Firaq Gorakhpuri: The Poet of Pain & Esctasy

By Ajai Mansingh and Gopi Chand Narang

One of contemporary India’s most prolific Urdu poets, Firaq Gorakhpuri was well known for his ghazals, nazms, rubaais and qat’aa. His magnum opus, Gul-e-Naghma, won him the Jnanpith Award (1969), India’s first highest literary honour for literature. The other awards bestowed upon him include the Sahitya Akademi Award (1960), and the Ghalib Academy Award (1981).
In this personalized biography, Firaq’s nephew, Ajai Mansingh, tells the compelling tale of the poet's life, inspiration, and struggles – shedding light on the trials and tribulations of one of India’s greatest literary figures.

‘Firaq is a poet of the labyrinths of emotions, the sensuousness and transcendence of beauty, and the merging shades of pain and ecstasy. The softness and suppleness of his voice does not have a parallel in Urdu poetry.’
— Gopi Chand Narang

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roli Books
• Release date: May 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9789351940821

Book preview

some_text

Introduction

Raghupati Sahai ‘Firaq Gorakhpuri’ was an enigma, and a wonder to me and my siblings. Here was a charismatic man of medium built whose lightly tanned face and large bright eyes had unusual brightness, with an aura of mystic wonder, and infinite knowledge and wisdom. He was a kind and affectionate man who enchanted everyone with his intelligent conversations, ranging from domestic matters and politics to philosophy and spirituality. We wondered how he, whose status in our family hierarchy was not higher than that of his sisters Chandra and Tara, or their husbands Bahadur Mansingh and Amar Mansingh, respectively, commanded greater love and respect from all, including our grandfather, grand uncles, and grand aunts. Our domestic staff of several generations adored him. Members of family of his own age group called him Raghupati or Bhaiya (brother), depending upon one’s age, while our generation addressed him as Bade Mama (eldest maternal uncle). The charm of his person was such that members of over forty families belonging to the extended Mansingh clan, going back to at least ten generations, felt personally related to him.

What used to puzzle us was that whenever he came to Fatehpur, which was at least twice a year, he would galvanize our entire extended family in the city by becoming the centre of attraction for everyone, ranging from the head of the family Rai Bahadur Ishwar Sahai and his equally distinguished brothers to the youngest one among us. His presence would make his sisters Chandra and Tara unusually happy because their brotherly and ‘fatherly’ love, affection, respect, and adoration for him were indelibly intermingled. He too would spend most of his time with them. The rest of his time during the days was taken up by streams of visitors, including relatives. In the evenings, many Urdu scholars and city intelligentsia visited him for discussions and audience. Usually, it used to be a monologue, during which he would recite some verses to elaborate certain points, in his hoarse and shrill voice. We sat at a distance and watched his audience enthralled, enjoying every verse by shaking their heads, and loudly exclaiming ‘wah wah’ or ‘mukarar’. Not being able to comprehend anything, we mimicked their appreciative actions and laughed gingerly.

My siblings and cousins were brought up so closely with our maternal uncles and their families that we always considered them as just three more Mansingh uncles. Physical distances between us during the 1930s and ’40s were reduced by regular and frequent family get-togethers during holidays and vacations, at Allahabad, Fatehpur, Gorakhpur (where our mother’s eldest sister lived), and at Ardlapar, where our naniji (maternal grandmother) lived since 1931. As we grew older, my mother and aunt told us that their enigmatic and charismatic brother was a prodigy with great intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom, and had been a virtual father to his younger siblings after our grandfather passed away in 1918. When our naniji told that Raghupati’s mystic nature had started to manifest within months of his birth, we wondered if he was a reincarnation of some Puranic god. When she mentioned that people were afraid to look straight into his eyes, we got interested in experiencing it. With his permission, we would stare straight into them and found nothing, but affection, concern, and inspiration. The Indian Freedom Movement had started to make an impact on me and my generation in the early 1940s. When we learnt of Firaq’s close association with the stalwarts of the Indian National Congress, our curiosity to learn more about him grew deeper.

