R L Bhat
Poshkar Nath Koul Bedil has a persona comprised of diverse interests and involvements. These span drama, poesy and music, including almost all the subfields of these genres of artistic enterprise, having gotten wellknown as actor, director, singer and writer of a dozen dramas like kraalu’ kuur, soonii mahiivaal, laila majnuun, harsha chandar taaraavatii, shiiriin farhad, anaarkalii, tsok modur tu’ ttyotth. He not only wrote songs for the plays but also composed the musical score for them. M L Kanwal tells that ‘these dramatic presentations gained huge popularity because he had directed them himself’. That was half a century ago.
Bedil has continued his artistic endeavors, since. Here, he comes before us as the poet of some four dozen poems titled dag. He writes it as ‘Dug’ which is generally pronounced ddag – in the sense of having conducted a digging operation – while he clearly implies the Kashmiri for pain – dag. Though the work also includes humorous poems and a versified fable, the theme of ‘dag’ is pain as the supreme invocation of love. Bedil tells this through 44 poems, all of which he styles gazl, and observes the modicum of features that characterize the genre.
loonchi la’my la’my throonchi meejam
zaaru’ paaras vaa’na’s raa’v
dashi me ganji shaayad tse chhii
vuchh (vu’chh) yim mandar astaan vwny!
Bedil’s invocation of the beloved hanging on to the lover’s hem and getting bashed for the effort has a definite local flavour. This same evocation enlivens the couplets that follow:
neeb thaavun aa’b gaav naa
saaf van chhai maa’ny dru’y
sa’tri baavu’ kiny zoonum nu’ bronh
chhyas maa bu’ titsh naadaan vwny
[It is not meet to give false promises, be true, swear on me; I couldn’t ken earlier due to my feminine trust, but I ain’t so credulous now.]
‘Dag’, the pain is the lofty ideal every lover in the gazl. Bedil returns to drink of the bitter sweet potion again and again:
tsu’ thaav zulmu’ch kamaan haa’zir
bu’ thaavu’ kalu’mu’ch zabaan haa’zir
tsu’ neezu’ ahreezu’ thaav ba’ry ba’ry
bu’ thaavu’ shabduk krapaan haa’zir.
[You ready your oppressive bow, my pen is ready here; you hone the sharp sword, my word is all ready.]
tsu chhukh nu’ zaa’hir su proon maashook
bu’ chhusnu’ bedil fakat vanaan chhim
tsu’ gwdd baraan gatsh a’thy vojuudas
bu’ thaavu’ panun tse paan haa’zir
Here Bedil builds a fine pun on his penname which means ‘heart-less’ or ‘a cold-heart’. Of course, he has a mastery over the craft of poesy, which he shows in verse after verse.
All through people have suffered for being truthful and straightforward, while the tricky ones, including scheming lovers have a field day with their deceit:
zaa’hir tu’ baa’tin aasi byon byon baasi magu’zdaar
gav bee khabar vonu’has lukav deevaanu’ darbadar
[Carry a dichotomy, be different inside and outside and you are called wise; lose it, be true though and through, and people call you a mad person!)
A dramatist portraying the contemporary reality, Pushkar Nath would not be unaware of the travails of life. He tells of them:
daaji baapath maaji kooryav troov partav koor kun
sharmo hayaa, diino dharu’m ath saa’rysi baapaar az
[The curse of dowry has turned mothers and daughters awry; respect and modesty, the religious injunctions all have become goods for sale.]
These routine expressions of indifference of the lover have been heard many a time, yet the use of words aanga’ny and ddabita’ly have given it the tangy flavor of locale that a Kashmiri would savour endlessly. Back then, in the idyllic Kashmir, the aangans – compounds – were shared and the wooden balconies beneath which the paths ran, were a peculiar sight; you passed through almost hidden yet were seen by all.
Bedil’s poems carry these evocations, intimations and expressions of intense love, loving indifference and lasting yearning in ample measure. They recreate scenarios of lovely days and charming love, the seen yet hidden rendezvous amid the heavenly expanses of beauty. The poems carry a vintage air and feel and would have been appreciated much in that idyllic setting. Bedil has tarried too long in bringing this charming poesy to Kashmiris.
Like his brethren from the valley, Pushkar Nath, has spent this past quarter century in the homelessness of refugee camps. He tells of it in an evocative poem on Exile – me aasan roov (I lost my seat i.e. land).
zuuna’y kha’ts nu’ ami zuunu’ pa’chh
kanyuv gav vwnd, anyuv pyov a’chh
tyalii dda’j naa buthis pyatth nas
me baasyov bas me aasan roov
[The moon did not rise that bright fortnight; the hearts turned stone and eyes went blind. The nose on the face was turned aside and I knew that I had lost my home / seat].
Before the actual exile, friends turned away, the ways changed, status and standing had been lost:
tyalii addu’ seer gav seeras
khwruk paa’zaaru’ khot sheeras
kambar futt naa ga’yaas naa tsas
me baasoov bas me aasan roov
[All order was lost, the unworthy ruled the roost; trust was broken through and I knew I had lost my home/seat]
In sixteen couplets of the five stanzas of the poem ‘Migration’, Bedil depicts how his homeland was turned topsy turvey and he, and his brothers, got ejected from the land. One by one all the pillars of living, the tenets of trust, the assurances of calm were loosened and finally dashed down. there this poem is one with the general pain, which is Bedil’s theme. Dag/Dug is a treat which ‘gets Pushkar Nath Kaul Bedil to be counted among the worthies of Kashmiri language’.
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