Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda: the king of the qasida

In Delhi of the eighteenth century, when Wali’s Diwan had taught the poets of the north to write verse in their own language, two names stood highest: Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda. Mir spoke of the heart, his own grief and his own loneliness. Sauda’s eyes were on the world outside: the bazaar, the court, the nobleman, the police chief, the sheikh and the ascetic. He wrote ghazals too, but his real distinction showed in the qasida and the satire. Even in his ghazal there is a playful note of complaint:

گل پھینکے ہے اوروں کی طرف بلکہ ثمر بھیاے خانہ بر انداز چمن کچھ تو ادھر بھی

Life and times

According to the Rekhta introduction, Sauda’s name was Mirza Muhammad Rafi, and he was born in the first decade of the eighteenth century. By common account his home was Delhi. His forefathers were soldiers by profession, and his father had come to India from abroad for trade. In poetry he first took guidance from Sulaiman Quli Khan Widad and then from Shah Hatim, and he benefited from the company of Khan Arzu, the great scholar of his age. According to Rekhta, it was Khan Arzu who advised him to write verse in Urdu.

Sauda’s fame reached its height in the reign of Muhammad Shah. Many noblemen were his admirers. But this was also the time when one calamity after another was falling on Delhi: the invasions of Ahmad Shah Abdali, the Maratha onslaught, and a weak Mughal court that offered neither pay nor peace. Sauda described the ruin of Delhi in his “Shehr Ashob”, a well-known poem of its kind in Urdu.

After leaving Delhi, Sauda lived for several years in Farrukhabad under the patronage of a nawab. According to Rekhta, around 1770 he reached Faizabad in the time of Shuja-ud-Daula, and when Asaf-ud-Daula took the throne and made Lucknow his capital, Sauda moved to Lucknow with him. Here he received an annual stipend of Rs6,000 and lived in comfort. He died in Lucknow in 1781.

Sauda’s Kulliyat is very large. According to Rekhta, it contains 43 qasidas, as well as satires, elegies, masnavis, quatrains, qitas and riddles. In Persian prose he wrote a critical treatise called “Ibrat-ul-Ghafilin”, and a small Persian diwan is also left by him.

Style

The comparison of Mir and Sauda is an old subject of Urdu criticism. In the words of Kaleemuddin Ahmad, quoted by Rekhta, Mir’s eyes stayed turned towards the heart, while Sauda observed “the variety of the world”. That is, Mir tells of what happened to himself and Sauda tells of what happened in the world. Sauda commands language like a ruler, with sharp words and forceful expression. Muhammad Hussain Azad wrote that if one changed even a single word in his verse, its pleasure would be lost. Sauda himself knew his own mastery:

باطل ہے ہم سے دعویٰ شاعر کو ہم سری کادیوان ہے ہمارا کیسہ جواہری کا

Any poet’s claim to equal us is false; our diwan is a jeweller’s pouch, in which every verse is a pearl.

The edge of his satire shows even in his ghazal, especially when he aims at the sheikh and the ascetic:

جو دیکھتا ہے تجھ کو ہنستا ہے قہقہے ماراے شیخ تیرا چہرہ مبدا ہے مسخری کا

Selected verses

وے صورتیں الٰہی کس ملک بستیاں ہیںاب دیکھنے کو جن کے آنکھیں ترستیاں ہیں

برسات کا تو موسم کب کا نکل گیا پرمژگاں کی یہ گھٹائیں اب تک برستیاں ہیں

اس دور میں گئی ہے مروت کی آنکھ پھوٹمعدوم ہے جہان سے چشم حیا پرست

جو گزری مجھ پہ مت اس سے کہو ہوا سو ہوابلا کشان محبت پہ جو ہوا سو ہوا

کہے ہے سن کے مری سرگزشت وہ بے رحمیہ کون ذکر ہے جانے بھی دو ہوا سو ہوا

دل مت ٹپک نظر سے کہ پایا نہ جائے گاجوں اشک پھر زمیں سے اٹھایا نہ جائے گا

رخصت ہے باغباں کہ تنک دیکھ لیں چمنجاتے ہیں واں جہاں سے پھر آیا نہ جائے گا

عمامے کو اتار کے پڑھیو نماز شیخسجدے سے ورنہ سر کو اٹھایا نہ جائے گا

کام آئی کوہ کن کی مشقت نہ عشق میںپتھر سے جوئے شیر کے لانے نے کیا کیا

کس ہستئ موہوم پہ نازاں ہے تو اے یارکچھ اپنے شب و روز کی ہے تج کو خبر بھی

Notes on the verses

«وے صورتیں الٰہی کس ملک بستیاں ہیں…» O God, in what land do those faces now dwell, which the eyes long to see? The memory of ruined Delhi and of people parted is gathered into this one verse. The plural form “tarastiyan hain” belongs to the language of that age.

«برسات کا تو موسم کب کا نکل گیا پر…» The rainy season ended long ago, but the clouds of my eyelashes are still raining. The old comparison of tears to clouds comes with a new freshness in Sauda.

«اس دور میں گئی ہے مروت کی آنکھ پھوٹ…» In this age kindness has gone blind, and the eye that honours modesty has vanished from the world. The verse is a direct comment on the callousness of his time.

«جو گزری مجھ پہ مت اس سے کہو ہوا سو ہوا…» Do not tell the beloved what happened to me; what was to befall those who suffer for love has befallen them. The refrain “hua so hua” made this ghazal very famous.

«کہے ہے سن کے مری سرگزشت وہ بے رحم…» After hearing my whole story, the merciless one says: what tale is this, leave it, what happened has happened. It is hard to find a more everyday account of the beloved’s indifference.

«دل مت ٹپک نظر سے کہ پایا نہ جائے گا…» O heart, do not drip from the eye as a tear, for just as a fallen tear cannot be lifted from the ground, you too will not be found again.

«رخصت ہے باغباں کہ تنک دیکھ لیں چمن…» O gardener, allow us a short look at the garden; we are going where there is no return. This scene of leaving the world is very simple and very deep.

«عمامے کو اتار کے پڑھیو نماز شیخ…» O sheikh, take off your turban to pray, or you will not be able to lift your head from prostration under so heavy a turban. This jibe at outward grandeur and show is a mild sample of Sauda’s satire.

«کام آئی کوہ کن کی مشقت نہ عشق میں…» Farhad cut through the mountain and brought out a canal of milk, but what use was his labour in love? He still did not win Shirin. From the old tale Sauda draws the helplessness of love.

«کس ہستئ موہوم پہ نازاں ہے تو اے یار…» Friend, what is it about your illusory existence that makes you proud? Do you have any idea how swiftly your days and nights are passing?

Influence and legacy

Sauda gave the Urdu qasida a standing that before him only Persian had enjoyed. After him poets such as Zauq won a name in the qasida, but any mention of the qasida still begins with Sauda. In satire and the shehr ashob too he is among the first great names in Urdu, and the picture of the society of eighteenth-century Delhi and Lucknow found in his poems is rarely found even in history books. The Rekhta introduction also records the view that his personal attacks in satire sometimes go too far, and that his best work lies where the subject is not one person but the whole age.

In the ghazal, Mir’s fame pushed Sauda somewhat into the background. But a reader who studies his ghazals closely finds in them a force of language and a breadth of world that are different from Mir’s world, not lesser.

To readers: Which of Sauda’s verses seemed to you to hold true even for today? Write and tell us. Selected verses will be published with your name on next Friday’s page.

Next Friday: Khwaja Mir Dard, who did not leave Delhi even in its ruin and gave the Urdu ghazal the language of Sufism.