Sheikh Ayaz! We Miss You.

Sheikh Ayaz! We Miss You.

Mubarak Ali Lashari

We again and again come across the final ten days of a December every year in which the land of mighty Indus River and human-lover people of the world have seen the loss of great Shaikh Ayaz. Sometimes, mind becomes paralysed to think over the idea that what is the gist of poetry of the great poets like Ayaz that appeals human feelings whereas a lot of poetry is composed and sung every day, every moment and every minute, perhaps?

One can even think of culture, think of language and its everyday usage in which brutally murdering humanity in the name of culture, in the name of honour, in the name of identity, in the name of ideology and also in the name of faith and religion and religious bigotry is justified. Perhaps, the refinement of culture has its own parameters and own criteria that enable its adherents to define by their own. Is this phenomenon so simple and acute and so can be tuned so effortlessly? The mind, human exercising mind is forced to think the parameters that suit his inner craves pines for writing the way the great poets adopted. Ayaz is incarnated in the way, one can’t deny.

Human being has been in search of path and way towards his inner satisfaction and outer expositions. Great teachers and humanists (not in the sense of the movement) gestured by their own ways towards that. The sane ones adopted and followed and the irrationals took the ways untoward. By the same way, Shaikh Ayaz, being born in a small but majestic territorial land of Sindh, developed the rationality of human essence on the foot prints of Great Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai who prayed for the world as:

Warm preparations are again
in progress everywhere;
Again the lightnings have begun
to leap with arduous flare;
Some towards Istanbul do dive,
some to the West repair;
Some over China glitter, some
of Samerquand take care;
Some wander to Byazantium, Kabul,
some to Kandhar fare;
Some lie on Delhi, Deccan, some
reach Girnar, thundering there
And greens on Bikanir pour those
that jump from Jesalmare
Some Bhuj have soaked, others descent
on Dhat with gentle air...
Those crossing Umerkote have made
the fields fertile and fair...
O God, may ever you on Sindh
bestow abundance rare;
Beloved! all the world let share
thy grace, and fruitful be.

You very well be noticing the final stanza of the poem in which Shah Latif is offering prayer for the entire world as, ‘Beloved! All the world let share thy grace, and fruitful be’. Thus, he has torn away the boundaries of geographies, ideologies, faiths, race, colour, culture and linguistic identity. Ayaz, similarly, spoke of the world and general human feelings and human rationales.

This Sangram! In front is Narain Shayam!

His and mine tales are the same

Promises are the same

He is king of poetry,

But my colourful ways are also same

Land also same, beloved also same, heart also same, horrors also same,

How can I point a gun to him!

How can I shoot him! How can I shoot! How can I shoot! How can I shoot!

The above poem the people of subcontinent must be remembering is composed at the time of Indo-Pak war. In the war-mongering days, Ayaz took the human, peace, and tolerant side of the issue and despised the war and portrayed the human-side picture that in front of us are the same human with same hearts and horrors. If the feelings of both sides would have been raised, the wars had never been escalated. This is the track peace and human-loving poets have adopted and led to the people to save themselves from irrational instincts.

Ayaz, is unexplored and undefiled poet of our era. One of his gazals I read just now and tried to know it again in this moment which took me towards something novel;

You have come for the world,

So, why are you worried about heaven?

The earth is like Mom Maryam,

She needs some healer, like Jesus.

 Rumi wept the whole night,

While, Hafiz laughed a lot, why?

Ayaz, arrives at maikada (Drinking house), everyday,

For, forgiveness of his sins!

In the lines, Ayaz’s tone is very mysterious and demanding irrespective of limited accesses of people and identity. It depicts the predicament of all the people on the earth. That’s his peculiar way to deal with genuine issues and matters of human being. His metaphorical tone calling earth as mother is significant because the earth endeared nuclear attacks and ailing humanity due to bigotry and disposition of might. No mother would ever like to see her off-spring ailing, wounding and murdering, thus, earth is mom if you see with Ayaz’s eyes. Whereas in his first stanza he is reminding people to make their life better and fruitful in this world as all the religions came in order to make their worldly life livable. No religion allows you to create mess in this world in order to keep in your mind the heaven, thus, do justice, good deeds, be tolerant, live and let live others in this world.

Ayaz is also praying for the immortal love like Shah Latif, his predecessor in the following words in his Prayers;

Oh Creator!

Make my love immortal and inbounding

So that,

I may regard every human as my own being.

Let my superstitions and evil whispers diminish

To create the feelings of Bhittai in me.

This whole universe is Your attestation

You too wash beloved’s pelts….

Oh my Creator!

Today, 28 December 2011, we, the people of Sindh, Indus river, Pakistani, Asian and the entire world remember him on his anniversary just to miss his existence and looking forward to explore his pointed ways and the creative genious like him. Ayaz, We Miss You A lot!