Book review of ‘When Sun Meets Moon – Gender, Eros and Ecstasy in Urdu Poetry’ by Scott Kugle. Publisher: Orient BlackSwan 2016. Rs 1125.00
I think language is the repository of culture, contextual to time and space. And literature is our collective memory of that culture and its social and historical ambience. In bringing out this book on the poetry and personality of each of the two Deccani poets, Siraj Awrangabadi (Sun) from eighteenth century and Mah Laqa Chand (Moon) from the nineteenth century, separately and in comparision, Scott Kugle has bridged a gap in the cultural consciousness of the people of Deccan. He has attempted to give them their due in the history of Urdu / Deccani literature, as well. This book provides us with a new understanding of the literature of this region and of the then social and political mores. The immense research work over several years, that has gone into the book, has indeed yielded great dividends for the discerning as well as, lay reader. The clarity of language is another positive.
Siraj Awrangabadi (1716-1763), a poet who, after a short homosexual encounter, became celebate and sublimated his love into sprituality, entering the Chishti Sufi order of Khuldabad. He chose not to marry, although Sufis normally married. His ‘… religious practices were at the centre of both his literary life and social persona.’, as Scott puts it. Siraj’s poetry is performed in qawwali sessions to this day and is recited by the audience along with the qawwals. At the peak of his literary prowess, Siraj had been commanded by his Sufi master to stop writing poetry! Why he did the unthinkable and why Siraj aquiesced without protest, has been painstakingly explained, but in the absence of any recorded reason, the loss is still great for his readers. Kugle has beautifully unravelled the many aspects of Urdu poetry, the interplay of theology, mysticism, gender, sexuality and homoerotic poetic expression in constant interaction with each other in the post-Moghul Deccan. Esoteric reading is now possible even for the uninitiated. His translation (with rhymes) of difficult ghazals retains the complexity of the original, which is no mean feat. He crowns it with detailed interpretation of the metaphors underlying romantic poetry and Sufi traditions. The aesthetics can be fully appreciated.
Maha Laqa Chanda (1768-1824/25) was born in Hyderabad. A courtesan, who was appreciated not only for her performing arts but her poetry and her devotion to Ali, considered the first Vali (empowered friend of God) of Shi’i faith. However, it must be remembered that such piety, was common amongst courtesans of both sects of Islam and the Hindu Bais as well. It probably, gave them the claim to respectibility that their profession did not. She went a step further, by ending nearly all her poems with a verse in praise of, or expressing devotion to Ali. Although dependent on the nobles for patronage, Maha Laqa is paradoxically more empowered than other women, through the capacity to act independent of the constraints of domesticity or ‘honour’. Her greatest achievement is to claim an equal position in the intellectual and literary space of the time, to that of her male counterparts. The tenth chapter, ‘Performing gender’, has been written with some brilliant insights and analysis.
The book could have been more integrated in its writing style and analytical framework. The problematic of the binary (Shi’i/Sunni, male/female, physical/spiritual, etc.,) as a framework, that dominated the section on Mah Laqa Chanda, has stretched the interpretations and consequently, some conclusions in the analysis of the motives of various players and the value of her contributions to the social and political spheres of her times. This was not the case in section on Shah Siraj.
Right at the outset Kugle states, “The basic goal of this book is to retrieve marginalized gendered subjectivities, such as Shah Siraj’s and Mah Laqa Bai’s, from oblivion in order to challenge heretosexist and androcentric interpretations of Islamic tradition. Other voices and experiences did exist but are too often ignored.” In this, he has certainly been fairly successful.
[About the reviewer: Huma R Kidwai is the author or ‘The Hussaini Alam House’, a novel. She is an independent researcher on Muslim societies with emphasis on using literature as a resource. She is an avid traveller and writes travellogues.]