Mir Anis Remembered

Mir Anis Remembered, a photo by firoze shakir photographerno1 on Flickr.

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_Anis

Mir Babar Ali Anis (Urdu: میر بابر علی انیس) was a renowned Urdu poet. He was born in Faizabad in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in 1803 and died in 1874.

His father, Mir Khaliq who was a famous poet and litterateur, took personal interest in the education and upbringing of his son, and entrusted him to the care of reputed contemporary teachers, Mir Najaf Ali Faizabadi and Maulvi Hyder Ali Lucknavi. In addition, Anees's mother who was an educated and pious lady, played a significant role in shaping the personality of the boy poet. But above all, it was the boy's own instinctive urge for learning and literature that made him an accomplished poet, proficient in Arabic, Persian and Islamic scriptures, and well-versed in logic, literature and philosophy. Poetry came to him as ancestral heritage, for his forbears, going back to his great grandfather, were eminent poets and men of letters. Anees was the grandson of Mir Hasan who is remembered for his immortal Masnavi, Sehir-ul-Bayaan. His parents had migrated in their old age to Lucknow, where he spent the best part of his life.

Anees had started writing poetry quite early in his life right at Faizabad, though he perfected his art in Lucknow under the supervision of Imam Baksh Nasikh. In keeping with the popular trend, he first tried his hand at the ghazal, but failing to make much headway in this sphere, he changed over, under the advice of his father, to the writing of marsias[1], in which domain he soon established a high reputation, equaled (sometimes) by his poetic compare, Salamat Ali Dabir. Anees broadened the scope of this genre by including in its body, in addition to the customary lamentation and mourning, realistic scenes of the battlefield, graphic delineations of the hero's face and figure, lively portrayals of the emotional states of the combatants, accurate descriptions of the landscape, and occasional interludes of moral edification. Anees was a master of simple, natural utterance, with a superb command on the language, which was always adequate to express a large variety of moods, scenes, characters and situations. He is specially notable for presenting the same scene or situation, over and over again, in different words or phrases, without letting it appear monotonous. Besides being a master of the marsia, Anees was also a specialist of the rubai, the shortest complete poem in Urdu, containing only four lines.

Anees died in 1874 at the age of 71. The marsia, strictly speaking, is an elegiac poem written to commemorate the martyrdom and valour of Hazrat Imam Husain and his comrades of the Battle of Karbala. In its form the marsia generally consists of six-line units, with a rhyming quatrain, and a couplet on a different rhyme. This form found a specially congenial soil in Lucknow (a city in Northern India), chiefly because it was the centre of Shia Muslim community, which regarded it an act of piety and religious duty to eulogies and bemoan the martyrs of the battle of Karbala, and Even a short poem written to mourn the death of a friend can be called marsia. Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem 'In Memoriam' can rightly be called marsia. The sub-parts of marsia are called noha and soz which means lamentation and burning of (heart) respectively. It is usually a poem of mourning. The form reached its peak in the writing of Mir Babar Ali Anis.

The famous marsia writers who inherited the tradition of Mir Anis among his successive generations are Mir Nawab Ali 'Munis', Dulaha Sahab 'Uruj', Mustafa Meerza urf Piyare Sahab 'Rasheed', Syed Muhammad Mirza Uns, Ali Nawab 'Qadeem', Syed Sajjad Husain 'Shadeed', Syed Sajjad Husain "Shadeed" Lucknavi, Dr. Syed Ali Imam Zaidi, "Gauher" Luckhnavi the (great grand son of Mir Baber Ali Anees).
Contents
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* 1 Work, contribution and legacy
* 2 References
* 3 Trivia
* 4 See also
* 5 External links

[edit] Work, contribution and legacy

Mr Anis composed salāms, elegies, nauhas, quatrains. While the length of elegy initially had no more than forty or fifty stanzas, it now was beyond one hundred fifty or even longer than two hundred stanzas or bunds, as each unit of marsia in musaddas format is known. According to Muhammad Husain Azad "The late Mīr Sahib must certainly have composed at least ten thousand elegies, and salāms beyond count. He composed as easily and casually as he spoke."[2].