Thus, the process of capturing authentic unpublished information on Firaq’s life, had already started in the early 1940s. Four generations of our sources, starting with Firaq’s mother, he himself, his siblings, wife, daughters, and nephews had enriched us with every little detail of the poet’s life. My sister Kanak Verma, who lived with Firaq for a couple of years when she was a student at Allahabad University, several Mansingh girls and boys including Ram, Abhai, and Ashok who attended the same university in the 1950s and ’60s provided valuable information on Firaq’s day-to-day life. My mother Tara Mansingh had started to sow the seeds of this book by writing relevant notes in her diary since the 1940s. Firaq Saheb’s annual visits to Fatehpur or Kanpur provided us with the opportunity to confirm our information on him and gain more. It had taken me almost 36 years (1943-79) to complete capturing about 90 per cent of the corroborated information on Firaq, whereas the remaining was collected between 1980 and 2007 from his children, grandson, grand nephews, and admirers.

The idea of writing this book was conceived in 1991, when we came across a documentary on Firaq made by one of his close friend Ali Sardar Jafri. This was an unsubstantiated and dramatically distorted representation of certain aspects of his life. It saddened the family even more because Jafri Saheb was warned by Kanak and me that Firaq had a tendency to seek sympathy. In fact, Jafri Saheb had solicited our comments on his plans to produce the documentary on Firaq. For some inexplicable reason, he even failed to confirm the facts by interviewing Firaq’s sister Tara and brother Sripati. Around the same time, we came across articles on Firaq’s life and personality published in several journals and symposia proceedings after his death, which we found nonacademic, unethical, mischievous, and libellous, as they were based on personal agendas, and gossip. Even the scholarly articles were rather incomplete as they were based entirely upon the authors’ knowledge of the poet during the last twenty-five to thirty years of his life, when he had become mentally ‘deranged’ and morally bankrupt. There was serious paucity of information on the first six decades of his life.

Realizing that Firaq’s admirers, and indeed the world of Urdu literature needed to know the facts of his life, my mother, Tara Mansingh asked me to write this book. Professional responsibilities and living in Canada and Jamaica since 1960 did not allow me to devote time to start this project until early 2004, after my retirement from the university. We organized and collated the tacit information with the published information and analysed them logically before drawing conclusions. Here, I faced another difficulty. Although I am quite proficient in Urdu, living abroad for over forty-five years had made me a slow reader of Urdu. My close friends Suraiya and Haseen Ahmad, in Jamaica, provided invaluable assistance in decoding the language. It required several prolonged sessions with Rama, Kanak, and Ahmads, spread over two years to process and collate the complete information needed for writing the book.

The first chapter ‘The Sahais of Gorakhpur’ presents briefly Firaq’s ancestry: the family life of his father Gorakh Prasad ‘Ibrat Gorakhpuri’; the domestic micro-environs and the physical and social environments of Banwarpar and Gorakhpur, which had permanently moulded Firaq’s psyche and temperament. It also discusses, Ibrat Saheb’s poetic legacy and his classic masnavi Husne Fitrat. The chapter ends with a brief account of Firaq’s siblings and the extended family.

The next chapter, ‘Firaq’s Family Life’ provides authentic, detailed, and yet unknown facts on Firaq’s life. He was the only Urdu poet whose poetic foundation was built on Vedic philosophy and Puranic mythology and on Indian ethos and composite Indian history from pre-Vedic to British India. It had induced in him a uniquely strong sense of belonging in time and space. The chapter presents Firaq’s life in six different fluid phases; detailed accounts of significant events of Firaq’s early life (1896-1913); his youth (1913-18) during which he got married; his tragic years (1918-22), when he lost his father and two brothers; his splendid role as a father-figure to his siblings and manager of his properties, even while serving two years of jail term; his relationship with his wife, with whom he lived for forty years; and his admirable role as a husband, father, and grandfather. Also discussed are his close personal relationships with his extended families, including his in-laws and the Mansinghs of Fatehpur.

