Seeking Saqi
That Agony of Seperation, the poisonous stab of time
Penetrated into being
And cut Saqi's masterpiece frame
~Dr. Amar Malmohi
3 months... The total time I got to share with him on this planet. While i was struggling with my senses and consciousness, shredding the newborn skin off my tiny fingers, the famous kashmiri poet was struggling with a strange pain while he worked on his kashmiri translation of the rajatarangini, possibily his magnum opus, the koshur rajatarangini. After working around with the last few taranagas, he put down his pen, didn’t knowing that it would be the last he’ll hold a pen.
Moti lal saqi was a writer, a poet, a researcher and an avid enthusiast of urdu ghazals. Born in Habba kadal, Srinagar to a policeman father, His ancestral home at Village Chadoora mahnoor near Budgam was no less than a library. Every wall had a small caving that would have volumes of books that the poet had collected and arranged from all around. I visited his son Virender razdan and found a glimpse of that library at his jammu home as well, for I could only imagine what the original grandeur could have been. Fellow poets, researchers, PhD students and literature enthusiasts would throng at his place to have discussions and talks with him, topics ranging from history, culture, architecture etc. His doors were never shut for anyone. He loved kashmir and its people. But as time goes by, it takes away what one loves. Many lost homes, land and jewels. Saqi lost his Kashmir.
I came across the poet in my late teens. Listening to the classical song 'Rozya na rozya’, the first impression went around its melodious rhyming. The questions it asked about youth and time stuck with me. I tend to find more. But where?
Internet came to my rescue. I managed to get hold of some books that were digitised but there was a problem. They were in Kashmiri but the script used was nastaliq. I was able to read some words but reading Kashmiri requires perfect command and knowledge of vowels, phonetical marks and words. One letter or even one dot here and there could make a word unintelligible to read. This has been a major problem faced by Kashmiri pandits of newer generation that out of the already few young readers, there is hardly any who can read nastaliq Kashmiri. Such an irony that our writers and poets wrote about their feelings, emotions, sufferings and tragedies so that the world would remember but the script they chose, now their own children can’t understand it. I read articles and translations about the poet’s work and found out that after coming to Udhampur and Jammu, he saw the sufferings and atrocities faced by his own people who were living in tents after been thrown out of Kashmir, he wrote a long nazam titled ‘Mersi’ (elegy) it is considered one of the most poignant and apt representation of the physical and emotional conditions through which the community went through. A Hindi translation was also done and published by Sahitya Akademi in 1992, the translation being done by another Kashmiri poet and writer Dr. Ratan lal shant. I was keen to read the nazm in the original Kashmiri but even after multiple efforts I couldn’t. I went around asking many of my relatives and neighbours, looking for someone who could read it flawlessly. To my luck, Poet Adarsh Ajit who lived nearby came to my rescue. After many hours of reading and rereading I was finally able to get the poem recorded in its original form. Then it took me many days of play-pause-play in order to pen it down.
They say, Saqi expired
Alas! None is now left to support
(Language, Literature, culture and friendship)
The Syllables are stunned and the Kashmiris sob
Alas! All is shuttered and dusty
All the places mentioned in the poem 'mersiya’, I’ve been to most of those places. The poem is a testimony of what different generations faced during the exodus. The young struggling to find their youth, the elders trying to make a meaning of this tragedy, the old clinging on to their customs, the children suffering a scholastic discrimination.
It must have been unimaginable of how a sensitive poet like Saqi must have felt while writing this tale of Atrocity.
After this poem I begin to search more of his work. His philosophical leaning is well reflected in the poetry collections like Modir Khaab(1966) Mansar(1979-Sahitya akademi) and Neer Nagma(1997- His final poetry collection) His phenomenal work on Sheikh Nooruddin wali (Nund Reshi) is still a much sought after work on the life of famous Kashmiri Sufi Saint ‘Nund Reshi’ . His inclination and respect for sufism and Hinduism and his social sensibilities towards the events happening around kashmir tend to be the driving factor behind various nazms that possess a philosophical breeze whilst addressing the events affecting the masses. Saqi was a humanist poet and in the search for him, I came across many Saqis. The poet, the friend, the philosopher, the scholar and a father.
His last days were no shorter than a tug of war. He still wrote in those days, more than his body could allow, pushing himself as if knowing within that not much time is left. While the quintessential cup bearer poured jaam after jaam of nazms for all, but when it came to his Kashmir, he gulped the pain… all alone.
In a heartless land he talked out his heart,
How could it be, that his heart would not suffer.
Saqi suffered two major heart attacks from which he couldn’t recover. He passed away in the early hours of 21st of May 1999, leaving behind a lasting legacy and a body of work that is still waiting for its readers,
or should I say, for the true lovers of Kashmir, and all of them, waiting with raised cups, hoping that Saqi shall return. But alas, till that morning who knows, this thirst, shall remain or shall it not…
I’m thankful to Shri Moti lal Saqi’s sons Shri Virender razdan, Shri Vasant Razdan and Shri Ramesh Razdan for opening a window for me into the poet’s personal life. I pay my respects to the late Shri Vijay Saqi 'Mahnoori' who compiled the beautiful book 'Saqi’s Kashmir' that will always remain a wonderful repository on the life of Moti lal saqi and how he influenced the people around him.