Muharram and Mir Anis have become synonymous among Urdu lovers of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Mir Anis has been a great teacher and inspiration for generations. Undoubtedly, Urdu derives much of its strength from the Marsias of Mir Anis. Mir Anis has drawn upon the vocabulary of Arabic, Persian, Urdu/Hindi/Awadhi in such a good measure that he symbolizes the full spectrum of the cultural mosaic that Urdu has come to be. No Urdu poet from Ghalib onwards has lagged behind in showering his eulogies on Mir Anis. Mir Anis himself was aware of his contribution as he writes: "Kisi ne na teri terha se Anis, Aroos-e-sukhan ko sanwara nahi"

"Perhaps there is no other poet in the world who has looked after the aesthetic and spiritual satisfaction of his fans so completely as Mir Anis does. It is simply miraculous!

Jawaharlal Nehru had once said that Mir Anis was his essential reading on the day of Ashura only to let him shed more of his insularity. What a tribute. "[3]

The first major and still current critical articulation about Mir Anis was Muazna-e-Anis-o-Dabir (1907) written by Shibli Nomani and according to him said "the poetic qualities and merits of Anis are not matched by any other poet"

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi in 'How to read Iqbal?' on comparing Iqbal with Nazir Akbarabadi says that "Iqbal was placed better because he had, among others, Bedil (1644–1720) in Persian and Mir Anis (1802–1874) in Urdu." to inherit the rich tradition of Urdu nazm. He further asserts that, "The mention of Mir Anis may surprise some of us until we realize it that Mir Anis’s mariyas are the best premodern model in Urdu of narrative-historical, narrative-lyrical, and oral-dramatic poetry, and Iqbal’s poetry extends and exploits the possibilities created by Anis."[4]

The following two stanzas (Bunds) from Chakbast's 'Ramayan ka Ek Scene' (transcribed from Urdu to Devnagri) reflect the influence of Marsia and Mir Anis in particular. Even the format adopted by Chakbast is same[5].

रूख़सत हुआ वो बाप से लेकर ख़ुदा का नाम

राहे-वफ़ा की मंज़िले-अव्वल हुई तमाम

मंज़ू़र था जो माँ की ज़ियारत का इंतिज़ाम

दामन से अश्क पोछ कर दिल से किया कलाम

इज़हारे-बेकसी से सितम होगा और भी

देखा हमें उदास तो ग़म होगा और भी

दिल को सँभालता हुआ आख़िर वो नौनिहाल

ख़ामोश माँ के पास गया सूरते-ख़याल

देखा तो एक दर में है बैठी वो ख़स्ताहाल

सकता-सा हो गया है यह है शिद्दते-मलाल

तन में लहू का नाम नहीं, ज़र्द रंग है

गोया बशर नहीं, कोई तस्वीरे-संग है

[edit] References

1. ^ Mohammad Husain Azad- Aab-e-Hayat
2. ^ Aab-e-Hayat (English Translation, Translated and edited by Frances W. Pritchett, in association with Shamsur Rahman Faruqi)
3. ^ Dawn-Mir Anis bi-centenary in Karachi
4. ^ How to Read Iqbal by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi
5. ^ चकबस्त की रामायण

[edit] Trivia

The Majlis of 25 Rajab, is historically important Majlis of Marsiya in Lucknow, in this majlis Mir Anis used to recite Marsiya. After Mir Anis well known marsiya writers of Mir Anis's family as Dulaha Sahab 'Uruj', Mustafa Meerza urf Piyare Sahab 'Rasheed', Ali Nawab (Qadeem) Syed Sajjad Husain 'Shadeed', inherited the legacy of reciting marsiya. Presntly, Dr.Syed Ali Imam Zaidi(Gauher) Luckhnavi(grand son of 'Shadeed')recites self composed Marsiya.