The hitherto well known but never published secret of his personal life, after 1955, when he had become mentally ‘deranged and morally bankrupt’ as he adopted a socially unacceptable, and what was generally perceived as perverted lifestyle; banished his wife to her brother’s home and replaced her with Ramesh Chandra Dwivedi as a co-inhabitant of his home; faced social ostracism from his entire family and friends; and suffered from the consequent sadness, loneliness, and guilt for the rest of his life – are discussed in detail. Eventually, he was united with his wife, children, and extended family members, but only after death when all had gathered at Allahabad to bid him farewell.

The chapter ‘Firaq’s Professional Life’ presents the three phases of his professional life – his first job as the under secretary of the Indian National Congress from 1923 to 1927; his career as an academic from 1927 onwards; and his poetic hobby, which became a career as it paid much more dividends than his academic job.

The final chapter is an analytical assessment of ‘Firaq: The Person’. In the past, several scholars have recognized certain features of his personality, based upon their knowledge of him during his last twenty-five years. Some scholars have also attempted to understand him through his poems.

The author and his associates hope that the authentic and extensively researched information presented here would project Firaq as the person that he was, remove misinformation, misgivings, and misunderstandings about him; inspire scholars and researchers to revisit their assessment of the poet where needed; and initiate research on various aspects of his personality, philosophy, and poetry. The present and future generations are urged to first familiarize themselves with Indian philosophy and spirituality, particularly the natural principles of monism, pantheism, and animism, and the mystic process of reversible transcendence of finite into infinite; the basic characteristics of Sanskrit, Hindi, and Persian poetry; and particularly the influence of Upanishads since the early 1700s on English poets in particular and European poets in general, before trying to understand Firaq and his poetry. They are expected also to promote Firaq’s vision and mission of saving the ‘soul-less’ Urdu poetry from erstwhile Persian domination and making it a truly Indian language in which the fabrics of Vedic, Puranic, and folk similes, metaphors, expressions, and khadi boli vocabulary (which has already assimilated thousands of Persian words), are woven into the matrix of Indian philosophy and dynamic ethos.

Ajai Mansingh

some_text

The Sahais of Gorakhpur

More than 400 years ago, the rulers of Awadh had gifted five villages with a large track of sparsely populated land to the ancestors of Raghupati Sahai, popularly known as Firaq Gorakhpuri.¹ Since then, the family came to be known as ‘panchgaon kayastha’. The two main villages, Karwal and Tariapar retained their names whereas the scattered population of three others were consolidated into close communities and were renamed as Banwarpar, Bhawajitpur, and Muraripur, after Firaq’s ancestors, Banwari, Bhawajit, and Morari Prasad Sahai. Banwarpar, which is about 50 kilometres south of Gorakhpur, was chosen as the family headquarters. The family further divided, and expanded their holdings in each generation, by buying new villages in the area. Firaq’s father Gorakh Prasad Sahai had bought the village, Ardlapar, which is about 15 kilometres west of Gorakhpur off the highway to Lucknow. It became Firaq’s new family home after 1930 when his mother moved to live there.

Firaq was the direct descendent of Banwari Prasad Sahai. His great-grandfather, Janki Prasad Sahai had four sons – Lakshmi Narain Sahai (Firaq Saheb’s grandfather), Ram Agrah Narain Sahai, Bhoop Narain Sahai, and Sardari Lal Sahai. The village of Banwarpar is still dotted with the extended ruins of Firaq Saheb’s ancestral settlements, preserving a vivid account of their dominant life in the area, which was very well integrated with the people of different social, and economic strata. There are ruins of a large Indian-style mansion built by Janki Prasad in the early nineteenth century. It was expanded by Lakshmi Narain around 1860, by adding four rooms and a front verandah, which are still intact. His sons Gorakh Prasad Sahai (Firaq’s father), Harak Prasad Sahai, and Har Prasad Sahai and daughters, Gopi and Gauri, were born here.

Gorakh Prasad inherited the family home and a large share of the property at Banwarpar. As judged by its present ruins,² it was built on a rectangular plot with the main residential area on the right side and kitchen and the courtyard on the left. It is obvious that the fate of this house was decided more by the owner’s neglect than by weathering. On the left of the house was a large courtyard surrounded by the kitchen, the granary, and the servants’ quarters. The front of the house had a huge yard with trees and ornamental bushes. In the neighbourhood were the homes of the other branches of the Sahai clan.

