The Tragedy
of Mustafa Zaidi
By Dr Afzal Mirza
Maryland, US
I remember that
in early 1960s one of my colleagues Shamim Haider
Zaidi who taught English in Government College Abbottabad
and later joined the Air Force and retired as Squadron
Leader used to tell me about his uncle who was a
poet. We were young and full of passion for poetry
and the uncle’s verses that he recited to
me directly appealed to the heart. The poet was
Mustafa Zaidi and when I was told that he was previously
known as Tegh Allahabadi I found out that his name
was not unfamiliar to me.
I had earlier read about him in a magazine Shahrah
that progressive writers used to publish from Delhi
in early 1950s with Sahir Ludhianavi and Parkash
Pandit as its editors. I had seen pictures of Tegh
Allahabadi and Safdar Mir in that magazine and had
no difficulty in recognizing these writers when
I saw them in the Government College Lahore in 1951.
Tegh Allahabadi had joined MA English final class
after having done his MA previous from Allahabad
the university. Those days he used to wear khadar
and sherwani and was distinct from other GC students
who used to wear western clothes.. Tegh Allahabadi’s
time in GC was uneventful as it was quite short,
i.e. less than a year.
Shamim Zaidi told me that his uncle had joined the
civil service and has changed his name to Mustafa
Zaidi which was his real name. He also promised
that he would introduce me to him whenever he visited
Abbottabad or we visited Peshawar where the Zaidis
were settled after migrating from Allahabad, India.
What intrigued me at that time was how could a known
communist get clearance from the agencies to join
the civil service while people including this scribe
were being haunted by them on the slightest pretext
of having leftist leanings. There were many questions
that puzzled me as to why did he leave his MA unfinished
in India and shift to Pakistan to complete it. Shamim
had told me that Mustafa was a person of a different
kind, too passionate, too emotional. Muse had smitten
him from the childhood. His early poetry seems to
be influenced by Majaz and Sahir the two poets who
were favorites of the younger generation of late
forties. Zaidi was also inspired by Josh whose diction
he adopted in his later poetry. His pseudonym Tegh
or sword was the outcome of the revolutionary wave
raging in the India of pre-partition days. At that
time he also consulted Firaq Gorakhpuri though Firaq
wrote poetry of altogether different type.
Coming from a middle class background Zaidi at that
young age started wearing khaddar and used to sleep
on the floor. Asked the reason for doing so he would
say that he was trying to “declass”
himself. His parents wanted him to go for some scientific
profession but he insisted on studying art and writing
poetry for which he had natural aptitude. .So Mustafa
migrated to Lahore in 1951. His friend of those
days writer Masood Ashar who along with Burhanuddin
Hasan used to live on Macleod Road says that in
Lahore Mustafa stayed in a house inside Lahore belonging
to the publisher of some legal journals. Burhanuddin
Hasan was also a student of Government College so
the threesome would spend their time together.
After doing his MA, Zaidi shifted to Karachi and
taught at the Islamia College for some time and
then joined the Peshawar University English Department.
His elder brother Mujtaba Zaidi was already a civil
service officer and was deputy commissioner in Dera
Ismail Khan He must have influenced him to compete
for the civil service examination. Mujtaba Zaidi
died in a traffic accident in Iran while returning
from England by car. Mustafa wrote a touching dirge
on his death:
Ham teri laash ko kandha bhi na dene aaye
Ham ne ghurbat mein tujhe zerezamin chorr diya
Ham ne iss zeest mein bas aik nageen paya tha
Kissi turbat mein wohi aik nageen chorr diya
(We did not come to shoulder your coffin and left
you under the ground in a distant land.
We had earned only this precious jewel in life that
we left in some tomb.)
Mustafa Zaidi was no doubt a genuine poet and from
his early youth he was influenced by the leftist
ideology. The biggest tragedy was that with this
background he chose to join the civil service of
Pakistan. The question intrigues whether he was
sincere to his ideology or it was a passing phase
in his life like many other youthful ventures. He
himself pointed out in one of his couplets:
Jab se hamara taraz-e-faqirana chut gaya
Shahi to mil gai dil-e-shahana chut gaya
(Ever since I lost my poor man’s way of living
I got the kingdom but lost a king’s heart)
The first edition of his anthology of poetry entitled
Raushni was published in Allahabad in 1949.It was
republished in Pakistan in mid-1950s. In an introduction
to this Pakistani edition Mustafa Zaidi wrote, “I
am not sorry for this republication of my book nor
am I ashamed of my initial poems. I don’t
see any literary dishonesty in it because the poems
I have added to this edition are from the same period.
Those were my student days when for the sake of
sheer experience one joins some big movements…..but
the passion of that period can not be repeated in
rest of one’s literary life.. I received education
in Ewing Christian College and Allahabad University.
Those were not only the educational institutions
but training institutes where one was free to practice
any type of thoughts whether political or romantic….
Those days atheism was adopted as a reaction to
the religious fanaticism. That is why when Josh
Malihabadi used to say “Read Kalima Lahilaha
illa Insan” and on the other side “O
Husain we drunkards are also present in the circle
of your mourners ”I could understand this
contradiction and I had no confusion about it.”
Now this statement written by Zaidi explains the
later contradictions of his life. It was with this
publication that he discarded his pseudonym Tegh
Allahabadi and adopted his original name Mustafa
Zaidi for his future writings. Along with it he
also renounced his leftist past perhaps.
His second book Shehr-e-Azar came out in 1958 and
it was this book that provided me a chance to meet
the poet. Shamim Zaidi one day told me that his
uncle was coming to Abbottabad so we went together
to meet him in the circuit house. I had purchased
his book and I took it with me. In that short meeting
I found out that there is something in common with
every bureaucrat that they create a façade
around them to appear superior to the rest and Mustafa
Zaidi was no exception to this rule. But on my request
he wrote the following lines on the book:
Guzarne walon mein kitne jigar figar the aaj
Faqir-e-rah haen ham ham ko kiya nahin maloom
Bohat se who the jo bar-e-safar safr uttha na sake
Bohat se who hain jin hein raasta nahin maloom.
(How many depressed people were there among those
who passed this way. We are wayward fakirs and we
know every thing/There were many who couldn’t
bear the hardships of the journey/And there were
many who didn’t know their way).
After this meeting I told Shamim that it perhaps
represented his own state of mind but I did not
know which one of the two he had --- perhaps the
second one who did not know his way.
In bureaucracy there have been many literary figures
like Shahab, Altaf Gauhar, Mukhtar Masood, Manzur
Ilahi .Murtaza Birlas, Masood Mufti and others who
all took full advantage of their association with
the power but one can understand from their writings
that they had no confusion in their minds and were
wedded to the agenda of the ruling coterie. That
is why they had a smooth sailing in their careers.
Mustafa Zaidi was unsure about himself and sometimes
Tegh Allahabadi in him would shake him and he would
wake up and bluntly refuse to say aye. Zaidi served
in various positions at different places and everywhere
he patronized the holding of mushairas inviting
poets of his choice and compensating them.
Zaidi authored half a dozen books of poetry and
rose to the position of secretary in the West Pakistan
provincial government when Gen. Yahya Khan unseated
Gen. Ayub Khan and enforced martial law in the country.
As has been a norm in Pakistan every incoming dictator
compiles a list of “corrupt” officers
and sends them home to tame the rest. So Zaidi’s
name appeared among the list of 303 people sending
him home in 1969. Zaidi who had a German wife and
children felt devastated. Consequently he suffered
from severe depression that led him to more and
more indulgence in escapism.
In his book Koh-e-Nida which he termed as his last
anthology he wrote, “I am calling it my last
anthology because of my pettiness or smallness because
of the following:
“Long ago I had lost interest in the inquisitiveness
needed for writing poetry so I have only studied
the pornography from all parts of the world. Now
I am even fed up with this type of books as well…In
spite of my ignorance and being uneducated I am
considered educated in the country where I live
and the fact is that whosoever I met among the people
around me I have found them less learned than myself.
So in the light of this I am unable to write poetry
that the civilized world wants me to write and writing
poetry that is being written in my country is beyond
my capacity.
“I am misfit both as a poet and as a civil
servant…I have a feeling in my heart that
most often the poets meet me because I’m a
government officer and government officials meet
me to entertain themselves from my being a poet
in their drawing room parties.
“In our social setup the society refuses to
accept any other ideology except their own moribund
ideology. The result is that people like eminent
intellectual and poet Josh Malihabadi are denigrated
by the government and public…
In a country where religious convictions intimidate
you there is left no choice except suicide or escapism
rather than getting killed by those cruel people…Before
the allotment of present house I had to live with
my wife and children in the Bachelor Hostel of GOR
2.Here on April 24 1969 in the evening a subordinate
officer came to offer me bribe of many thousand
rupees. I informed the chief secretary next day
about this ‘boldness’ of the man. He
had so much influence in the upper echelons of officialdom
that nothing happened to him at all but my life
was made miserable. For months I was under a strange
fear. My fault was that I threw back bad money on
his face.”
On October 12.1970 the following news was flashed
by newspapers: “ Popular poet Mustafa Zaidi
was found dead in his Muhammad Ali Society (Karachi)
apartment together with an unconscious woman, Shahnaz.
The two were apparently on intimate terms and the
popular theory is that they had both attempted suicide
by ingesting poison. Investigators say they will
know more once the medical team completes the examination
of Shahnaz's stomach contents…” This
was followed by another news headlined Girlfriend
charged with murder. “Shahnaz is under arrest
for the murder of poet Mustafa Zaidi. She is also
implicated in a smuggling scandal, and accused of
conducting affairs with several high ranking officials
and industrial magnets, in order to carry out espionage
for foreign agencies.” However she was exonerated
of these charges and set at liberty after some time.
During the last days of his life Mustafa wrote some
passionate poems addressed to Shahnaz complaining
about her unfaithfulness – the last being
written on September 22, 1970. He also wrote a meaningful
couplet during that period:
Mein kis ke haath peh apna lahu talash karun
Tamam sheher ne pehne hue haein dastanae
(On whose hand should I search for the smear of
my blood
Everyone in the city is wearing gloves.)
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