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SALAMAT ALI DABIR
(1803-1875) |
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The name of Salamat Ali Dabir is bracketed with that of Babar Ali Anees in any mention of Urdu poetry, more specifically, in the context of the Marsia. The marsia, strictly speaking, is an elegiac poem written to commemorate the martyrdom and valour of Hazrat Imam Hussain and his comrades of the Karbala fame. In its form the marsia generally consists of six-line units, with a rhyming quatrain, and a couplet on a different rhyme. This form found a specially congenial soil in Lucknow, chiefly because it was the centre of Shia Muslim community, which regarded it an act of piety and religious duty to eulogise and bemoan the martyrs of the battle of Karbala. Both Dabir and Anees, who were almost exact contemporaries, were the masters of this genre, and both expended their poetic talent and devotional fervour in refining the form and quality of the marsia. Both of them were good friend, respecting each other's poetic ability, yet they were strong poetic rivals chiefly because of the difference in their individual styles of writing and their treatment of this art form. While Dabir tried to impress his audience with the force and flourish of his style, embellished with Persian words and phrases, and a rich wealth of innovative metaphors and imagery, made to look all the more ponderous with occasional scriptural quotation and allusion, Anees followed a simple, natural style, artistic and adequate to his needs, but not affected. Both of them had their bands of admirers who called themselves "dabirias" and "aneesias", depending upon their allegiance to Dabir or Anees. This poetic rivalry between two distinguished masters of the same genre tended to improve the quality not only of the marsia, but also of Urdu poetry in general, which acquired a new dimension of realistic writing and natural description.
Dabir was born in Delhi in 1803, a year before the birth of Anees. Right in his childhood Dabir's parents moved to Lucknow which was to become the poet's permanent home . unlike Aness, who came from a family of reputed poets, Dabir had to depend upon his own inner instincts and abilities, which, however, he developed with utmost diligence and care, under the guidance of his poetic mentor, Mir Muzaffar Ali Zameer. Dabir soon acquired a high position in the field of learning and literature, and as a poet of the marsia, to which form he gave all his energy and attention, and in which form he easily surpassed even his master, Zameer. He not only wrote and read his marsias, but also recited them in public in an impressive, musical way. Dabir did not write ghazals, though he was, like Anees, a specialist of the rubai, a four-lines stanza in the special "rajaz" metre, rhyming aaba. Dabir died in 1875 on Muharram, a day traditionally associated with the martyrdom of Iman Hussain, when the bands of the "faithfuls" indulge in heart-rending marsia
khwaani.
The excerpt chosen for this book describes how tremulously yet tactfully, Hazrat Imam Hussian approaches the enemy camp with a request for water for his infant son, Asghar, half-dead with thirst. The last little detail which shows the infant moving his tongue on his parched lips is a master-stroke of the poet, proving his ability both as a poet and a psychologist.
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