This year, the second in a row, with night curfews in place, news of rising numbers of COVID-positive cases and the threat of a looming ‘third wave’, a dampener has been thrown on the season of festivities that had gradually begun to unfurl.
As always, the close of the old year and the dawn of the new one evokes mixed feelings in the human heart. There was a time when nights were bedecked like brides, there was chatter at parties and the tinkle of glasses and the laughter of strangers – the Urdu poets noted all this and more.
Saal-e nau or naya saal, the New Year, has always been viewed with hope and hopelessness, anticipation and indifference, eagerness and apathy, enthusiasm and cynicism, optimism and pessimism, anger and joy, and everything in between.
And this range of emotions has found ample expression in Urdu poetry down the ages. From a profusion of Urdu nazms, a great many bearing the same title of ‘Naya Saal’, here’s a sampler…
Ali Sardar Jafri heralds the dawn of a new day that carries the promise of better days:
Purane saal ki thithuri hui parchhaiyan simtiin
Naye din ka naya suraj ufuq par uthtāa aata hai
The shivering shadows of the old year shrink
As the new sun of the new day rises on the horizon
Harking back to a time when people sent cards and called each other on landlines, Jafri writes:
Ye kis ne phone pe dii saal-e-nau ki tahniyat mujh ko
Tamanna raqs karti hai taḳhayyul gungunata hai
Who is it who has greeted me on the telephone for the new year
Desire dances within me and my imagination hums with joy
An unknown poet strikes an optimistic note when he writes:
Naye saal mein pichhlii nafrat bhulaa dein
Chalo apni duniya ko jannat bana dein
Let us forget old hatreds in the New year
Come, let us turn our world into paradise
Just as in ‘Naya Calendar’, Shabnam Rumani says:
Phir naye saal ka matlab humein samjhati hai
Janwary sabz dupatte mein chali aati hai
Once again it explains the meaning of the New Year
January comes wearing a green dupatta
Turning the stereotype of newness and hope that the first month of the calendar signifies, Ameer Qazalbash says:
Yakum Janwary hai naya saal hai
December mein puchhunga kya haal hai
It is the 1st of January, it is the New Year
I will ask you in December how you are
In a world that is unchanging in its misery and exploitation, the New Year steals upon us carrying promises it will never keep, declares Akhtar Payami:
Tuut jaaenge mah-o-saal ke phaile huwe jaal
Phir naya saal dabe paanv chalaa aataa hai
The wide open nets of months and years will break
Once again the New Year comes soft footed upon us
With his tongue firmly in his cheek, Hasan Alvi writes:
Washington DC mein cherry ke darakhton par
Naye saal ke khwaab ugaaye jaaenge
On the cherry trees in Washington DC
The dreams of New Years will be grown
Parvin Shakir, the eternal romantic, wonders in this sher brimful with a delicate irony:
Kaun jaane ki naye saal mein tu kis ko padhe
Tera meaar badaltaa hai nisaabon ki tarah
Who knows who you will read in the New Year
Your standard changes like the syllabus of schools
Ibne Insha writes:
Ik saal gaya ik saal naya hai aane ko
Par waqt ka ab bhi hosh nahin diwane ko
A year has gone past a new one is about to come
But the poor mad man has no sense of time still
Taking a quip at Mirza Ghalib who had declared that a Brahmin has prophesied that the coming year will be a good one, Ahmad Faraz says:
Na shab-o-roz hi badle hain na haal achchha hai
Kis barhaman ne kaha tha ki ye saal achchha hai
Neither the days and nights have changed nor is our situation better
Who is the Brahmin who had said that this would be a good year
Taking the high road of Marxism, Sahir Ludhianvi paints a grim picture of the dawn of a new day in the new year that is no different from any other for the poor in his nazm Subh-e Nau-roz (‘Morning of the New Year’).
The gaiety and festivity of the urban rich is contrasted with the rural poor, with the daughter of a poor peasant in particular, and the poet seems to be almost shaming those who can bring themselves to partake of the festivities when there is such a stark disbalance among the haves and the have-nots:
Phuut padin mashriq se kirnein
Haal bana maazi ka fasana
Gunja mustaqbil ka tarana
Bheje hain ahbab ne tohfe
Atey padey hain mez ke kone
Dulhan bani hui hain rahein
Jashn manao sal-e-nau ke
A similar sentiment is expressed by Aitbar Sajid, who questions the futility of extending greetings in the New Year when the change of a calendar does not herald the change in one’s fortunes:
Kisi ko saal-e-nau ki kya mubarakbad di jaaye
Calendar ke badalne se muqaddar kab badalta hai
Why offer congratulations for the New Year to any one
Destinies don’t change with the change in calendars
Makhdoom Mohiuddin, the poet from Hyderabad and fiery progressive, too, is mocking the hollow gaiety of the New Year in his nazm entitled ‘Naya Saal’:
Karodon baras ki purani
Kuhan-sal duniya
Ye duniya bhi kya masḳhari hai
Naye saal ki shaal odhe
Ba-sad-tanz hum sab se ye kah rahi hai
Ki main to ''nayi'' huun
Hansi aa rahi hai
These ancient world
Old by crores of years
What jester this world this
Wearing the shawl of a new year
With much irony it is telling us
I am new
I want to laugh
Faiz Ludhiavu too is almost challenging the New Year in the following manner:
Tu naya hai to dikha subh nayi shaam nayi
Warna in aankhon ne dekhe hain naye saal kai
If you are new show us a new morn and a new eve
Or else these eyes of mine have seen many a new year
There are others, however, who welcome the new year, who see it as an occasion to mollify the angry and the hurt, forget old sorrows, such as this nazm by Jauhar Rahmani:
Naye saal ki yuun ḳhushi hum manaen
Ki ruthe huon ko gale se lagaen
Let us celebrate the New Year in such a way
That we embrace those who are angry with us
Speaking for myself, I draw solace from Faiz Ahmad Faiz in these bleak times:
Humne dil mein saja liye gulshan
Jab baharon ne berukhi ki hai
Zehar se dho liye hain honth apne
Lutf-e-saaqi ne jab kami ki hai
I have bedecked my heart with gardens
When the seasons of spring have shown indifference
I have rinsed my mouth with poison
When the kindness of the cup-bearer has been sparing
(Dr Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian. She writes on literature, culture and society. She runs Hindustani Awaaz, an organisation devoted to the popularisation of Urdu literature. She tweets at @RakhshandaJalil. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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