Adjoining the Sahais’ residence on the south was the main Banwarpar village. As a young boy, Raghupati (Firaq) used to wander into the village lanes to play with other children and familiarize himself with the village culture. The villagers would spend most of their time telling stories, singing birha, kajri, folk songs, and chanting the Ramayana. Such sittings had a unique flavour in winter as people sat around alaos (campfire). The slow bonfire and the atmosphere would make young Firaq reflect on the issues being discussed, or the music and the lyrics being played out.³

Some distance, to the north of the Sahai residence was the main entrance to the property. In keeping with the age-old tradition, it is still guarded by the statue of an elephant, representing Lord Ganesha, and a Shiva ling, painted in deep saffron and mounted on a high platform. A unique attraction at Banwarpar is the sati chaura, a platform where Firaq’s dadi (paternal grandmother) had performed self-immolation at the pyre of her husband, more as a sacrifice for evoking ‘divine blessings’ for her children, than for the myth of accompanying the soul of her husband to heaven – a practice, which was introduced in India from Mesopotamia, several thousand years ago.⁴ Sometime before her husband’s death, she had a dream that a snake was in serious trouble as an animal bone had got stuck in its throat. When she relieved it of its predicament, she was granted a boon from the reptile that her children and grandchildren would have long life and achieve unprecedented fame if they refrained from drinking; with this faith, she sacrificed herself.

The natural environment of Banwarpar was a source of spiritual nourishment to both Gorakh Prasad and Firaq. It greatly influenced their temperaments. It also induced animistic reverence for the natural world. Gorakh Prasad visualized a metaphysical nigar khana (art gallery) in Banwarpar’s ecosystem, which he expressed poetically in his masnavi, Husne Fitrat. Firaq confessed that the Terai belt, expanding from the foothills of Himalayan mountain ranges in the north to Gangetic plains in the south, had made him realize the ‘divinity of Mother Nature’. ⁵

Reliving his childhood experiences, Firaq gave a vivid and detailed description of the natural environment of the Terai plains, which is drained by four great rivers – Rapti (nearest to Gorakhpur), Ghagra, Saryu, and Ganga – and their tributaries. In Firaq’s words, ‘Beyond and between the villages were pristine forests, small rivers, drains, and water bodies or natural seasonal or permanent ponds, which were rich in biodiversity. Lush green and huge trees of different heights provided rich undergrowth of shade-loving flora and fauna. Rich avian and terrestrial fauna, including reptiles, deer, and blue bulls provided natural music and diversity to the landscape. Aquatic fauna is still dominated by several species of fish, prawns, and shrimps. Although jackals, wolves, hyenas, wild dogs, and wild boars inhabited the area, one saw them only occasionally. Stories of sighting of tigers and leopards were also heard. From sunrise to sunset, one could hear varied musical notes and ragas from myriad bird and animal species. Deer and birds fascinated me for the inherent patience and aesthetics in their behaviour. As some birds sit still in meditation while waiting for their prey, so do I, with intense mental activity for logical analysis of the knowable and unknowable issues confronting mankind. The aesthetics of facial gestures and bright and piercing gaze of a deer’s eyes would induce the cosmic oneness between us, remind me of our shared common ancestry, and enable me to enjoy the bliss of preet – the highest form of love. The vibrations of extreme patience, kindness, and sacrifice from the cow’s eyes evoked Vatsalya Ras or emotions of sneh in me. From them I learnt to recognize and enjoy the aesthetics [bliss] of animism, and pantheism.’⁶

Firaq was indelibly impacted by farmers who practiced agro-forestry, cultivating only the manageable land, and leaving large chunks of thick lush green forests between the fields. Dotting the agricultural fields were tall palm trees, mainly for collecting fresh toddy water, rich in minerals. It was usual for Firaq to watch toddy harvesting and wonder about Nature’s gifts to mankind and man’s ingenuity in exploring and utilizing them. The sight and sound of water flowing in canals would make Firaq reflective.

