Kaifi Azmi once memorably described a film lyricist's job as first digging a grave and then finding a body to fit it! Needless to say, he managed to find some spectacular bodies. So has Javed Akhtar, one of the most popular film lyricists of our times and, coincidentally, Azmi's son-in-law. In fact, several of Akhtar's songs have far exceeded the brief extended to a song writer by the Hindi film industry; they have risen beyond their time and circumstance and spoken to our collective consciousness.
Outstanding poetry
Blurring the definition of lyric and poetry, there is a great deal in Javed Akhtar's cinematic oeuvre that is outstanding poetry, such as this lyric from “1942: A Love Story” which contains within it tremulous beauty and technical finesse in near-perfect proportions: Kuch na kaho, kuch bhi na kaho/Kya kahna hai kya sun-na hai/Mujh ko pata hai, tum ko pata hai/Samay ka yeh pal thumsa gaya hai/Aur iss pal mein koyi nahin hai/Bas ek mein hoon, bas ek tum ho .
However, since much of film lyric-writing is in the nature of a command performance, Akhtar has written another set of poetry too; one that is a truer reflection of his real concerns and a more faithful echo of his own poetic voice. His first collection Tarkash , (Quiver) published in 1995, established him as the writer of the nazm . With his second volume, Lava , we see him dabbling in both the ghazal and the nazm and I personally rate his ghazals as being superior to his nazms . Conventionally, and by the admission of several poets themselves, the ghazal is relatively easier to write; the poet has a time-honoured ‘mould' of the two-line couplet ( sher ) in which the poet pours an equally time-honoured repertoire of words and images. The nazm , on the other hand, demands far more mehnat and mushaqqat (labour and diligence) from the poet; as the late poet Shahryar used to say, the nazm has a will of its own and often takes the poet on an uncharted course in a way that the ghazal can not and does not.
The matter of technique and labour aside, I do believe Javed Akhtar reveals himself fully to us as a poet in his ghazals . The nazms contained in this collection, several of which he has recited with great verve and passion at recent mushairas , have immense aural charm; stunning, multi-hued images tumble out of them as though in a kaleidoscope, dazzling us with bursts of ideas and thoughts. The nazms also have a questioning, probing quality as though the poet is using it to ask larger metaphysical questions about the world around him, as in “Kainat”, “Aansoo”, “Yeh Khel Kya Hai?” where he creates an avalanche of questions. The pace and tempo, the almost quicksilver-like quality of the nazms , is replaced by a quiescence and lucid stillness in the ghazals . If the nazms have the swiftness and haste of a bubbling mountain brook, the ghazals have the sedateness and leisure of a river that has descended to the plains.
Mastery over the genre
Brimful with the pain of loss, longing and loneliness, the ghazals contained in Lava show Akhtar's mastery over the genre. Using both short and long beher (metre and rhyming scheme), he infuses the classical template of the ghazal with a sensibility that is modern and unconventional, as in: Bahut aasan hai pehchan isski/Agar dukhta nahi to dil nahi hai . (It is easy to tell its identity/If it doesn't ache, it isn't the heart). Or, Aaj who bhi bichad gaya hamse/Chaliye yeh qissa bhi tamam hua . (Today, I lost him too/So, this matter too ends here)
Like the earth that spews molten rock from deep within its bosom in the form of lava, Javed Akhtar's ghazals emerge from some deep crevice within his soul. Flowing like a molten river, gleaming and incandescent on the surface but rippling with a singeing and scorching heat, this collection hides unexpected depths. But just as, upon cooling and calming, the lava that erupts from the innards of the earth can also nurture and nourish, so too can this collection of poetry that is by turns angry and philosophical, questioning and answering, restless and restful.
Lava, Javed Akhtar, Star Publications.
