Literary Notes: Mirza Mahmood Sarhadi: dissent concealed under humour.

Byline: Rauf Parekh

MIRZA Mahmood Sarhadi was a poet of Urdu and known for his satirical and humorous verses. As he was considered a dissident voice, he had to suffer a lot.

He was a government employee and during the days of Ayub's martial law he composed some satirical poetry which was frowned upon and he had to quit his job. As a result, Sarhadi had to struggle to earn a square meal and did some odd jobs. But he was to blame himself partially for his plight as sometimes his satire was coarse and direct, lacking the subtlety that allows such dissident voices to disagree with the all-powerful establishment and yet survive.

Sarhadi was much inspired by Akbar Allahabadi, one of the foremost humorists and satirists of Urdu. In fact, he is often dubbed as the 'Akbar of Sarhad', or the Akbar Allahabadi of the Frontier province (now called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). But he lacked the characteristic that had made Akbar Allahabadi a poet who skilfully criticised the British establishment that ruled India in those days and yet survived: subtlety, cheerfulness and double entendre.

Sarhadi's satire is occasionally cynical and too direct, exasperating the powers that mattered. But at times his wit shines and he beautifully and succinctly sums up a social or political issue in a few lines that make you smile as well. Though he composed ghazals and nazms (poems) too, his art was at peak when he wrote qit'a, a brief poem which can have a minimum of four lines. And these four lines prove to be quite enough a space for Sarhadi to make his point and show you the other side of the coin, often quite wittily.

Sarhadi comments on the burning issues of his days, most of which remain unchanged even today, in a lighter vein but gives some food for thought as well. For example, on Kashmir issue he says in his qit'a titled 'Kashmir' that there has been much injustice in Kashmir and we ponder over what we can do about it. What we can do, he suggests, is to curse and protest together. Sound familiar? But do not blame Sarhadi for his telling something that is as true today as it was decades ago. From curse, protest and rhetoric, we have not moved an inch during all these years.

The moon-sighting has always been an issue in our country and especially the decision on the appearance of Ramazan moon or Eid moon is almost always a problematic affair. Back in the days of Sarhadi, too, say in the 1950s and 1960s, it was a bone of contention. On a few occasions, the government...