Maqbool poet Munawwar Rana departed from this mortal world forever on the night of 14 January 2024. His passing is a big loss for the world of poetry, it is also the vacancy of a very special place in Sukhan Sarai because Munawwar Rana had created a unique land in the world of poetry, where many aspects of human relationships are reflected. His departure is also a great loss for me. Right now, I am going to do a Mushaira in Patna on 10th February 2024 and he was also going to participate in that Mushaira. He repeatedly told me, ‘Insha Allah! I will definitely come, if my health remains good. But perhaps God did not accept this. The revelations, love he gave me in the last eight years of Rabita and the love with which he wrote for my poetry Majmua, will always remain in my heart as a treasure. But this much complaint will remain that Munawwar Sahib, you did not do good by breaking your promise. But never mind, promises are often broken.
His ghazals are very close to life and society, which contain socio-political courage as well as various issues and concerns, which are like a mirror in which all these images emerge. Munawwar Rana made mother, sister and daughter a subject of poetry by quoting relationships and especially gave a place to the mother where one automatically bows his head in prostration before her. Just take a look at some of his shares. ‘Despite being a mukhtsar, life will increase/Kiss your mother’s eyes and the light will increase.’ Or he says, ‘Whenever my boat comes in the flood, my mother comes in my dreams praying.’ The next stanza of the same ghazal shows how much he was concerned about human relationships and their warmth – ‘If someone is sad, my eyes well up/all the dust comes into my pond.’
There is social and political concern in his ghazals, there are also dreams, there is beauty and there is also the stubbornness of children. That’s why he says very innocently, ‘Let’s go and make a house in some Sahara, just like children make squares on notebooks.’ Now see, the poet’s dream is that he too becomes a child, that just as children draw trees and mountains on their notebooks, similarly Munawwar Rana also talks about building a house in Sahara. His horizons of thinking are very wide. We keep running in life, keep fighting with each other. But the reality is that after death we do not get anything. That’s why they say inelegantly, ‘We covered our tiredness and lay down on the bed. We lay down in our designated graves. All our lives we kept fighting with each other. But when we died, we lay down equally. ‘
He kept a keen eye on the politics of the country. He could not overcome the controversies, but he did not fail to express his views either. He also returned the award. ‘Kings have been taught to be qalandar/ You think it easy to be a wise man./ Even a single tear is a threat to the government/ You have not seen that there is an ocean of eyes.’ It is not easy to be truly humble. To be articulate, one must have the courage to speak and to maintain the Ganga-Jamuni culture, one also needs the skill of speaking words from the heart. Perhaps this is the reason why he made new experiments in ghazals. Whatever he saw and heard in politics, he wanted to serve it, no matter what the price had to be. He says eloquently, ‘No one had any complaint against this tree, but this tree was cut down just because it came in the way.’ Or, ‘With what artfulness politics hides the truth, just as the clarinet hides the wounds of sobs.’
They also teach today’s generation that the idea of keeping the elderly in old age homes is wrong and they should desist from it. ‘We elders are necessary in your gatherings/ If we are not there then who will tie the turban.’ He said goodbye to this bloody world, probably to find the next one. His poem is – ‘Birds! Let’s go and see that place. Let’s see where the next creature will be.’ One of his poetry collections is ‘Forgive us.’ But we will never leave you from our hearts and minds.