Varis Alvi: 1928-2014:
Yagnesh Dave
(Translated from Gujarati by Riyaz Latif)
H
ow numerous the vistas that these eyes take in! As if this world, day and night, akin to the reel of a motion-picture, is surreptitiously and soundlessly passing by in front of the eyes. Even while blinking intermittently, it just feels as if one were watching this film unblinkingly, ceaselessly, unmoving. Innumerable untold scenes have floated past this eye. Everything has passed. Nothing has remained within. But some panoramas, for some inscrutable reason, descend from the eye deep within, and recede into the backdrop. Within our own selves, they, in their primal countenance, become static like still-photographs. They are inscribed inside. As to why these images have endeared themselves to me, neither I nor my mind has a clue. If the mind is asked, it will, in turn, ask: don’t you recall that line from Dayaaraam? “What do I know what my beloved saw in me!” And someone else will say: “Gaze at Layla with Majnun’s eyes.” Those visages are not photogenic; those images do not overwhelm with the beauty of Switzerland or Kashmir, but nonetheless they are framed in the mind. Among these images, some are exquisite, some inspire repugnance, some are exceedingly ordinary, and some are rich with humane compassion. These are then some vistas, some images.
A face has been impressed upon my mind with gilded brightness; it is as if it was drawn by the Dutch painter Rembrandt. Roughly four years ago, accompanying my friend Riyaz, I had gone to meet that effervescent scholar of Urdu and English, Varis Alvi, at his house. He was a frequent visitor to the All India Radio (Akash Vani), which had led to a growing acquaintance. My acquaintance with him flourished to such magnitude that at half a semblance of an invitation, I rushed to his house. We reached his house located in a lane across from the delicately ornate Rani Sipri’s mosque. It was a clean spacious aristocratic house of veritable sayyads. He was seated, attired in a fine vest and a lungi. We merely wafted through the living room; he forthwith steered us to his cozy corner, his study room. As ruddy was his visage, so was his disposition. He is revered as a distinguished scholar of Urdu literature and a critic-connoisseur who is not too easy to please. For decades, he taught English literature. That was instrumental in expanding the dimensions of his refined perceptions. Wherever one cast one’s eye in the room, there were books. Bookshelves that rose to the ceiling. Innumerable, well-arranged, prized books in Urdu and English. Taking a jibe at some self-aggrandizing Urdu poet, he said: “The book has been produced nicely but there is nothing inside!” And after listening to my long poem, he said: “Nothing in this mode has been written in Urdu. It’s just not there in the Urdu psyche! Urdu novels too are by far so few.” His aesthetic instincts overflowed with a grand classicism.
Anything less than exemplary would not be worthy of his attention, so where was the question of commending anyone homegrown! Laughing away, he explicated his position: “What do I do? Shakespeare has corrupted me.” This proclamation of his was homage not only to Shakespeare but to all sublime classical literature. I said, Kabir too, in his controverting ironic utterances, speaking about the way in which and how he has ruined himself, had said:
kabira bigad gayo
miTTi ke sang beej bhi bigdo
bigad bigad ped bhayo
kabira bigad gayo(Kabir, it is spoilt
with the earth the seed is too is spoilt
repeatedly spoilt it becomes a tree
Kabir, it is spoilt)
How persistently did the seed get spoilt along with the earth – it became a tree! For extended periods, he had battled the agony of renal cell cancer. During the interval of his surgical procedure, and later during the distressed phase of uncertainty whether the cancer had spread to other areas, he had made a sojourn to the twilight zone, the spectral realm between life and death! That alleviated the fear of death, but did not lessen his verve for life and healthy pull towards worldly attractions. And why would his vitality reduce? He had been corrupted at the hands of Shakespeare, not by someone like Shankarachrya. He asked his nephew to get some cigarettes. His clarification: “I have stopped smoking otherwise, but when someone like you pays me a visit, all abstinences are to be abstained from.”
Winding between conversations, we had no idea when the evening turned to night. Suddenly it occurred to him that he had not fulfilled his duties as a host. From the adjoining room, he brought us a plateful of refreshments.
He then lovingly commanded us to relish them. Tea, he said, he would prepare it himself and serve us. Again, he disappeared into the adjacent kitchen. While he was brewing the tea, the lights suddenly went out, a relatively rare occurrence in Ahmedabad. We kept on consuming our refreshments in the dark.
Presently, from the dark frame of the adjoining kitchen-door, a gold-inscribed figure from Rembrandt, gaited in. All around, an opaque black darkness. In his hand, an ornately pierced lantern. Within the transparent frame of the lantern, an auburn golden scarlet flame. But the gaze does not center on the flame. It rises up. A little above is a fair ruddy face iridescent in the radiant glow of the lantern. The light from the lantern shimmers on the vast bald forehead. The soft white hair surrounding the ears have turned golden. There are two big sparkling eyes on the smiling face. These eyes, their gentle eyelids, the two shining pupils in them, and the two dots of light reflected in those pupils…as if this was the core of the image-painting.
Outlined within the frame of the door, I still recall with vivid exactitude, Varis Alvi’s image that I had seen through Rembrandt’s eyes; identically as before: enigmatic, illumined, gently dignified. It needs no restoration.
*****
Translator’s Notes --The original essay in Gujarati, where the author reflects on his interactions with two people, can be found in Yagnesh Dave, Aso Ma Ughadto Ashadh (Ahmedabad: Rannade Prakashan, October 2000), pp.94-98. However, out of the entire essay, I have only translated the portion which relates to Varis Alvi. Accordingly, I have made a minor modification to the title of the essay.
Yagnesh Dave is a Gujarati poet, translator and creative essayist and travel writer who worked in All India Radio Ahmedabad and retired as Station DIrector. His poetry is collected in four volumes he has written for children and among other translations has rendered Japanese haiku into Gujarati. He has been awarded variously by Gujarat Sahitya Academy for his writings. He lives in Ahmedabad.
Riyaz Latif is a poet and translator and teaches Art History at Flame University Pune.
— Varis Alvi in The Beacon
MIRTH AND THE DUST-CLOUD: REMEMBERING VARIS ALVI
RIOTS AND THE ARTIST
Leave a Reply