Mir Anis & Mirza Dabeer: the battle is still on

Literary Notes:     Ariel

<Dawn Internet Edition / Features/: Wed April 4, 2001 archives>

EVER since musaddas shot into prominence as a metrical form for the elegiac genre of marsiah, Mir Babbar Ali Anis and Mirza Salamat Ali Dabeer have risen to such dizzy heights of appreciation that their devotees have almost set up two schools in marsiah writing.

There is a corpus of literature written from a partisan point of view about them. The battle for primacy is still on as the latest book of Nayyar Masud, a scholar in his own right, goes on to prove that the dust has not yet settled on the Anis-Dabeer polemic. This is, perhaps, why Prof Rasheed Ahmed Siddiqui has said that marsiah may have any meaning in the Arabic lexicon but in Urdu it stands for the famous duo, Mir Anis and Mirza Dabeer.

Nayyar Masud's book Maarka-i-Anis-o-Dabeer establishes the fact that except for minor verbal duels, the two always remained on good terms. And when Anis died, Dabeer paid him the highest tribute:

Aasman Be Mah-i-Kamil Sidrah Be Ruhul Amin 

Toor-i-Sina Be Kalimullah Mimbar Be Anis

Marsiah is an epic genre and in its standard form has for its composition eight ingredients or stages, chehra (introduction), rukhsat (taking leave of Imam Husain or the ladies of the house in the case of relations to proceed to the battlefield), aamad (entry into the battlefield), rajaz (chivalrous account of the family and self, addressed to the adversary), jang (combat), shahadat (martyrdom), bain (lamentation) and dua (invocational epilogue). Occasionally, saqinamah (praising saqi) or sarapa (description of the general appearance) is also added.

Mir Anis and Mirza Dabeer were such great masters of the craft that no one has so far been able to measure up to them. That is perhaps why some modern marsiah poets use free verse or even the prose-poem-like expression. Rais Ahmar is the first poet who uses verse libre to good effect in his collection of Marsiahs, Sar-i-Maqtal.

One need not go into the polemics about Mir Anis's and Mirza Dabeer's marsiah writing as the battle seems to have been almost won by Mir Anis. Even some of the great Dabeerians of yesteryears have turned round to admit that they have joined the Anisean fold. The battle which began with Maulana Muhammad Husain Azad's denigration of Mirza Dabeer in Aab-i-Hayat and accentuated by Shibli's Muazna-i-Anis-o-Dabeer continues to engage marsiah poets' attention whether they conform to the musaddas or paband nazm (verse libre).

It is, however, strange that there is still one school of marsiah writing which could be called Dabeerian. It is the Amroha school of marsiah writing. For the sake of record Mir Taqi Mir and Mir Khaliq were disciples of Amroha ustads, and Azim Amrohvi's, Tarikh-i-Marsiah Nigaran-i-Amroha, provides details of more than 100 marsiah poets of this school. Even artist Sadequain belongs to that long list of Amroha marsiah poets who are Dabeerian.

It is another fact that, except Nasim Amrohvi, almost every one of the well-known Amroha's marsiah poets was a Dabeerian. When this writer once asked Sadequain why he subscribed to the Dabeerian school of marsiah writing although he remained a great fan of Mir Anis throughout his life, he said Mirza Dabeer was a bigger artist in every respect. Mir Anis became popular because he was very lucid and went in for more and more tashbihat (similes) than metaphors whereas Mirza Dabeer was ornate - even to the degree of copiousness in his chehra nigari (introduction). He was of the opinion that Mirza Dabeer was more like Ghalib than Mir Taqi Mir. Mir Anis was more like Mir, simple, lucid and effective.

I wonder what made an entire centre of marsiah nigari Dabeerian when it is on record that Mir Anis had travelled to Amroha to recite his marsiah, while Dabeer is not known to have visited Amroha. But a long list of marsiah poets starting from Mushafi Amrohvi, Safi Amrohvi, Shamim Amrohvi (Nasim Amrohvi's grandfather) Tapish, Majid, Haider, Siraj, Talib, Birjees, Salim, Tamkeen, Ehsan, Rais Amrohvi, Sardar Naqvi and Hilal Naqvi tend to be more ornate, imbibing a decorative mannerism in their marsiah as a rule. Nasim Amrohvi is the only well known Amroha's marsiah poet who was not Dabeerian. More of an Anisean in the beginning and later on turning to the modern marsiah writing having the chehra of his marsiah about his home town round which the whole narrative except the bain or masaib part of the marsiah was woven.

Of the Amroha marsiah poets, Sadequain is also known to be the initiator of an altogether novel idea. He made his home town, Amroha, the theme of his marsiah and dwelt upon the contribution of marsiah nigari and azadari of his city. It was through his reminiscences - partly personal and partly gleaned from history - that he, while subscribing to the Dabeerian school, raised his town to the pedestal which no other poet did for Lucknow, Delhi, Azimabad or Hyderabad (Deccan). Sadequain was an innovative artist and his innovative marsiah lives up to expectation.

One of the stanzas of his marsiah beginning with the line La Raib Ke Allah Ta'ala Tu Ne is quite unique in the history of marsiah nigari:

Rukhsara-i-Gaiti Pe Sajil Amroha
Amroha Ke Logon Ka Hai Dil Amroha
Dilli Hai Agar Aab Tu Gil Amroha
Lucknau Jo Bindi Tu Til Amroha
Amroha Pe Do Shehar-i-Dil Ara Bakhshoon
Bas Ho Tu Samarqand-o-Bukhara Bakhshoon.

Doesn't the above stanza read like a panegyric, or a love poem, for Sadequain's city, but as we go on reading this marsiah, Mirza Dabeer's colour manifests itself gradually, and one is surprised that Mirza Dabeer was still the model poet at an important centre of marsiah writing, proving thereby that Mir Anis may have won the battle but not the war. It suddenly dawns upon us that the Amroha school appears to be subscribing to the Lucknow school in this respect, while Mir Anis remained faithful to the language of his ancestral city - Delhi.

Thus, in the Mir Anis-Mirza Dabeer polemics one can feel a deep-down Delhi- Lucknow tussle.

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