Ayaz says ‘Hunger for power, leads to a hungry and ambitious world, full of problems and grievances’
A tribute to Shaikh Ayaz (March 2, 1923 – December 28, 1997) on his Death Anniversary
By Noor Ahmed Janjhi
Poetry has remained a strong vehicle of human thought. The thought gets a widespread reach through the poetry. The poetry, initially, expressed inner feelings about love, longing and leisure. Afterwards the poetic expression became a strong communique touching all of the aspects of human life as well as the dimensions of nature. The nature has a great diversity and that diversity demands a diversified representation. Shaikh Ayaz, one of the greatest poets of Sindh, has offered a good stock of diversity in his poetic thought. He was born in first quarter of twentieth century when the World Ward I was just ended and the global politics, economy and sociology were taking their course accordingly. Some decades later, another World War erupted that changed the shape of global polity and strategy. It gave birth to a global organization, called UN and remained effective in coming fifty years. Shaikh Ayaz observed a strong anti-British movement in the subcontinent and remained active in different processions and poetry gatherings. It influenced him and he strongly promoted human struggle for his motherland or for sake of any other great cause. He was very much impressed by the communist revolution in different countries especially the USSR. He studied it thoroughly and concluded with a mature note that all the kinds of ideology should be for people. He has written heart touching short stories like ‘sufaid wahshi’ reflecting a bitter reaction towards the white skinned barbaric people. Thus, he became a revolutionary and composed the poems like:
ڳاءِ انقلاب ڳاءِ انقلاب
(Sing revolution, sing revolution)
Along with the thought of revolution and love, the poetry of Shaikh Ayaz offers good thoughts on humanism. He follows the path of Shah Abdul Latif and loves his motherland very much as well as world. He takes his consideration further and declares the earth as his country. He says in a poem published in Bhonr Bhiray Aakas:
اڄ تھ چئي ڏي اچ تھ چئي ڏي اڄ تھ علي الاعلان
منھنجو ديس نھ ڪوئي منھنجو ديس جھان
منھنجو ڪوئي نانءُ نھ آھي مان آھيان انسان
ڌرتي منھنجي ماءُ آھي ، انھي تي منھنجو ايمان
Being global in his thought, he pledges his love for Sindh as سنڌ ديس جي ڌرتي توکي سيس نوايان and moves ahead towards love of entire world. Despite all of the thoughts pertaining to human struggle, Shaikh Ayaz advocates much more for peace because he gets his lesson learning from the leaves of history. He thinks all of the wars waged between two or more countries useless and antihuman venture. He emerges with very much strong thesis for peace process in world. He says:
امن جا امڪان
ڪيڏا ناھن جڳ ۾
سمجھن ٿا سڀڪجھ وڙھي ناس ڪندا ھي نادان
امن جا امڪان
ڪيڏا ناھن جڳ ۾
He reminds world about the folly of atomic bombing on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It was a move of loss and ended in disaster. Man in power should avoid from it to save the globe from further decay and destruction. He attributes poverty and pandemics with the plundering by agents of market economy. In later of his works, he again comes up with much more strong and balanced point of view about wars and fights between the countries. The wars play great havoc with human population and mosaic of nature. He has analyzed the ideologies those impressed him as the communist ideology and the code of mysticism. He is not a bling follower of any ideology of any personality of world. However, his writings contain a plenty of the names of personalities, places and events in world history. By doing so, he has shared a great deal of information with people of Sindh to develop a bridge to connect them with the people of world. His poetry offers such stream of conscience to evolve connectivity among different zones of globe to make world peace sustainable and long lasting.
In one of his poems, he condemns the war by quoting the example of the communist system of governance in USSR. He says:
جنھن وقت مُئو ھو اسٽالن
۽ ھن جي رڳ ڦاٽي پئي ھئي
تنھن وقت سڄيءَ تاريخ منجھان
ڪا پوري سٽ ڪاٽي وئي ھئي
He makes mention towards bright prospects for peace after the ending of era of Joseph Stalin. After reflecting about the erased line, he himself gives explanation as:
جي تو ۾ چورا کورا آ
پو سٽ اھا ھيٺين آھي
آ انت تھ ڪارڻ ئي سڀڪجھ
اُن لاءِ ذريعو ڪجھھ ناھي
By declaring it, he focus on effect or result rather than cause of the events. He also underestimates the ‘means’ and moves ahead and presents a saying by Lenin in these words;
لينن بھ تھ ساڳي ڳالھ ڪئي
ڪو فرق نھ اُن ۾ پائي آ
جنھن مار ڌاڙ سان ماڳ ملي
سا مار ڌاڙ سجائي آھي
If wars are regarded fruitful who will save the humanity from bloodshed and destruction. After presenting such tragedy in human history, he proposes a self-disciplinary remedy for it. He says that all the humans should stop themselves by remembering death as the check on life. He says:
تون موت سدائين ياد ڪري
ٻي لاءِ جياپو تنگ نھ ڪر!
ڪر ٻي جو مُٺ ۾ ساھ نھ تون
تون جبر نھ ڪر جنگ نھ ڪر!
“Stop compulsion, stop war” is the slogan of Shaikh Ayaz in the last of the poem because he aims at the stopping of war in world. The wars and battles have ravaged the very mosaic of nature and sent millions of billions people in the ditch of death. Shaikh Ayaz, the poet of love and peace, advocates humanism and peace through his beautiful poetry and heart touching prose. He invites his readers and listeners to think it over what will be the beneficial for world peace. Hunger for power, leads to a hungry and ambitious world, full of problems and grievances. Man should learn lesson from his past and moves for power, exploitative venture and wars.
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Noor Ahmed Janjhi is a senior educationist based in Desert District Tharparkar Sindh. He is author of several books in Sindhi and English on folk literature including poetry books.
