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NAZAR MOHAMMED RASHID
(1910-1975) |
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Nazar Mohammed Rashid, popularly known as "Noon-Meem Rashid," was born in 1910 at Akalgarh in Gujranwala district (now in Pakistan). He received his early education at his home town, and his college education at Government College, Lahore. Both his father and his grandfather were men of literary taste, well-versed in Persian and Arabic. It was his father, Raja Fazal Ilahi Chishti who introduced him to the poetry of Hafiz, Saadi, Ghalib and Iqbal. While at Government College, Lahore, Rashid was selected to edit the Urdu section of the college magazine, Ravi. Later, he edited for sometime Tajwar Najeebabdi's journal, Shahkaar. He also served for sometime in the commissioner's office at Multan. At about this time he wrote his first poem in free-verse, "Jurrat-e-Parwaaz,"- which is included in included in his famous collection: Maawara. In 1939 Rashid joined All India Radio as a news-editor, and became, after sometime, the Director of Programmes. He also served in the army on a short service commission. After the partition of India he worked as a regional director in Pakistan Radio. An assignment in the U.N.O. gave him an opportunity to go abroad and stay at New York. He retired in 1973 and settled down in England. Rashid died in a London hospital on October 9, 1975.
Rashid gave evidence of his poetic talent right in his schooldays. Through he began in the conventional way, writing poems in rhymed verse, retaining
radif, and qafia, he soon grew out of the rut to become an accomplished practitioner and a pioneer of free-verse in Urdu poetry. In this transformation, he was influenced by the contemporary poets of England and France. A poem in free-verse which dispenses with the accessories of radif and
qafia, and accommodates long and short lines in the same stanza for giving a naturalistic expression to the undulations of the poet's thought and feeling, was something new for the readers used to the lilting melodies and logical thought-sequences of earlier poetry.Rashid's hanling of the new form had a startling effect on the mind of the readers who were thrilled as much by the newness of his technique, as by the daring thought and imagery of his poems. In the manner of Browning's dramatic monologues, Rashid introduced in many of his poems-as for instance, in "Sharabi", and "Be Karan Raat Ke Sannate Mein", the two poems included in this selection-a silent auditor with whom the poet enters into an honest and intimate converse, hitting at the social and moral shibboleths of the day. What stirs his imagination and indignation is the state of man in this age of exploitation-be it the exploitation of the East by the "civilised" West, of the poor by the affluent, of innocent faith by the cunning intellect.
His poems are available under four collections: Maawara, Iran Mein Ajnabi, Laa-Insaan, and
Gumaan ka Mumkin.
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