Poets of Peace

His first name sounds Muslim, the last name Rajput but Idrak ul Zaman was Christian. He chose to write poetry in Urdu although he was formally educated in English. And so long as he was alive, he never tired of repeating how proud he was to be part of the country's composite culture.

The whole world knew Idrak as an economist but after his death a year ago, much of his poetry is slowly tumbling out of the closet for all lovers of the word to enjoy.

Described by Qurat-u-ain Haider, great Urdu writer as an enchanting expose in a picture gallery of verse of the inner world of the poet, Idrak's imagery is indeed breathtakingly beautiful:

Awake,

And look again.

A dew drop

Is just a tiny cradle

For a sun ray.

In a forward to The Eternal Spring, a collection of Idrak's kalaam that saw its second edition released recently, the late Haider declares the words of Idrak as a fresh and fascinating new path in the garden of Urdu poetry.

“The poems are studded with beauteous imagery..chahat ki baarish and shaam teher gai dariya ke kinare... have an element of drama which echoes Mir Anees”, gushes Haider. Anees is one of the greatest Urdu poets from 19th century Lucknow.

And thanks mainly to Tom Alter, actor and self confessed shaagird, Idrak's poetry is recited today all over the country by Trisanga, an ensemble of performances put together by Tom and Uday Chandra and Chandar Khanna all friends from when they were students in the early 1970s at Pune's Film and Television Institute of India.

At first Tom had publicly recited Idrak's poetry by himself. Then Uday, already known for his one person performance of Franz Kafka' Metamorphosis, and Chandar, the interpreter of powerful Hindi poetry came together to form Trisanga, a name given to the trio by Mrinalini Sarabhai who hosted the first performance in Ahmedabad in 2001.

To Lucknow, Trisanga brought candle light, music, song, drama and renditions from Idrak's book and from Bob Dylan's Masters of War.

In 1963 Dylan wrote:

Come you masters of war

You that build the big guns

You that build the death planes

You that build all the bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks.

It is nearly half a century ago when Dylan first sang this and nothing is changed in the world ever since. Nothing has changed despite Vivekananda's inspiring address to the first parliament of world religions in Chicago in 1893 either. This speech was repeated by Uday the same evening:

“Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time is come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.”

In 1910 Maithilisharan Gupta, the great Hindi poet wrote Jayadrathvadh or the slaying of Jayavradh that received a dramatic rendition from Chandar.

The artist illustrated on stage how Gupta had modernised an ancient theme to project Abhimanyu like a freedom fighter at war with imperial forces that had occupied his home.

All this drama was accompanied by the lighting of three candles in celebration of each of the three languages used by the actors to talk with the audience in an endless effort to inspire human beings to continue to use words of love and peace on earth in whatever language best known to each one of us.