Jigar Moradabadi: the king of the mushaira

In the middle of the twentieth century, if a city announced that Jigar would attend that night’s mushaira, there was no room left in the pandal. A thin man with unkempt hair would come before the microphone, close his eyes and begin a ghazal in song, while thousands listened with bated breath. According to Rekhta, the fame Jigar enjoyed in his time has few parallels. People imitated not only his style of poetry but also his singing. This couplet of his is still among the most frequently quoted:

یہ عشق نہیں آساں اتنا ہی سمجھ لیجےاک آگ کا دریا ہے اور ڈوب کے جانا ہے

(Jigar Moradabadi, via Rekhta)

Life and times

According to Rekhta, Jigar’s name was Ali Sikandar. He was born in Moradabad on 6 April 1890. Poetry ran in the family. His father, Maulvi Ali Nazar, and his uncle, Maulvi Ali Zafar, were both poets, and a collection by his father is available under the title “Bagh-e-Nazar”. He received his early education at home and in a maktab. He was then sent to his uncle in Lucknow to study English, but he took no interest in English education and did not get beyond the ninth class. His father died around this time.

In his youth, Jigar became a travelling agent for a spectacles company in Agra. His work took him from city to city, and his poetry matured on these journeys.

During this period he reached Gonda, where he met Asghar Gondvi, a leading ghazal poet of the day. Asghar recognised his talent and became his patron. Gonda later became Jigar’s own city.

Jigar was a candid and fearless man. According to Rekhta, at a war fund mushaira in Lucknow presided over by a British governor, he caused a sensation by reciting his poem “Qehat-e-Bengal”. Rulers of several princely states wanted him attached to their courts, but he always refused. In his last years he became deeply religious and performed Hajj in 1953. His health had weakened and he suffered several heart attacks. In 1958 he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection “Atish-e-Gul”. He died in Gonda on 9 September 1960.

Style

According to Rekhta’s profile, Jigar’s ghazal blends the old tradition of tghazzul with the colour of the twentieth century, and there is complete harmony between his life and his poetry. He does not preach morality, yet the moral standard of his poetry is high. For him, beauty and love are reflections of each other. His verse has spontaneity and rapture, and he does not sacrifice fluency and musicality for minor technical rules.

Jigar’s ghazal is made for singing. Even when reading his lines, one feels someone is singing. In one of his well-known ghazals, the lover keeps walking even after reaching the destination, because love has no final destination.

His poetry is not limited to love. It also echoes the turmoil of his time, but in the language of humanity rather than politics. In one ghazal he says plainly that politicians may attend to their own duty, his message is love, and it should travel as far as it can.

Shades of his verse

Among Jigar’s well-known couplets is a declaration of self-respect: time cannot erase man, because time is made by man. In a simple ghazal he says that people keep meeting one another but hearts meet only rarely, and that the beloved meets one so simply that all her cruelties are forgotten.

In another ghazal he calls a single word of love a whole story: if it contracts, it is the lover’s heart; if it spreads, it is the whole world. In the closing couplet of the same ghazal he gives his own statement on the art of poetry: there are many tears in the eyes, but the tear that turns into a verse is a pearl.

There is also hope in his verse: those raised amid storms are the ones who change the world. And there is a gentle warning against looking down on others: the pious man should not pass by the sinner’s heart with his robe drawn aside, for who knows, his paradise may lie there.

Jigar’s work is still under copyright, so only the meaning of his couplets is given here. The full text can be read on Rekhta’s pages for his ghazals (see sources below).

Influence and legacy

With Hasrat, Fani and Asghar, Jigar belonged to the generation that gave the ghazal new life in the twentieth century. Among them, Jigar took the ghazal to the widest public. According to Rekhta’s profile, when his poetry appeared, “the colour of the whole country’s poetry changed”, and his greatest achievement was to bring tghazzul to perfection. Rekhta lists Raaz Moradabadi among his students.

To readers: Which couplet of Jigar did you hear at a mushaira or gathering and remember? Write to us. Selected couplets will be published with your name on next Friday’s page.

Next Friday: This survey of the classical Urdu poets ends here. The series will next turn to the classical poets of Balochistan: Jam Durrak, Mast Tawakkali and Mulla Fazil.