O, Emperor of Ghazals, Is There Any Cure for It or Not?
The great thing about that line is that in its seven words there are four sequential parts and each functions like a key to its meaning: ‘Once / we too / had / mothers and fathers.’ Whichever part you emphasize will be newly foreboding or will shed new light on helplessness. If you lay special stress on ‘had’—haaaaaaaaaaaaaad—then the whole line’s feeling will change. Such multivalent lines rarely come even to the best poets. But Mehdi Hasan’s a different case; he can make whichever word he wants into such a ‘keyword.’ He’s a man of endless talent, and yet he has developed one bad habit: in order to prove his poetic mastery, he often chooses a couplet with a word that he thinks he can spin. He cuts short the alap’s introduction and so gives notice to the listeners that there are some surprises in store for them, which will come about when he reveals the wonderland of the word’s meaning. Then he spends half an hour twisting and bending and pressing on the word. He takes a crack at it from all sorts of angles just to prove that all of the line’s ambiguity resides in it. All the other words are merely for the tabla player, meaning, they are only for rounding out the sound and giving things a solid footing. The point is to show that he isn’t just singing the line, but that he’s explaining the line while singing. Now other singers have started copying him: although they themselves don’t understand the meaning of the words, they sing and ‘explain’ at the same time.
Sometimes Mehdi Hasan drives this keyword into the raga’s no man’s land. And sometimes he shouts out ‘Kabaddi, Kabaddi!’ and brings the keyword onto his side of the field. Then he continues on, as though freestyle wrestling, twisting and turning, pruning and primping the line, and so tests not only the limits of his poetic powers but also the patience of the audience. When the keyword gives out, it finally reveals its meaning. Then, after a long gulp of air, he makes a funny face, begins to gnaw on the word, and closes his eyes in a show of intense enjoyment. Then after sucking the marrow from it, he spits it out right in front of the tabla player, as though saying, ‘Ustad, let’s play some duets now.’ Sometimes he shakes the keyword’s limbs until they’re about to snap off; then he sits on its chest in his silk-embroidered kurta and delicate waistcoat, and plops his harmonium on top as well. When it tries to get up, he kisses it, licks it, and makes it lie down again, ‘Stay close to my side, the night has just begun.’ And finally the rare moment comes when this lover of music puts his tongue in the word’s mouth in such a way that the raga begins to scream, ‘You put your tongue in my mouth / and pull my soul back from hell!’ Then, finally, after many hours of manhandling it, he slaps it and lets it go, saying, ‘Go away. This time I’m letting you go. Next time don’t show your face around here.’
If you care for your heart and soul, don’t come into my throat.
Oh, You Mean from That Perspective…
Basharat was hired as the Urdu teacher, but because of a shortage of teachers he was forced to teach just about every subject except theology, and that was because the head imam at the main mosque in Dhiraj Ganj had issued a religious decree stating that if the theology teacher happened to have a dog at home then the entire class would have to wash themselves properly after class! Basharat was very weak in mathematics, geometry, and English, but he wasn’t worried at all because he had learned how to teach from his own teacher Master Fakhir Hussain. Master Fakhir Hussain’s self-professed subject was history, but he would often have to teach Master Mendi Lal’s English class. Master Mendi Lal’s kidneys gave him fits, as well as his grammar. It was noticeable that he never made it to school whenever he was scheduled to teach grammar to the ninth- or tenth-grade classes. Apparently his kidneys were suffering from grammar! All the teachers were anxious about teaching any subject but their own. Master Fakhir Hussain was the only teacher always ready to tackle anything. He had got his BA on the ‘Bhatinda,’ or Munshi Fazil, track, which is to say he didn’t know English grammar at all. If he’d wanted, he could have spent the entire hour cracking jokes or dispensing life lessons. But his conscience wouldn’t let him waste time. Or, like the other teachers, he could have busied the students by giving dictations. But doing that was beneath the dignity of his oceanic knowledge and the duties of scholarship. So the heavy stone that others kissed and moved on from, he put on his back and jumped with it into the ocean of knowledge. First, he lectured on the importance of grammar; he emphasized that just as the tabla is the basis for Hindustani vocal music, and curse words are the basis of conversation, thus grammar is the basis of the English language: if the students wanted to excel, then they would have to master grammar. Master Fakhir Hussain’s English was like a building, a unique specimen of architectural art, and one of the seven Wonders of the Ancient World. I mean, there was no foundation at all. And for the most part there was no roof. Where there was a roof, he was holding it up with his legs like a bat hanging upside down. In those days, English was taught in Urdu, and so where Master Fakhir Hussain’s English was collapsing, he propped it up with Urdu couplets. He was a very skilled, experienced teacher. He got through the most problematic situations without it affecting him at all. For instance, he might ask the students to parse something. Or he might resolve to ask them only the simplest possible questions. Once he wrote ‘TO GO’ on the blackboard and then asked the boys, ‘OK, then, someone tell me — what is this?’ One boy raised his hand, ‘A simple infinitive!’ He nodded his head approvingly, ‘Exactly right.’ But then he saw that another boy still had his hand up. He asked, ‘Is there anything wrong?’ The boy answered, ‘No, sir. It’s a noun infinitive.’ Master Fakhir Hussain answered, ‘Oh, you mean from that perspective.’ But then he saw that the smartest boy in class still had his hand raised. He said, ‘You still haven’t put down your hand. What is it? Please speak up.’ He said, ‘It’s a gerundial infinitive, but not a reflexive verb. Nesfield’s grammar says so.’ And with this, it was clear to him that
He was voyaging across uncharted waters.
He said in a calm and understanding way, ‘Oh, you mean from that perspective.’ Then he saw that the fluent English-speaking boy who had gone to an English-medium school had his hand up. He said, ‘Well? Well? Well?’ The boy said, ‘Sir, I am afraid this is an intransitive verb.’ So he said, ‘Oh, you mean from that perspective.’ But he didn’t understand the idiomatic expression ‘I am afraid,’ and so he said to the boy in a tone full of love, ‘But, my dear, what’s there to be afraid of?’
He always said that the door to knowledge should be left propped open. But he himself had never gone through it! Find me a teacher nowadays for whose ignorance you feel any love!
Master Fakhir Hussain was the last specimen of our simple-hearted ancestors and their generations of witty teachers. Although his knowledge was never ‘presently at liberty’ to be divulged, he was always up for any challenge.