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SHAH ABDUL LATIF
BHITAI, the saint and great mystic poet is the common invaluable
cultural heritage of the peoples of the sub-continent. He is not
legacy which could 65 only be placed in the decorated galleries of
national museums or archives. He is the living and moving spirit
who inspires human souls and enlightens mind in the toughest
period of time and the bitterest-hours of struggle for
realization. His everlasting poetry has immortalized him. He will
be felt and sensed by generations to come. Shah Latif was one of
those enlightened souls from whom candles of love for humanity
derived soothing shine. He was not just a preacher of ideals
embracing humanism, but he embodies virtue and had personified
love for mankind in his person. His 'man ' is the real man with
flesh and bones, having his material needs and requirements and a
social being committed to the society, its values and traditions.
His 'man' at a time belongs to different creeds and religions with
different languages and dialects and cultures and hails from
different ethnic origins, nationalities, castes and tribes, but
possesses one common value that is humanism. Shah always kept this
aspect of his 'man' dear to his heart and mind. There is no place
for sectarianism and parochialism in his frame of mind and the
scheme of his thought and feelings. He is in himself all love and
all virtue. Discriminations and dislikes for any section of the
society are not known to him and are, in fact, strangers in the
areas and atmosphere around his vital senses.
Writers not so
well versed with Sindhi language and literature owe greatly to Dr.
Trumpp and Dr.Sorley who, through their most comprehensive and
research oriented works on the art, poetry and the life of Shah
Latif, have opened a gateway to the rare treasure island of art
and literature for the travelers of the world of fine arts, like
us.
The poetic
tradition, which Shah Latif represents, is more than a literature,
and more than a culture. It expresses vigorously and coherently
the response of human nature about the issue of human existence.
It is a fusion of the elements which are philosophical, mystical
and aesthetic, and are also essentially trivial and ephemeral.
The fusion always takes place within a man and not outside him,
in a system of philosophy or aesthetics, but certainly, not in
religious dogma. His poetry is therefore, a means of human
self-revelation and self-assertion. Human nature asserts itself,
whatever the prevailing system or belief may be, but as and a
matter of history, literature and other fine arts have flourished
mostly in the period when human thought is man centered. The
legalists succeed in restraining the development of art which
depends on the presentation of living forms by carrying social
opinion with them and the seclusion of women which is based on a
legalistic interpretation of religious dogma.
The age of Shah
Latif extends from 1690 to 1752 AD. He was a true son of the soil,
deeply attached to Sindhi Land. He was the finest exponent of the
rural life and peasantry in literary history of the
sub-continent. His greatness as a writer lies in his creative
genius. He created life in super-abundance, peopled a whole world
of his own making. The world of Shah Latif is inhabited by
hundreds of peasants, landlords, money lenders, fighter for truth
and justice and lovers devoted to their ideas. The power of
Shah's pen was in its fidelity to life, its truthful presentation
of Sindh.
Sindh that lives
in the small villages, towns and countryside, in the fields and
pastures, in narrow lanes and alleys, in castles and tumble-down
huts. Shah Latif dreamed to transform this life by the power of
his pen and influenced the contemporary events and march of
history and left who hit out against wrongs and injustices in all
the vicious myriad forms. He hit out courageously against
humiliation of exploitative rule and oppressive social order. He
was enlightened rationalist who stood four squire against
orthodoxy and superstitions as well as blind faith and
obscurantism. He is man of limitless glamour which is the
outcome of his open-mindedness and freedom from malice and
prejudice, freedom also from contempt or irony. The secret of
magic and massive popularity of his poetry consists in his supreme
art of painting his feelings most naturally and in the fewest and
simplest possible words. His poetry is the voice not of poet, but
of life itself. There is truth and innocence in it which makes us
stop and ponder over-every verse. The most prominent quality of
his poetry is its uniqueness and its individuality which have
many dimensions. Verse of Shah Latif equally moves the common
man on the street, workers and peasants and those who belong to
upper classes of the society.
The elements in
his poetry, which could be mainly .attributed to his great
popularity and mass appeal in every strata of society, are his
simple yet so powerful expression and style, diction and drama,
music and melody. He immortalized the folk tales and their
characters by painting his vision in them and communicating his
great ideas and thoughts through them. Desirous of reaching out to
the vast masses. His style, like other elements of his art, is
remarkable for its vigor and strength rather than for
ornamentation. He deliberately deviated from the common path and
chose his own way to the destiny he had in his mind. Shah Latif
rejected the influence of alien style and diction but adopted the
one which has close liaison with the landscape, cultural heritage
and aspiration of the people of Sindh. The tradition set by him in
this aspect is pride treasure of the world of art and modern
Sindhi poetry. Shah Latif has broken shackles of alien domination
in the domain of Sindhi poetry in particular and in other forms of
literature in general. The diction of Shah Latif is the order of
the day in the contemporary Sindhi literature.
Many of the folk
tales which received his treatment, care and attention depict a
struggle in the human hearts between egoism and nobility.
Ultimately the noble impulse is victorious. He is an
uncompromising painter of reality but his idealism too seeks to
give direction to life.
Shah Latif, an
outstanding artist, ranks among the greatest in the galaxy of
poets of the sub-continent as well as whole world. His greatness
however does not rest with his adoption of rare verse form, the
poetic narration of the popular folk fables. He excels his tribe
in that he sets in motion a new deviation and experimentation
which created a lasting impact and permeated other poetic forms as
well .He employed various artistic devices to overcome the
restrictive influence of tradition in the field. His style of
expression is marked by dignity, clarity, feeling and moral
fervor, which in the 20th century has been pressed into service by
new generation of poets to propagate socially. culturally and even
politically meaningful concepts and values on an ever enlarging
canvas. |
