A valued book on Jauhar Nizami and two readable verse collections
By Syed Afsar Sajid
1. ‘Raja Abdul Ghafoor Jauhar Nizami Mustanad Ahl-e Qalam ki Nazar meiN’
Compiled by Raja Ghulam Asghar Tahir
2. ‘Fusoon-e-Chashm’ by Safdar Hassan Safdar
3. ‘Hawa ka Samundar’ by Farrukh Raja
Raja Abdul Ghafoor Jauhar Nizami aka Mumtaz-al-Sho’ara (1909-96) was a renowned
poet, intellectual, and educationist from Jauharabad. Raja Ghulam Asghar Tahir has
compiled a prized book showcasing the opinions of a large fraternity of distinguished
men of letters, on the former’s person and art. The other two publications (verse
collections), as mentioned in the caption, have been authored by late Jauhar NIzami’s
promising progeny Safdar Hassan Safdar and Farrukh Raja.
‘Raja Abdul Ghafoor Jauhar Nizami Mustanad Ahl-e-Qalam ki Nazar mein’
The book comprises introductory forewords by Dr. Syeda Misbah Rizvi, Dr. Muhammad
Nawaz Kanwal, and the compiler Raja Ghulam Asghar Tahir. Part I enfolds views on the
biography and creativity of Jauhar Nizami, of literary celebrities and scholars like Justice
S. A. Rahman, Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, Qaiser Barhvi, Dr. Syed Abdullah, Akhgar Sarhadi,
Syed Fakhruddin Balley, Arif Abdul Mateen, Syed Zameer Jafri, Prof. Muhammad Hayat
Sial, Dr. Wazir Agha, Shakeeb Jalali, Ghulam Rasool Azhar, Dr. Anwar Sadeed, Ghulam
Jilani Asghar, Syed Abdul Hamid Adam, Anjum Niazi, Sher Afzal Jafri, Nisar Turabi,
Sultan Rashk, Dr. Haroon Rashid Tabassum, Arshad Meer, Dr. Badar Munir, Zulfiqar
Ahsan, Hatim Bhatti, Ali Akhtar, Mahmood Ahmad Qazi and others.
It is followed by opinions of Jauhar Nizami’s illustrious sons Hassan Akhtar Jalil,
Muzaffar Hassan Mansoor, Safdar Hassan Safdar, Farrukh Raja and Raja Hassan Raza in
regard to their father’s filial treatment of his children and his artistry as a poet. This Part
concludes with a couple of interviews of Jauhar Nizami by Bedar Sarmadi and Naveed
Shibli for Urdu dailies ‘Nawa-i-Waqt’ and ‘Awam’ respectively.
In Part II, the compiler has reproduced letters of condolence on the passing of Jauhar
NIzami from, among others, Mufti Muhammad Tufail Goendi, Ghulam Jilani Asghar, Fazal
Ilahi Tiwana, Bedil Panipati, Muhammad Anis Ansari, Hikmat Adeeb, Ahmad Nadeem
Qasmi, and Irshad Hussain Naqvi, along with his own brief resume.
The picture that emerges of late Jauhar Nizami from the eulogia attributed to him in the
two parts of the book, is that of a gentle, learned, self-made person who by virtue of his
perseverance and innate qualities of head and heart, gradually groomed himself into an
accomplished poet of ghazal and a devout marsiya-nigar.
‘Fusoon-e-Chashm’ (The Lure of the Eyes)
Safdar Hassan Safdar aka Raja Safdar Hassan is a former bureaucrat and a scion of an
illustrious literary family headed by his late father Jauhar Nizami. The book in hand is his
maiden collection of verse containing ghazal, nazm, qat’a and ruba’i.
Noted scholar and educationist Dr. Ziaul Hassan has contributed a thought-provoking foreword to the book alongside a concise but equally moving flap by the renowned litterateur Ataul Haq Qasmi. It would be amazing for the reader to know that Safdar Hassan despite his rich literary credentials, was a late starter as a versifier. It was only within a year of his retirement from service in the year 2009 that he chose to compose verse, and that too quality verse.
The collection comprises his poetry, hitherto unpublished, written over a period of four
years. Its contents relate to love and its charm, pangs of separation, triumph of reunion,
pain and pleasure, inattention of friends, portrayal of nature, social disequilibrium,
concentration of wealth, injustice, deprivation, personal observations and experiential
impressions.
Simple diction, familiar metrical constructions, and a non-abstract imagery characterise the formal features of the work. To use an apt but pertinent metaphysical phrase, the poet here seems to ‘think’ his feelings and ‘feel’ his thoughts which would also explain Dr. Ziaul Hassan’s complimentary remarks about the poet’s advanced nay ripe productive age.
‘Hawa ka Samundar’ (A Windy Ocean)
The book is an anthology of nazm by Farrukh Raja, a younger son of the veteran poet
Jauhar Nizami. Its rear flap contains positive critical opinions of noted poets Iftikhar Arif
and Aftab Iqbal Shamim, on the poetic skills of the writer. Prof. Dr. Ehsan Akbar’s preface
tends to signify the artistic virtues of Farrukh’s nazm which reflects his thoughts,
feelings, observations, and experiences in an even metrical continuity, in a simple style,
on topics like self-explanation, detachment, the strain of ‘being’, inertia, revelation,
exigency of instants, and withdrawal.
A poet, as a poet, is not one who deals in statements, arguments, proofs, teachings or
persuasions; he shows or reveals. None the less the matter of thought may be his
subject. Argument may produce a sort of fire, an illumination from which truth emerges
as a vision rather than an intellectual concept. This is what a genuine modernistic poem
would seek to unravel; the phenomenon is artistically amplified in Farrukh Raja’s poems
— a lament of what ‘is’ and a morose yearning for what ‘ought to be’.