The area had rich religious, spiritual, and cultural heritage as it encompassed the birth places of the two divine incarnations – Lord Rama in the nearby Ayodhya, and Lord Buddha in Lumbini (which is on the Gorakhpur-Nepal border). Perceptive residents of this area can still find inner fulfilment from the spirituality permeating the area, dotted with a few places of great importance in the life of Buddha, such as Kapilavastu (the capital of his kingdom, where he renounced his parents, wife, and son for sanyasa), Shravasti (the place where Buddha preached during monsoon every year), and Kushi Nagar (where Buddha died). The cultural heritage of the area was dominated by the life and philosophy of these two avatars. Firaq’s ancestors used to visit every Buddhist site of importance in the area, a tradition carried forward by Gorakh Prasad. A couple of times, Firaq accompanied his father to the pilgrimage and felt the presence of Buddha in the vast, green landscape, scattered with ruins.⁷

It was this holistic physical, spiritual, religious, and cultural heritage of the land, which became the way of life for Janki Prasad and his family. At his home in Banwarpar, chanting of verses from the Vedas, particularly the Upanishads, and from the Gita and Ramayana was a regular feature. Reading of the Puranas and recitation of the mystic poetry of Kabirdas and Surdas were routine activities. Intelligent discussions on the scriptures and mystic poetry were pastimes, particularly with the visiting of holy men, or local folk. All the Hindu festivals were celebrated with usual reverence, and holy days were observed with traditional fasting and prayers. His son, Lakshmi had added another dimension to this tradition by introducing discussions of Sanskrit, Urdu, and Persian poetry.⁸

Firaq’s father had retained the family’s cultural heritage with greater emphasis on the philosophy of the scriptures and literature. He introduced an analytical approach to the understanding of religion and culture, while exploring and appreciating their sublimity. The roots of Firaq’s deep sense of belonging in time and space, including the Hindu and Indian ethos in his thought and poetry, his acceptance of monistic, pantheistic, and animistic doctrines by conviction, seeking and appreciating the aesthetics of divine and human creations, and his adherence to the philosophies of ‘humanism, pacifism, universalism, and secularism,’ were derived from the natural environment of his childhood.

By the turn of the nineteenth century, the Gangetic plains were gradually plunging into political, social, and economic chaos. The decaying Mughal Empire had started to crumble under the expanding powers of the East India Company. The impending changes in land ownership policies announced by the East India Company had sent shock waves of uncertainty to jagirdars. Urdu and Persian, which were the court and administrative languages of the Mughals, faced tough challenge from English used by the Company officials. Lakshmi had a much wider, progressive, and pragmatic view of the present and future of jagirdars than most of his feudal brothers in Uttar Pradesh. In keeping with the needs of the times to come, he introduced English education into his home, while retaining the family tradition of teaching Hindi and Sanskrit to girls and Urdu, Persian, and Hindi to boys. He wanted his sons to be qualified for new opportunities in professional careers, particularly in legal and administrative fields. Of his three sons, Gorakh and Harak had great interest in Urdu literature, whereas Hari was more interested in property management and farming.⁹

Gorakh Prasad, born in 1865, had a passion for languages and was well-versed in Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu, Persian, Arabic, and English.¹⁰ He enjoyed Urdu poetry, and started to write as a teenager under the takhallus (pen name) Ibrat Gorakhpuri. He had attained deep knowledge of Hindu philosophy, Indian culture, and the poetry of Kalidas, Kabirdas, Surdas, Tulsidas, Vidyapathi, Bihari and various Persian and Urdu poets, particularly Mir Taqi Mir, Assadullah Khan Ghalib, Mohammad Husain Azad, and Altaf Husain Hali. Among his collections was a complete set of Hali’s publications, including Diwane Hali, Muqadmae Shero Shairi, Yadgare Saadi, Yadgare Ghalib, and Hayate Javed. At home, he used to have regular discussions with his nephew Raj Kishore Lal Sahai, who was an admirer of Mir and Nawab Mirza Daag.¹¹ Firaq, in one of his essays (published in Andaze¹²), has written that battle lines were drawn between Ibrat’s team, which included Harak and their friends, and Sahai’s team, when they discussed their favourite poets. Such was the literary environment to which Firaq was exposed in his childhood.

