Windmills of My Mind: Kavish Umar

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Sunday, May 13, 2012

Kavish Umar

Pity that I can't find him or trace anything about him - but Kavish was one of my favorite poets from Chittagong in my Merchant Navy days.

Kaavish came to Karachi after 1971 and met with all of us several times. Ummi was very fond of him as was Nuzhat. Other Chittagonians who we met frequently in Karachi - Asghar Gorakhpuri, Nasir 'Shohrat' Zaidi, Kazim 'Nudrat' Abdi, for example - loved him. We all had several sittings together. One was a delightful Mushaerah that Kaavish held in Orangi Town which went very well.

But he disappeared!

As I've said in one of my earlier posts, we could not trace him. I have no idea where he is. If anyone reads this post, s/he should contact him and ask him to call me up on my phone number (0300.823.7911) ... It'd be great to meet him again. Or call me and give me the details about him!

Kavish Umar's poems were brilliant and his Urdu was gorgeous. His ability to use metaphors was superb. Here is one poem that you'll enjoy.

His poems, and those of other poets from the Chittagonians, will be on some CD-sets that I will launch (sometimes this month) at T2F/Faraar … and strongly suggest that you do look at the ongoing collections at this site (where there are already some Classical Music CDs, Qavvaali Collections, and other poets reading their kalaam).

Chittagong shaers featured on the new CDs will include Kaavish Umar and others, like Asghar Gorakhpuri, Yusuf Ali Laiq, Asghar Rahi, Mubaarak Mungeri, Kazim 'Nudrat' Abdi, Munawwar Ahmad, Anees Ejazi, Vali Siddiqui, Nasir 'Shohrat' Zaidi, and a few visiting poets, like Suroor Barabankvi, Jamil Yusuf and Khalid Alvi (one of my team mates on the ship where I was in command). You may have heard a few of them in my earlier blogpost.

If you are fond of Mushaerahs and have missed these people, just because they were on the other side of Pakistan (now Bangladesh), you must hear these sets. You'll love them all!

Labels: Literature, Pakistan, Personal, Poetry, Urdu

1 Comments:

Hmm... said...

You seem to have a lot memories of time before partition!
Feels good to read your blog, for i had different picture of pakistan and its people.

Also good to see a fellow mariner! (well u r an ex! )

May Allah be with you...

30 May, 2012 18:48

: Name: Zakintosh; Location: Karachi, Pakistan

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Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have scrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness - that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that the saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought and, though it might seem too good for human life, this is what - at last - I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Bertrand Russell

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

Noam Chomsky

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Albert Einstein

Each century seems to take on a particular character as we view it in retrospect. How will the 20th Century be remembered? My guess is that this dramatic span of 100 years will ultimately be marked not by computers or the Internet, but by the drive toward individual freedom, the breaking of human barriers of prejudice, and the opening of society to include all people.

John S. Spong

DESIDERATA

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann