FIRAQ GORAKHPURI'S COUPLET AND VIRAAT-SWROOP OF SRI -KRISHNA

                                     

Firaq’s couplet, seen through Arjuna’s eyes at Kurukshetra

“Koyi meri aankh se dekhta

teri bazm-e-naaz ki wusatein,  

Woh har ek gosha makaan makaan

woh har ek lamha zaman zaman”....(.From .....Gul-e-Naghma of Firaq Gorakhpuri)

(If only someone could see through my eyes the vastness of your assembly of splendour,  

Then every corner would be a universe entire, and every moment an age unto itself.)

Fluent in English , Hindi Urdu, Persian and Sanskrit, Firaq incorporated elements from his deep, self-taught knowledge of the Persian texts, Vedic and Puranic ethos into his poetry. His  belief in religion was never narrow or sectarian. His focus was always on  human beings : "Devtaon ka Khuda se hoga kaam/Aadmi ko aadmi darkar hai" or "Shaikh ji ban gaye farishte-sifat/Aadamiyat se haath dho baithe".

Firaq  enriched and indigenised his Urdu assimilating many words and characters from Hindi, Sanskrit and Braj Baasha literature. Words and names  like  Shiv, Ram, Sita,Nal, Damyanti , Komal, Kaaran,  Deepshikha, Agnikund, vish, Ang, Pawan, Mukh, Kumadini, Kanwal, Vanvaas, Roop, Shringaar, Dukh, Sansaar,Amrit, Suhaagan,  and many more  in his  poems, Gazals and Rubais. Firaq had a great fascination for English literature. Who else except firaq could translate Homer, Virgil, Wordsworth, Hardy and Wallace Stevens into beautiful Urdu ?

Firaq once remarked that the verse quoted above pertained to human beings, yet observed that it might be more keenly understood by considering Arjuna’s predicament, once Sri Krishna revealed his Viratswaroop before him. Firaq went on to suggest that Arjuna must have said to Sri Krishna, “If only one could borrow my sight to comprehend the sheer expanse of your court of majesty.” That, precisely, is Arjuna’s plight. Granted the 'divya chakshu', he gazes into Sri Krishna’s Vishwaroopam and the battlefield simply dissolves. What stands before him is no longer a charioteer, but a cosmic -bazm : thousands of faces, arms, and suns blazing forth from a single form. Every gosha, every fold of that terrible beauty, unfurls as 'makaan makaan', whole universes nested within a corner, gods and sages wheeling inside his very teeth. Space itself forfeits its meaning. The part now engulfs the whole.

And time fares no better. 'Har ek lamha zaman zaman' , each instant becomes an epoch. Bhishma, Drona, Karna: all are already streaming into those fiery mouths like moths to oblivion, though the war has scarcely commenced. Past, present and future are crushed into one shuddering moment. Arjuna’s mind reels. This is 'hairat' weaponised, wonder so vast it curdles into terror. He pleads for the human form once more, for the finite. Firaq wrote of love; Kurukshetra reveals it as metaphysics. When the Beloved discloses Himself entire, every glance contains galaxies, every breath contains ages , and the lover, mortal, can only bow and break.

(Avtar Mota)

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