands of society. With Qateel, one finds the healthy romance of Punjab. His poems, which are about romantic emotions or present some form of the life of a woman, determine his individuality. His poetry is light and his temperament seems to be in accordance with songs. Though he also explicitly wrote songs – one collection of his songs was published as Haryali (Greenery) – a song-like air dominated his poems and ghazals too. Like Majaz and Sahir, with him too there is no ambition to go beyond the destination of the prime of youth, therefore his circle of thought is limited. Though he did write poems on political and national issues, he remained attached, after much wandering, to the mutriba (songstress), the tavaif (courtesan) and the adaakara (actress). So much so that,‘Nobody is satisfiedHe is either angry or petrifiedPretty much like an unfaithful wifeIs it some prostitute, or indeed life?’ (Zindagi Ya Tavaif)Sometimes he tried to escape from the atmosphere of songs in his ghazals. The beauty of such ghazals cannot be denied.‘Where have the lovers from your party goneWhat became of those stories you had made your ownHad those who left the temple and mosque not found the barWould the rejected folks have gone very far?All is well that we put our madness to good useOtherwise would its comprehension have needed a ruse?’ ______________________________________________‘The lips and cheeks are now the beneficiaries of respectEven the freaks have reached my standard, I detectPerhaps now the secret of your love will be revealedTo such courage of disclosure have the people of heart reachedThere you are, concealing yourself like some godHere we are, having reached the edge of the scaffold’Among Qateel’s romantic poems, Harjai (Harlot), Khandar (Ruins), Pesh Goyi (Prediction), Raaste ka Phool (The Flower on the Road), Album, Baanjh (Barren Woman), Aaine ke Saamne (Before the Mirror); and among other types of poems, Tajdid (Renewal), Mashvara (Advice), Behlaave (Amusements) and Mera Qalam (My Pen) could be said to be his representative works.Having struggled to make ends meet after the early death of his father and the consequent disruption of his education, Qateel was an entirely self-made poet. He began by operating his own sports goods business, shifting to working for a transport company, before arriving in Lahore in the mid-1940s to try his luck. He formed a lasting friendship there with Ibne Insha, Arif Abdul Mateen, Sahir Ludhianvi, A. Hameed, Fikr Taunsvi and Ahmed Rahi. In those days, his love affair with a Hindu woman, Chander Kanta, was a scandal. She had not left for India after the Partition and lived in the same Royal Park building in which Qateel had shifted to with Rahi, Sahir, Hameed, Taunsvi and Mateen. Saadat Hasan Manto even wrote his short-story Mochna (Tweezer) on Chandra Kanta.In Lahore, Qateel initially found work as the assistant editor of the monthly Adab-e-Latif (whose longtime editor Siddiqa Begum passed away earlier this month), then began to edit the film weekly Adaakar (Actor). In those days, he was a handsome young man with thick black hair and a red and white complexion, full of life and poetic competence. Apart from love and romance, his poems and ghazals had a full consciousness of issues created by class contradictions.‘Should life play with the wind or remove hungerIf the belly is not full, is fidelity worth it any longerWhat with the instruction to clothe a naked body, pleaseWithout breath, what use is the wave of the breeze?’His ghazal was the new voice of that era. He used to recite shining, tinkling and melodious verses (and continued to do so over his long life), said what was clear and honest, and was the life of the party because of his repartees. He dominated the world of ghazal in those days along with Abdul Hameed Adam. He was one of those poets who could steal a mushaira.Qateel’s poem Chakle (Brothels) from his 1964 Adamjee Literary Award-winning collection Mutriba is lesser known than his comrade Sahir Ludhianvi’s 1949 poem of the same name, but in my humble opinion, the former preserves its devastating effect by being descriptive rather than prescriptive, which is how Sahir chooses to end his poem, thereby marring some of its beauty.‘Till late in the night, wounded songs here proclaimThis world belongs to the stone-hearted, no human can it claimFor the disgrace of the honourable, this is the biggest bazaarFaith is sold here, along with the trade in honourShould one beg indeed, even love one cannot haveBut unasked one can get here provisions of disgraceWhen the rich in the middle of songs, see the bodies danceOften their every tune dissolves on a bed replete with fragranceWhen the lips of a mother’s love are sealed with silver stampsHere mothers themselves offer up their daughters as vampsThe blood of one’s own blood goes forth to bid a higher priceWho put a hand over whom, can one really recogniseIn this temple of sin, this daughter of Ram is really put to the testWhen the gods of gold arrive in the waning sun to restTill late in the night does the dusky damsel wakeShe will be called disobedient if she refuses the thieving black rakesThe shimmering dresses may indeed let off an odour so intenseNot surprisingly the party here is made fragrant by the burning of incense’In the preface to this collection, as if to anticipate his progressive critics, Qateel wrote:“I also know that until a new economic system does not arrive, bodies will continue to be sold within the cover of songs. Despite this, I am presenting my poems; not with the purpose of reform of society, but as good literature.”Qateel was one poet who successively held his own in the domains of both poetry and film lyrics, in a crowded field boasting of the likes of Rashid, Faiz, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi, Sahir and Ahmad Faraz. Unlike many other poets who compromised their poetic qualities and sensibilities after entering the film world, Qateel reigned supreme in both forms without losing his grip on either. He is also only the third poet after Sahir and Majrooh to have introduced progressive themes very successively in his film work. But why is it that just 18 years after his death, he has been ignored by both the literary and the film worlds in the subcontinent? Surely a poet of Qateel’s stature deserves more in his centennial year? Granted that 2019 marked the centennials of many other illustrious contemporaries of Qateel like Kaifi, Amrita Pritam, Zaheer Kashmiri, Majrooh and Muhammad Hasan Askari, but dare I say that Qateel’s popularity outlasted all of these grandees because he did not write for, or appeal, to an exclusive lobby. Maybe it’s time that our so-called literary festivals and arts lobbies should heed what Qateel himself said in a different context: ‘Though myself I maybe, but my art is no prisonerMy pen is not the conscience of any executioner’Note: All the translations from Urdu are the writer’s own.Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently based in Lahore, where he is also the President of the Progressive Writers Association. He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com.
