​Zehra Nigah, Pakistan’s voice of progressive feminist poetry, delivered a lecture titled, “Why Must I Follow on the Same Road? Let’s Travel Together, Arm in Arm” as part of the Special Lecture Series (SLS) on April 24 at the Aga Khan University, Karachi campus.

Poetess Zehra Nigah is popular for her effortless storytelling that employs imagery from everyday life to make powerful social and political comments.  To her credit, she has three books of poetry – Shaam Ka Pehla Taara, Warq and Firaq – and various awards including the Pride of Performance in recognition of her literary work.

“Respected guests, it is an honour for me that you have invited me here to talk to you. I have been here before many times to hear interesting, informative speeches by distinguished personalities and I fully understand the importance of this place…

All my friends know that I don’t feel comfortable with writing prose. To me it’s as difficult as cutting a path through a rocky mountain. Poetry though is a different genre: nature helps, besides listeners raise the spirits and a lot of mistakes are overlooked as poetic license. But in prose, it’s not like that. In prose, the unskillfulness and incompetence becomes clear from the second paragraph and readers realise the writer’s depth and where he is lacking…

[Today] Whatever I will talk to you about, will be about poetry because this is what I do.

My topic for today is specifically about women’s poetry.

We should all agree that when nature bestows skills on humans, it doesn’t distinguish between a man and a woman. Nature’s division is very just — our society makes it unjust. Now we all know who makes the society and who develops the ethics, rules and values.

Over the last few days, I read a lot about the women poets of the subcontinent. I came across work by royal ladies, queens and princesses because it is saved somehow in literary accounts of those times. But women belonging to middle class – the class which is also called the bourgeois – we don’t find much work from them. Only very rarely would one find a verse or a poem, scattered here or there.

The remaining women who were known as poetesses were all connected, one way or the other, to the Bazaar-e-Husn, and this way you can gather why women from righteous families were restricted from writing poetry…

Poetry is a gift from nature. I would like to say one thing beyond my standing that is that we associate every anonymous line – mukhda (the first line of a song), song, riddle, doha (couplet) – with the name of the male poets, saints and mendicants only.

This could be true, but how to appease my heart.

All these creations instead were the results of the intellect and wisdom of those women who didn’t know writing but could speak. So you find melodies and songs from weddings to everyday affairs like grinding wheat, fetching water from the well, cooking, stages of child births, and expressions of love, feelings of separation and trysts — all delicacies which only a woman can appreciate.

Motives or influences always affect the creative process. I believe that for those women their everyday affairs must have been the inspiration for creating poetry.

Let me give you an example. Mir Taqi Mir is one of the pillars of the world of Urdu poetry. In one of the descriptions – I don’t exactly know the title, either it is Tazkara-e- Shamim-o-Sukhan or some other – it is mentioned that Mir sahib had a daughter and she was a poetess too. I found one of her couplets, which says:

It felt like Mir’s poetry, and then I thought that his daughter had to face the fate of anonymity. Daughter of a worldly known father was unknown to all.

[In complete contrast] when women from righteous families didn’t have the permission to write poetry, men were creating reekhti, poetry written with the feminine voice. It was a style of poetry that took a shape of its own and gained popularity.

But of course, no woman had the courage to say that if we are deprived of this pleasure of creating poetry, why are men following our style?

In Ruswa’s novel Umra-o-Jaan Ada, there is an interesting dialogue. Umra-o-Jan is reciting a ghazal for her friends, when she says:

Kaabay men ja kay bhool gaya raah dair ki (He forgot the way to the temple after reaching Kaaba)

Emman buch gaya, meray maula ne khair ki (His faith salvaged, a blessing from God)

At this, someone raised an objection: ‘Why did you use the masculine gender?’

“I don’t write reekhti,” was her retort.

But see how things have changed. Nowadays, what I hear is that a lot of poets are writing with female names and they are gaining popularity.

When poetry got in the hands of women from Bazaar-e-Husn, it was banned for righteous women. [Now it must be said that] these women were properly trained and educated. Maulvi sahebaan were hired to teach them literature, history, philosophy and mysticism and renowned pandits to teach them music. They were also taught mannerism matching high profile gatherings.

Ruswa’s famous novel Umra-o-Jaan Ada is a link of this chain and it takes a lot from reality. There was no restriction on writing poetry in the environment where they were being trained. Whatever they created during the day, they presented it at night at the mujra in such an attractive way that it received applause and brought fame to their names.

But society is unforgiving. In old days the degrees of poets were written against their names like we write FRCS, MRCP against doctors. So we had Akhter Begum, Ghazal poetess (prostitute); Nazuk Jaan, (Prostitute); Bibi Malika (Prostitute).

In 1956, Naqoosh Ghazal Number was published and in the whole magazine there were only two women whose name didn’t have this suffix: one was mine and the other was Ada Jafri. The rest of the poetesses had the same ‘degree’ written against their name…

As the times change every profession changes its outlook with it…

What I am going to share with you now is not anything from the past. There was a poetess from a well-to-do and prosperous Indian family. Her name was Zay Khay Sheen and she died at a young age. I remember one remark of Sajjad Haider Yaldaram on her death which reflects upon her whole life, “She was a nightingale that was born caged and died caged”. But you see that in that age she was writing such exquisite poetry:

If you are not feeling heavy I would like to share with you some of the verses by some women from Baazar-e-Husn.

These couplets reflect their true feelings for example this couplet laments confinement:

And here comes the complaint for infidelity:

Then they came across the bitter realities of life:

Then there must have been some naughty ones too: 

I have also found very decent poetry but the one I am going to share with you is such that if it was written in present times, the poetess would be sent to Adiala Jail at least.

We have heard that people from civilised families used to visit these women’s places to learn mannerisms etc. There was the other kind of visitor too who only sought pleasure. See this couplet:

Ladies and gentleman the crux is that poetry is the message of love. Dividing it in male/female compartments is utterly wrong. The feeling of love is same for both genders. To judge the writers in terms of their gender is not only a disrespectful act against poets but a greater disrespectful act for those who are judging them.

This is true that no female poet reaches to the standards of Mir, Ghalib, Iqbal, Rashid, Faiz and Faraz but the greatest poet of our century, Iqbal heard Qurat ul Ain Tahira. The beautiful poet, for whom the emperor said “Forgive her, forgive her, she is very beautiful.”

But she was not forgiven and because of her personal belief she was thrown in a well.

At the end of this talk I want to share a quote of Ibn e Arbi, “God loves man and man loves woman.” This quote was further amended by someone but not by Ibn e Arbi and that is the woman sees the god in man and God is everywhere; God is in the heart of a man and also in a woman’s heart. He is kind and we only want to see His kindness and due to His kindness we are alive.

In the end I’d like to say that the part of God should also be kind in every path of life even if it’s the path of literature.

As part of its commitment to broad based education, Aga Khan University organises and hosts its Special Lecture Series throughout the academic year. These lectures are now a city cultural event in their own right. The SLS lecture by Zehra Nigah was originally delivered in Urdu and has been translated into English by Bushra Jilani and Saira Yasin, Public Affairs.