Putting together Ghulam Mohammad Qasir’s poetry

By Afzal Hussain Bokhari

Literary organisations, educational circles, libraries, leading book stalls and cultural bodies in City received with understandable satisfaction the newly-published Kuliyat-i-Qasir titled ‘Ik shair abhi tak rehta hai’ in which all three collections of poetry – Tasalsul, Athwan asman bhi neela hai and Darya-i-Gumaan – by late Professor Ghulam Mohammad Qasir have beautifully been incorporated.

Admirers of Qasir well remember the famous lines from which the hardbound, 540-page Kuliyat-i-Qasir gets its name: ‘Har ehad ne zinda ghazlon ke kitnay hi jahan abad keaye; par tujh ko dekh ke sochta hoon, ik shair abhi tak rehta hai’! The book had been under process for three to four years, if not more.

The moving spirit behind publication of the book has been the entire family i.e. Mrs Salma Qasir, poet’s publicity-shy widow, elder son Emad, younger son Adnan and daughter Neelam. Salma’s father Saeed Ahmad Akhtar and her brother Khawar Ahmad (both equally readable poets) have been offering a word of advice when and where it was needed.

Fairly instrumental behind the scenes in motivating the family to undertake the gigantic task of publishing the Kuliyat was the person of poet Manzar Naqvi, who for many years had been Qasir’s friend and admirer. Whenever Manzar happened to compose a new poetic piece, Qasir was invariably the litmus test to which he first put his creative writing.

It was basically Manzar who contacted columnist Haider Javed Syed and assigned the task to him and to Syed Rashid Sagheer Rizvi. Haider Javed worked for a Lahore-based publishing house, which also had its office in Rawalpindi.

The publication of the Kuliyat took unusually long because all the people associated with the work were awfully busy. Emad himself worked in the Karachi branch of the State Bank and found time to visit Peshawar just once or twice a year to celebrate the Eid-ul-Fitr or Eid-ul-Azha festivals. Equally busy was Adnan, who worked for a privately-run bank in Peshawar.

Copies of Kuliyat arrived in City on December 31, 2009 and despite his preoccupation with his job, Adnan managed the distribution work wisely and efficiently. Regardless of who chose to run the errands, creative people in the Frontier metropolis conveniently got their copy of the book.

In a brief note included in Kuliyat, Qasir’s children have thanked Shauq Jafari, Tariq Hashmi and Sohail Ahmad for the guidance and help they provided in bringing out this book. Meanwhile, speaking by phone from Karachi, Emad said that he also planned to put into book form the prose pieces written by others on the art and life of his father. 

Friends of the poet know that Qasir was born in Paharpur in Dera Ismail Khan on September 4, 1944. After doing his matriculation from Government High School, Paharpur, he started teaching at the same school. Later, he also served in some neighbouring schools. In the course of government service, he continued to study further and clear the board and university exams as private candidate.

He did his Master’s in Urdu from Peshawar University in 1968. Seven years later, in 1975, he was selected as lecturer, the first posting being in Government College, Mardan. Later, for various durations he also served in government colleges Peshawar, Darra Adamkhel, Toru and, lastly, in Pabbi. It was in Pabbi that he was taken ill and doctors declared that he had contracted Hepatitis C.

When he arrived in Peshawar, he lived behind a small-time filling station on the confluence of Kohat and Kakshal roads. It was in this modest residence that your diarist first met him in early 1980s and got a copy of his maiden collection of poetry ‘Tasalsul’, duly signed by him along with unforgettable remarks.

In 1988, his second collection ‘Athwan asman bhi neela hai’ hit the bookstalls. The book was well-received by the literary circles of the country. The emotional under current in his poetry and the individualistic style of expression made him appear different from the medley crowd. His fame spread to all parts of the world where Urdu was spoken and understood.

Qasir used to say that it was Mehboob Khazan who motivated him to write poetry and then excel in it. For a brief period he lived in Lahore and the company of writers like Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi and Shahzad Ahmad had a sobering effect on him.

Asked to name his favourite poet in India from among the comparatively new generation of writers, he thoughtfully referred to Nishoor Wahidi, who was an off beat poet almost detached from the mainstream, popular Urdu poetry of his time. Nishoor Wahidi died of tuberculosis, nearly neglected and uncared for. He never compromised on quality and standard of writing.

In 2006-07, the government bestowed upon Qasir the honour of the President’s Pride of Performance Award for poetry. He won Perveen Shakir Aks-i-Khushboo Award in 1998 for his third collection of poetry ‘Darya-i-Ghumaan’. In 1994, he got the ‘Waseeqa-i-Aiteraf’ from Hamdard Foundation, Karachi.

Before that in 1993, PTV Peshawar had awarded him for being the best song writer. The same year, Bolan Academy, Balochistan awarded him for being the best drama writer and poet. He won Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar Award for best poetry (Athwan asman bhi neela hai).

In 1988-89, he won the Abasin Arts Council, Peshawar award. Qasir had written several plays, songs and various scripts for radio and television. Out of these, the drama serial ‘Talash’ and ‘Bhoot Bangla’ (meant for children) became more popular. He also compiled the Urdu textbooks for various classes on behalf of the NWFP Textbook Board.

One feels like winding up this piece with truly representative lines from Qasir’s poetry: ‘Tum yoon hi naraz huway ho warna mai-khanay ka pata; hum ne har us shakhs se poocha jis ke nain nasheelay thay!’ One is not sure how user-friendly is the web site but the book says that art lovers can visit www.qasir.com to access the poetry and related information. By bringing out Kuliyat, the compilers have facilitated the work of future scholars who may want to do research on Qasir.