Dr Shah Faesal
My Uncle has not been to a university but his scholarship is undisputed. Beauty of the education system of our state in olden times has been that a Matric pass used to be articulate, socially intelligent, rooted in tradition, have a good handwriting, knew Arabic and Persian besides a smattering of English, get married and settle down at the right time in life. In Kashmir, this was as recently as thirty years back when people would proudly say, ” khas hasa khas hasa khas hasa hey, chus ba Matric pass hasa pass hasa hey”. It isn’t so anymore.
Back to Uncle. So whenever I get to meet him, the discussions usually revolve around Persian and Arabic lore, stories, parables, fables, fiction, that is inherited by our generation through the work of great Sufi masters like Attar, Rumi, Jami, Saa’di and Khayyam. Without beard Uncle looked like Randhir Kapoor, the veteran actor of his time, but he doesn’t let anyone see his old photographs now.
A fortnight back he shared with me the story of a king from Kirman ( Caramania) while we had gone to see an ailing relative at Maidenpora. The story is from Gulistan e Saadi and the original Farsi version is here. Interestingly this wisdom is not available on Google. You can try searching it.
شنیدم کہ یک بار در دجلہ.
سخن گفت با عابد کلعئ.
سپہرم مدد کرد نصرت وفاق.
گرفتم ببازو دولت عراق
طمع کرد بودم کہ کرمان خورم
کہ ناگاہ بخوردند کرمان سرم
بکن پمبئ گفلت از گوش ہوش
کہ از مردما آید پندد،بگوش.
The story is that one day a wise-man saw a human-skull being carried by the currents of river Tigris. As he paused, the dead-skull got suddenly animated and entered into a conversation with the buzurg. The skull said, “Hey, onlooker. You know who I am?. I am the king who captured Iraq with his might and wealth. Now that I had thought I will conquer Kirman, right before that I got conquered by Kirman (Kirman in Farsi means insects, maggots also). Means “I died”. “Unplug your forgetful ears and listen to the advice offered by the dead”.
It is not a coincidence that a similar thought is echoed in the legendary poem Ozymandias by P B Shelly.
I met a traveller from an antique land.
Who said:
“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert.
Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read.
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them,
and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare.
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
If you visit Badami Bagh Cantonment, amidst the ruins of Purandistan (Pandrethan) there is a severed stone-head and mighty trunkless-legs carved in stone, undated and forgotten. You look at it and you recall Saadi and Shelly.
Billions of great men and women have ruled, ran over and rejoiced this world and then became soil, sand and stone. Al Quran says it so well, that do not walk proudly over the earth, you can not tear it apart”. We just can not tear it apart.
There are great lessons for us in the living and the dead, in what is standing and what has fallen. We just have to keep our eyes open and look for the guidance.
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