Flowers & heartache: A night of poetry at Jashn-e-Bahar

NEW DELHI: Every year on a certain winter evening the concrete basketball court and the surrounding area at DPS, Mathura Road, transforms into someplace else. A sprawling white shamiana comes to life and a dark weather-beaten green carpet is laid out on the ground.
They come in anticipation -- the prime time people and those who spent their lives watching them – wrapped in suits and shawls, a few smelling of ittar, all united by an ardour for Urdu poetry.For all, Jashn-e-Bahar is an annual pilgrimage they must undertake.
The regulars know that the city’s premier and premium mushaira is like a time machine. It could bring back something barely remembered -- the love that whithered, the wound that never healed. It could also make you revisit something you wanted to forget -- the anguish of a troubled nation.
Friday was just like that. In the backdrop of master painter MF Husain’s giant calligraphy, poets from India, Pakistan, the USA, Canada and the UAE regaled at least 3,000 ardent fans with sher-o-shayari with ghazals and nazms, some of them rendered in tarannum (recitation in tune). The daad (applause) was effusive adding warmth to an evening that turned into a cold night by the time the four-hour long mushaira ended at 11.30 pm.
Pakistan’s Pirzada Qasim and Amjad Islam Amjad and Wasim Barelvi of Bareilly were the stars of the show. Now in its 18th edition, Jashn-e-Bahar has always acted as bridge and bond between the two bickering neighbour-nations. When Amjad, a poet and playwright of repute from Lahore, recited, “Hum phool tumhe bhenje, tum phool hame bhejo and ended with the lines, “Aabad raho tum bhi, aabad rahein hum bhi,” the audience broke into "wah-wah" spontaneously.
Karachi-based Qasim was born in Old Delhi's Sitaram Bazaar in 1943. In an interaction with journalists before the mushaira, he revealed that his father worked as a journalist with Dawn, now Pakistan’s premier newspaper, then a weekly published from Delhi.
“Indo-Pakistan relations have seen many ups and downs. But interaction between people from both sides can ensure better relations. Poetry contributes to this effort because it gives primacy to humanism,” he said.
During the interview, Qasim displayed his serious side when he recited, Main aise shakhs ko zindon mein kyun shumar karoon / Jo sochta bhi nahin, khwab dekhta bhi nahin (Why should I call them living / Those who neither think, nor dream).
Poet-par-excellence Barelvi spoke about fighting hate with love. “Woh mere chhere tak apni nafratein laya to tha / Maine uske haath chume aur bebas kar diya (He had brought his hate close to my face / But I kissed his hand and made him defenceless),” he said.
Barelvi addressed special guest Morari Bapu as “insaniyat ke pahredar" (custodian of humanity). He recalled how the spiritual saint, who also loves shayari, had organized and paid for the Haj pilgrimage of an underprivileged fruit-seller in his village.
“An open-mind anchored in spirituality and literature is the only solution to intolerance in a conflict-riddled world,” said Kamna Prasad, founder of Jashn-e-Bahar Trust. The Urdu activist also said, “If one says that Urdu is the language of one community, that community is Hindustan.”
This was a night when poets primarily spoke of love and other diseases of the heart. When senior politician Farooq Abdullah said, “Yeh ashiqon ki zubaan hai. I have used it extensively,” the audience laughed aloud. You could tell he wasn’t the only one.