In the Sufi tradition nafs in the unrefined state is the ‘ego’ ,the lowest dimension of a person’s inward existence -his animal and satanic nature. No wonder then that the principal narrator , the mureed Maqbool Marassi says ‘this nafs is a haramzada’. And it was to control this nafs that his murshid Hussain Daddha, later Lal Hussain , Shah Hussian and in posterity Madho Lal Hussain had become a malamati to consciously seek opprobrium and abuse of the world in order to fight with , and hopefully extinguish his ego.
As Sarbpreet says in the Author’s note , as well as his youtube interview with Jerry Pinto, this is a fictional account of the life of Shah Hussain, the sixteenth century Sufi mystic who lived in Lahore in the times of Akbar and Guru Arjan and Mian Mir (who laid the foundation of the Golden Temple). But equally significant , this is also the account of the young Brahman boy Madho , who resists the passionate embrace of Lal Hussain – and in fact leaves his murshid to join the army of Raja (Bir) Man Singh on his Bihar campaign – which won for the Mughals the additional areas of Birbhum , Manbhum and Singhbhum . As Bir Man Singh already had the highest rank in the Mughal hierarchy , he was accorded the rare honour of having these paragnas ( districts)named after him. Madho realised that his fall from grace was on account of his failure to control his nafs after early military success , and though he tried to find peace in Varanasi , Prayag and Vrindavan, his efforts did not yield any positive result . Finally it was Ras Khan , the Muslim enamoured by the love of Sri Krishna who advised him to go back to his own murshid – none other than Shah Hussain himself . I found this part most interesting , for it connects the years that Madho and Shah Hussain were apart from each other , and in which Shah Hussian wrote the most poignant and heart rendering kafis of the pain of love and separation.
‘My love, your sweet face/Dwells in heart , night and day.
Let me be your songbird/in your garden , let me stay /Let me please my lover/I am sated , and whole this way.
Look, at your doorstep lies Hussain!/Humbler than dirt and clay’
Let’s get back to the story which is set in Lahore . Here Basant is celebrated with great gusto by young and old, Hindu and Muslim and women and men at the Darbar of Data Ganj Baksh , as also to the downtown of Lahore , with its famous maikhana ( tavern)and the bazar-e -husn – the street of the courtesans . It was in this maikhana that Maqbool would sing the most beautiful kafis of Hussain to the patrons , often accompanied by the dance of the dervishes. It was in this Bazar -e -husn that here that the Madho sought the favours of Amba , the most beautiful woman of Lahore whose relationship with Madho was more than professional – for she fell in love with him. But Shah Hassan was equally , if not more enamoured. However while visiting courtesans , and spending a fortune on them was acceptable , falling in love with an unkempt malamati Sufi, that too an expelled Ulema was unacceptable . Madho’s father and Amba both conspire to sponsor a fatal attack on Shah Hussain who survives the assassination attempt. But Madho faces many a homophobic slurs which his nafs is unable to accept, even though he knows that his mureed’s love for him was intense. The message is loud and clear –individuals are often compelled to sacrifice their love at the altar of socially acceptable norms . And only those who can extinguish their nafs transcend into the world of the divine.
But this is easier said than done. It took several years for Madho to surrender his , and many more for Maqbool to get close to it- for his feelings and love for Shah Hussain were the same as Hussain’s for Madho. Thus this unrequited love , the pain , the longing , the suffering is a leitmotif that runs through Sufi’s Nightingale. Maqbool had been born Maqboola – but though the kinnars were accepted , and even respected in pre Islamic society , the Ulema was not able to look beyond the male /female binary , thus restricting their role to raunchy entertainment and /or the harems. Sarbpreet makes a strong case against all exclusions : on the basis of religion, caste, gender, orientation .
The tragedy of Punjab is that the post partition generations cannot even imagine what the composite culture of Punjab was from the times of Nanak to the Lahore Durbar under Ranjeet Singh. One does get some flavour of it in The Construction of Religious Boundaries by Harjot Oberoi , but the ‘ethnic cleansing ‘in 1947 has deprived both sides – and all the three communities – Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs -of their common heritage of lyrics, songs, dance, folklore and syncretic faith . One can only visualise the Basant celebrations of Lahore from the wonderful lines of Amir Khusro :
‘A sea of yellow mustard blooms/Mango buds are bursting forth/A storm of flowers everywhere /A nightingale on every branch/Maidens decked in every hue/Bearing flowers make their way/To the Hazrat’s door today/ A throng of lovers steeped in love /Time had passed , and years have flown /The mustard blooms, let it be known’
VoW’s Lahore connection
Before I close , let me share VoW’s connection with the great city of Lahore. Manpreet Sodhi Someshwar who won the prize for best fiction writing for her 2020 work ‘The Radiance of a Thousand Suns’ has set the first book of her Partition Trilogy in Lahore . This was also home to our 2021 awardee for non-fiction , Ishtiaq Ahmed . His magisterial study on the ethnic cleansing of Punjab, thespians and film stars of Lahore as well as on Jinnah and the Pakistan army have greatly contributed to our understanding of the contemporary history of the sub-continent . And Aanchal Malhotra’s The Book of Everlasting Things is also based out of the bazaars and kuchas and katras of this great city . But all these works tell us of Lahore in the twentieth century. To capture what it was like five centuries ago, read up The Sufi’s Nightingale !
It will transport you to a different space and a different time !
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