Poems of an Exile

[vc_row full_width=”” par­al­lax=”” parallax_image=“”][vc_column width=“1/1”][vc_column_text]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”” par­al­lax=”” parallax_image=“”][vc_column width=“3/4”][vc_column_text]Hasan Mujta­ba is a Pak­istani jour­nal­ist and poet liv­ing in self-exile in the US since 1999. His Urdu poet­ry col­lec­tion “Koel Shehr Ki Katha” (The Tale of a Cuck­oo City) is more of a trea­tise on his expe­ri­ence of exile and pangs of sep­a­ra­tion that he felt for his native land.

Like Kash­miri poet Agha Shahid Ali who saw Cal­cut­ta in Ohio as described in his poem “When on Route 80 in Ohio,” Hasan Mujta­ba also has sim­i­lar feel­ings as he writes in his poem “Alan Gins­berg Kay Naam” when Avenue Fifth takes him to the streets of Sehwan Sharif and Riv­er Hud­son appears the Riv­er Indus.

In the same poem, he talks of the cause of his exile with ref­er­ence to the pow­ers that be in Pakistan:[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=“40px”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner el_class=”” width=“1/6”]
[/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=“2/3” css=”.vc_custom_1447242886419{background-color: #d6d6d6 !important;}”][vc_column_text]“O my moth­er­land
When­ev­er I sing of sep­a­ra­tion from you
I get myself back
But they talk to me through bul­lets
They don’t read the writ­ing on the wall
That a don­key piss­es on the gen­er­als’ uni­form.”

(Trans­la­tion by the author)

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner el_class=”” width=“1/6”]
[/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=“1/4”][vc_single_image image=“13521” border_color=“grey” img_link_large=”” img_link_target=“_self” img_size=“160x260” alignment=“right” css_animation=“right-to-left”][vc_column_text css_animation=“right-to-left”]

Title:
Koel Shehr Ki Katha

Author:
Hasan Mujta­ba

Pub­lish­er:
San­jh Pub­li­ca­tions

Pages: 160

Price: 360PKR

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”” par­al­lax=”” parallax_image=“”][vc_column width=“3/4”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner el_class=”” width=“1/1”][vc_column_text]Talking about his exile, Hasan in one of his inter­views says: “Pull and push fac­tors between my coun­try which I left behind and the new coun­try where I arrived would real­ly play buzkushi with me. It ripped me off every day and pieced me togeth­er in my dreams every night. That is why most of the poet­ry I wrote here revolves around exile. I think any poet and writer who has to say some­thing which puts him into real hot waters must have a coun­try of exile.”

Hasan, who spent most of his life in Sindh and work­ing as a jour­nal­ist in Karachi when he left, says at anoth­er place, “I have made my own kind of Sindh in Amer­i­ca: Sindh in exile.

“I return every sec­ond or third night in my dreams in my sleep. I have made Amer­i­ca my home but Sindh exists some­where else. I want to return one day like Gabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez returns in his ‘Clan­des­tine in Chile’. Or, only after my death, in the form of my ash­es to be scat­tered onto Sind­hu, the riv­er Indus.”

In a poem on his friend Zafaryab Ahmed, Hasan Mujta­ba defines exile con­sid­er­ing it more of a tor­ture than relief which ren­ders one dream­less. He calls it a word of abuse, the poet’s beloved, step­sis­ter of sui­cide, nation­al anthem and old news­pa­per clip­ping.

His poems “Ik Koel Shehr Ki Katha” and “Ba Naam-i-Darya” has themes of his native coun­try. While the first poem shows how the socio-polit­i­cal con­di­tions in his home­land have gone from bad to worse, the sec­ond one presents the Riv­er Indus, the erst­while life source which has turned poi­so­nous.

In the whole col­lec­tion, there are ref­er­ences to Hyder­abad, Sindh, Jamshoro, Attock, Jhelum, Sehwan, Bham­bore, Jhang, Jhelum, Sheikh Ayaz, Bhatai, Waris Shah, Amri­ta Pri­tam, Sul­tan Bahu and many oth­er poets of the land of Pak­istan which man­i­fest the con­nec­tion that Hasan felt with the land of its peo­ple.

Hasan has tak­en on the themes of ter­ror­ism, army as well as dic­ta­tor­ship in his poem on Ahmed Faraz, “Tareekh Ki Khooni Gali,” Khu­da Kay Naam Par”, “Tum Kit­nay Bhut­to Maro Gay,” “Decem­ber 16”, and “Ziaul Haq 99”. In the last poem he also takes on writ­ers and jour­nal­ists as he says, “Mal­i­ha Lod­hi, Azhar Lod­hi, Najam Sethi Aur Akbar S Ahmed / Teri Sarkar Mein Pahun­chay to Sab­hi Aik Huay” while refer­ring to fatal nexus of jour­nal­ists and dic­ta­tor­ship. Of the above­men­tioned poems, two of them are obit­u­ar­ies on Ahmed Faraz and Benazir Bhut­to. There is a poem on miss­ing per­sons also as many of the nation­al­ists went miss­ing in Balochis­tan and Sindh dur­ing the last one decade.

One of the best poems in the book is the sole Pun­jabi poem that Hasan Mujta­ba wrote on the sale of the Amri­ta Pri­tam and Imroz’ house “K‑25, Hauz Khas” in New Del­hi for build­ing a plaza there. The poem titled, “A Poem on the Sale of Amri­ta Pritam’s House” is a dirge on the unhin­dered com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and cap­i­tal­ism which has devoured every­thing that’s worth sav­ing.

What can be shock­ing for Urdu poet­ry read­ers is the use of cuss words that many poems car­ry like in the poem ded­i­cat­ed to his fried Zafaryab and in oth­er poems like “Janay Walay Dost Kay Naam” and “Decem­ber 16”. There is hyper­tex­tu­al­i­ty where Hasan refers to oth­er poets and their lines.

The col­lec­tion is a treat for the poet­ry read­ers as the poems are not dilut­ed by the tra­di­tion­al tech­niques and themes that we find in most of the con­tem­po­rary Urdu poets and many of them are like con­fes­sion­al poet­ry of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sex­ton and Robert Low­ell. One such poem is “Yousif Naam Ka Lar­ka” which also hints on the sex­u­al pro­cliv­i­ties of the poet.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=“1/4”][vc_empty_space height=“300px”][vc_column_text css_animation=“right-to-left”]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]