At the age of eighteen, Ibrat Saheb started sharing his poetic talent with the lovers of Urdu poetry by publishing his works in leading literary magazines such as the weekly Tuti-e-Hind.¹³ He could write about 80 verses every week and, without revising, send them for publication. He published over fifty nazams and ghazals in these journals, of which the most popular was Musadas Nashonumai Hind. Unfortunately, all these works are lost to neglect and vagaries of nature. He started to write his masnavi, Husne Fitrat in the 1890s, just after the death of his first two wives and his beloved and first-born son at the age of five, which left him with deep anguish.

Gorakh Prasad’s eyes were set on becoming a lawyer in British-style courts, which had started to operate in India. It was in keeping with the heritage of the Kayastha sub-caste, whose members were traditionally literate and held high administrative positions with the kings from ancient times. They had lost little opportunity in learning Persian and Urdu for occupying senior administrative positions in the Mughal courts. Knowledge of English ensured them the same status in British Empire as well. Gorakh Prasad got married and took up a job at a post office, while pursuing private studies for High School certification. He lost his wife during childbirth but never lost sight of his career. As he found it emotionally difficult to live at Gorakhpur without his wife, he resigned from the post office job and returned to Banwarpar. After a while he moved to Lucknow and qualified as a lawyer in 1890. After completing his studies, he got married again and settled in Gorakhpur to take up the legal profession.

Gorakh Prasad was blessed with a son in 1891, but a couple of months later, he lost his second wife, too. For a few years thereafter, he led a lonely life, playing the dual role of father and mother to his son Lokpati. He got married for the third time, in 1893, which brought the much-needed stability to his life. His third wife, Dulari Devi bore him five sons and three daughters and took full responsibility for the management of home and property.¹⁴

Gorakh Prasad’s life had more than the usual share of ups and downs, which had a huge impact on Firaq’s psyche. According to Firaq,¹⁵ his father was already shaken by the death of his first two wives, but the death of his first-born son at the age of five, after he was bitten by a rabid dog had shattered and emotionally crippled him. ‘My step-brother had become a source of strength and meaning and purpose of life for him. After his death, my father lost what he perceived as the source of his life-energy. Absolute uncertainty, rather than relative certainty, dominated his psyche as he grappled with the problem of the departed soul and mortal body. Every semblance of the metaphysical fatherly love in him had withered. The doubt whether his children were real in a transitory world, and belonged to him or to the cruel destiny of his prarabdh (unalterable) karma, dominated his psyche. Even the birth of Ganpati bhaiya and then the rest of us could not rekindle the fatherly love in him, though he always had utmost affection, care, concern, and sense of responsibility for his children, without neglecting his professional and social obligations.’ Indeed, in Husne Fitrat, Ibrat Saheb has repeatedly lamented ‘farzand ki judai’ or the separation from his son.

Firaq, endowed with extraordinary sentient powers, could perceive his father’s loneliness and detachment from everyone and everything, in spite of being an active player in the finite world, as conveyed in his verse:

Voh dil hai mera ho nahin sakta jo shagufta

yeh bagh mera hai jo hara ho nahin sakta

Such is my heart that cannot bloom

Or, my garden that cannot bear its own leaf

Notwithstanding his loneliness and lack of confidence in ‘relative certainty’ in the transitory world, he tried to live in the present rather than in the past, and devoted himself completely, to family life, and legal profession. In keeping with his rising status and family needs, Gorakh Prasad built a large family mansion, named Lakshmi Bhawan, on a huge plot in Mohalla Turkmanpur, which was on the outskirts of Gorakhpur, in those days. It was surrounded by arable land and forests, which provided a Banwarpar-kind of physical and rural environment, until galloping urbanization started to change the landscape in the 1940s.

Lakshmi Bhawan was an imposing three-storey building with sixteen large rooms, verandahs, several bathrooms, servant quarters, stable for horses, and pens for cows and buffaloes. Even after over eighty years