Despite early critical acclaim and commercial success, Shahryar has consistently refused to become a performer playing to the gallery at Mushairas. A career rooted in academia has allowed him, for over three decades, to straddle two worlds with consummate ease – that of poetry and poetics. Forty years after his first collection appeared in print, Shahryar continues to delight his readers with his mastery over form and content. He uses a collage of images – sensual, multi-coloured, delicately filigreed – to speak out on a range of subjects: the pathos and alienation of the urban individual, outrage at communally-divisive politics, discrimination towards the less-privileged, as well as a relentless probing of his own heart and the human predicament.
Surrounded by friends, who are the mainstay of his life, Shahryar looks back on a life well spent, and asks:
Iss umr ke safar ka
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Kitna taweel rasta tai main maine kar liya hai
Aur ab bhi taaza dum hoon, bilkul nahi thaka hoon
Hairat ki baat kya hai?
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I have travelled a great distance
Yet I feel refreshed, and not one bit tired
Why is it so strange?
Should poetry be self-referential? Or, must it have a social commitment, a framework within which it must be located and a frame of reference that is accessible to all its readers?
There can be no poetry without the self. At the same time, no one can be expected to be interested in the purely personal details of other people's lives, in the joys and sorrows of others.
Some poets have tried to do that, for instance Akhtar Shirani wrote poetry that was intensely romantic yet extremely personal. But that has never appealed to me. I have a Marxist world view. I believe in the social and political commitment of literature. You may not always find direct references to my worldview in my poetry. But you will find them in the oblique and the symbolic. Ghalib expressed it best when he said: Hamne yeh jaana ke goya yeh bhi mere dil main hai (I found that this too lies within my heart).
All good poets, be it Iqbal or Faiz, speak of the world, to the world. In some respects, Faiz is a greater poet than Iqbal precisely because he is more human, more interested in all humanity and not one community or group.
How important is communication for you? What you say, as a poet, do you want all of it to be instantly accessible, or revealed, to your audience?
Communication is all. A poet must reach the greatest number of people. Some of his words maybe clothed in myth and metaphor, but they must eventually be realised by his readers. If his images are too oblique, if his symbols too dense, then, no matter how exquisitely beautiful his words or how well-crafted his syntax, he is failing as a poet.
Your fame rests on your ghazals, but you have also written a great deal of nazm. Of the two, which do you personally favour?
Contrary to popular perception, I find writing the nazm far more difficult than the ghazal. The ghazal has been around for a very long time; we are familiar with its constraints and we have learnt to speak within its confines. The nazm, with its newness and its boundless freedom, is more challenging. A poet must be more exact, more precise, more sure of himself while writing the nazm. It does not have the safety net of the ghazal's rhyme pattern to fall back on. At the same time, it is more difficult to say something new in the ghazal. Therein lies its challenge.
Dreams and sleep have been a recurring leitmotif in your poetry. Why is that? What do they mean to you, apart from their obvious significance as metaphors?
Dreams and sleep have meant different things to me at different times. Dreams can be joyful or fearful. Sleep can beckon; and it can elude. Dreams can be an escape from unpleasant reality, or they can be a punishment of sorts. When I have most yearned for sleep and been denied it, it has been my worst nightmare. And when I have slept soundly and dreamt, I have felt most blessed.
Is the world a dark place for you? Or, does goodness and light outweigh evil and darkness?
I am an optimist. When I look at the world around me I see enough reasons to be glad and hopeful. In the midst of despair (when the right-wing government was in power), I wrote:
Siyah raat nahi leti naam dhalne ka/Yehi to waqt hai suraj tere nikalne ka (The dark night is showing no signs of ending/ Now is the time, Sun, for you to rise). When I go abroad and people ask me about the state of affairs in India or the state of Urdu, I say: Aaj ka din bahut achcha nahin taslimhai/Aane wale din bahut behtar hain meri rai hai (I agree that today has not been a good day/But I am convinced tomorrow will be a better day).
Finally, when you look back on your poetic journey, do you see a change or evolution?
I used to write a great deal more; now, my output has decreased considerably. I write very little, I am aware of the expectations people have of me. I am reminded also of what the noted critic, Ale Ahmad Suroor, wrote on the flap of my first book: ‘If he remains safe from the danger of takrar (repetition) and thakan (exhaustion), he will go far.' Today, when I look back, I can see I have been fearful of the consequences of both. Mujhe thakan aur takrar ka khauf hai.
Rakhshanda Jalil has translated Shahryar's nazms in English, under the title Through the Closed Doorway (Rupa & Co., 2004).