tribute

Poetry in English is often believed to exist on the peripheries of Pakistan’s intellectual milieu. Upon closer scrutiny, this assumption is fundamentally flawed as English poetry in Pakistan has a long and illustrious history. The country boasts a diverse crop of poets - such as Taufiq Rafat, Daud Kamal, Maki Kureishi, among others - who have conceived powerful, thought-provoking verse. Their work has experimented with form and explores a rich miscellany of themes. Even the new generation of poets have left a deep imprint and have garnered attention for breathing new life into the canon.

Any discussion on the nature and scope of English poetry in Pakistan would be incomplete without mentioning the late poet Hima Raza (1975-2003). Lahore-born Hima was the daughter of respected lawyer Raza Kazim and educationist Naseem Kazim. She belonged to an illustrious family with strong intellectual leanings and an abiding interest in musical traditions.

As per an entry in The Literary Encyclopedia on the late poet’s work by her contemporary Ilona Yusuf, Hima harboured childhood aspirations of becoming a dancer. After her father discouraged her from pursuing this ambition, she focused her energies on literary endeavours. As a child, she damaged her eyes following exposure to ultraviolet rays and was expected to remain indoors during recess at school. “She wrote jingles about her classmates as she watched them play games from the classroom windows,” Yusuf writes.

Hima’s poetic vision was heavily influenced by her grandmother (paternal), who gifted her the knowledge of classical Urdu poetry along with a consummate understanding of the Arabic and Persian influences on the language. Her maternal grandmother, who was Scottish, afforded her valuable insights about the English language. The spirit and cadence of both languages would prove to be the critical thrust of the poems Hima would go on to write as an adult.

The late poet attended Lahore Grammar School and was subsequently admitted to Kinnaird College. She went on to study postcolonial literature at the University of New South Wales and completed her MPhil at the University of Sussex in the UK. For her postgraduate degree, she wrote her dissertation on Rushdie, albeit in an unconventional sense. In her academic treatise, she attempted to situate the author’s books within the context of the work produced by our indigenous crop of progressive writers. She also taught at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and Beaconhouse National University. In 2003, Hima died a few days after she was injured in a hit-and-run accident. She was twenty-seven at the time of her death.

During the course of her brief life, she penned two collections of poems, titled ‘Memory Stains’ (2000) and ‘Left-Hand Speak’ (2002). Writer and literary critic, Muneeza Shamsie, writes in Hybrid Tapestries: The Development of Pakistani Literature in English that Hima’s debut collection “heralded an exciting, original writer”. The poems were of an experimental nature and made inventive use of language, shapes, rhythms and word art. Such techniques weren’t widely used by Pakistani poets, even though they were fairly common in poems written in the West.

In her book, Shamsie asserts that Left-Hand Speak is “a more assured, confident collection”. This can be gauged from the fact that Hima is painting on a much wider canvas in her second collection. Unlike the poems in her first collection, the verses that are part of Left-Hand Speak, contain titles. What’s more, the poet has included a few bilingual poems wherein the Arabic and Roman scripts have been effectively utilised for verses written in Urdu and English. The verses turn an intimate gaze on the poet’s surging sense of alienation in the West and the challenges she encountered in straddling two cultures and languages.

The reader’s initial reaction to the poems is one of awe at the manner in which the words dance across the length of the page. In an essay about the poet’s legacy, her nephew Vishal Farid Raza - a doctor and poet - noted that the essence of his aunt’s poetry lies in her “use of the page, playing with space and a visual layout”. The second reaction is the abiding influence of the Urdu language. Vishal writes that the poems “drift back to her mother tongue, Urdu”, which is indicative of her deep admiration for Urdu poets and her inner quest for identity.

During her time in the UK, Hima met London-based short story writer Aamer Hussein who, like her, had a deep fascination with Urdu literature. In an obituary published in Wasafiri after her demise, Hussein writes that he read Memory Stains in one sitting and was “entranced by the pattern of words and…the glancing echo of the Urdu language”. Hussein notes that Hima’s poetic sensibilities bore a strong resonance of absence as she was “situated at the cusp of two cultures”.

Hima and Hussein often discussed their shared desire to write in Urdu - the mother tongue which they often spoke to each other in. The late poet embarked on a sincere quest to realise this creative aspiration and defy the oft-repeated notion that the East and the West were fundamentally irreconcilable. The product of this endeavour were a string of Urdu verses that, when interspersed with English verses, depicted “alternative nuances of her poetic voice”.

In 2012, Hussein wrote an Urdu story titled ‘Zohra’, which was later translated into ‘Knotted Tongues-I’. Hussein’s tale revolves around the life of a young Pakistani poet named Zohra whose life is tragically cut short in a car accident. The story pays rich tributes to Hima’s efforts to search for the “ghosts of a forgotten language” that often loom large in her poems.

The role model

In a conversation with the scribe, Hima’s nephew Vishal Farid Raza shared his memories of his paternal aunt who died when he was still a child.

“She was more than just a poet,” Vishal said. “She was a fabulous woman who pampered us by giving us junk food and sandwiches while we watched television, but if we forgot to say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, a gentle yet stern reminder for the magic words would follow.”

Vishal also drew attention to his aunt’s feminist ideals that are seeded into her poetry. As an aspiring poet himself, Vishal was in awe of his aunt’s literary accomplishments. “When she published Memory Stains, I was so impressed,” he stated. “I wanted to be a poet just like my aunt. I wrote utter gibberish but it was always welcomed.”

While Hima wasn’t around to mentor Vishal through her journey as a poet, her body of work had a profound impact on him as a young adult. “Her work possibly resonates on a deeper level as we share a common family - a common dysfunction,” Vishal expressed. “There is longing for love and hesitancy in her poetry. There is both a strong sense of belonging and alienation in her work.”

Vishal asserted that he was able to understand his aunt’s work better after he moved abroad to pursue his studies. “I felt the uneasiness of not belonging in a foreign country yet not wholly belonging to Pakistan either,” he uttered.

Vishal added that he came across “a treasure of her essays and poems” - many of which were unpublished - at the South Asian Diaspora Arts Archive (SADAA). “When I read the essays and poems, it felt as if I was once again in conversation with my beloved aunt,” he shared gleefully.

The writer is a journalist and author. He tweets @TahaKehar and can be reached at: tahakehar2@gmail.com