Baba Pervez Chishti: The gentle rebel

“Saleeb”, translated into “cross” carries a painful scriptural history, and when this word is placed besides a term as soft as “sukhan” which refers to the art of convincing conversation, an oxymoron is formed which also gives us an insight into the personality of the very poet whose works have been compiled in this 2021 publication titled Saleeb-e-Sukhan – Baba Pervez Chishti.

Saleeb-e-Sukhan, a poetry book is an effort on the part of Baba Pervez Chishti’s off-springs to bring under one title, the important poetic works of the journalist by profession but a poet at heart who even penned a few film songs but had to say goodbye to the field because it wasn’t lucrative enough. However, when he joined the newspaper as a crime reporter in hope of a better income, his sensitivity as a poet and his experiences of being an eye-witness to hard-hitting incidents combined together to produce literature that emerged as a rebellion carried out using a genre associated with the most sensitive of creative artists – poetry. Baba Pervez Chishti, however, remained somewhat eclipsed out of choice because his introverted disposition kept him from actively participating in social gatherings. He would either read out his poetry to his friends or scribble them in the form of personal notes, which now are being scrutinized to see that Baba Pervez Chishti was but a rebel who was against a society smitten with ills like inequality, terrorism and monarchy.

Born in 1932 in Amritsar to later on migrate to Lahore following the partition of the subcontinent, Baba Pervez Chishti lived until 1982 to observe some of the most cataclysmic events in the region’s history including General Zia-ul-Haq’s martial law, on which most of his poetry is based. A newspaper for which he worked as a journalist as well as a rebellious poet got banned as soon as Zia-ul-Haq made it to the government, and the jolt in the form of a sudden stoppage of income led Baba Pervez Chishti to write:

Jee ko jalaa raha hai yehi soch raat din

Din kis tarha guzaarein, ho jab raat, kia karein

The fear of how to survive through the day and how to return home at night without a penny in hand is conspicuous in the verses, thereby also pointing at the unstable socio-political situation of the country. His complete disregard for dictatorship, and that too in the name of religion is evident in his other verses as well. The following couplet clearly tells that the poet is but referring to Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization.

Labo’n pe naam-e-khuda aur kufr seeno’n mein

Hain sajda rez magar butt hain seeno’n mein

Baba Pervez Chishti expands on this idea of a fake Islamization to tell how even under the rule of a person who would boast of a theocratic society under formulation in accordance with the principles of a peaceful religion like Islam, the most brutal happenings took place in the form of flogging, public hangings and murders.

Haadse sarko’n pe aur qatal hain koocha koocha

Marg-e-anboh se hai jashn-e-qazaa shehro’n mein

The poet’s disappointment at the seemingly never-ending problems of the oppressed also led him at times to develop atheistic tendencies, wondering whether there even exists a God to see what is happening on the face of the earth. Ruthless leadership and poverty were the stimuli behind these tendencies, thus the verses

Behr-e-imdaad abhi tak nahi pahuncha shayad

Raasta bhool gaya mera khuda shehro’n mein

Har ik sitam tera tasleem hai raza ki tarha

Agar khuda hai karam bhi tou kar khuda ki tarha

Not only are these couplets from two different ghazals an act of valour on the part of Baba Pervez Chishti to question the existence of God while witnessing inhumane acts taking place at a large scale, but are also a representation of the pinnacle of disappointment coming from the heart of a person who has had his fair share of life’s sorrows and now pleads for good days. That he had reached this stage owing to life’s vicissitudes is also reflected in a couplet of his in which he tells that he has sold his house, his shelter and his comfort for the sake of surviving in a country where inequality is rampant.

Kunj-e-aasaaish-o-raahat the magar bech dia

Mayyida aye khaanmaa’n barbaadi keh ghar bech dia

When one comes across these lines, one also understands why Baba Pervez Chishti was referred to as “Shaayar-e-musaawaat” (The Poet of Equality). These lines not only express the pain of the person penning them, but also of a poverty-stricken society in general, and of every lower middle class person trying to eke out a living. It is after having sold his last solace that he once again reverts to the idea of God being nowhere, and writes the following couplet:

Aadatan haath uthaate hain wagarna hum ne

Muddatei’n guzree’n duaao’n ka asar bech dia

Baba Pervez Chishti also points out the fact that in the kind of era in which he is living, any person who will openly rebel against the government’s atrocities will be sent to the gallows, and in this way, brings himself in line with the likes of Faiz and Josh Malih Abadi as well, both of whom went a little ahead in their rebellion and thus had to face punishments.

Waqt ka chooha yeh kehta hai har aik khargosh ko

Maar daalo faiz ko aur qatal kardo Josh ko

By the time the book comes to an end, Baba Pervez Chishti emerges as a person who has completely lost faith in the society and has given up on his dreams, which is why in the very last poem making it to “Saleeb-e-Sukhan”, Baba Pervez Chishti says:

Taabeero’n ko choro, saare khwaab bikaao hain

However, the discussion on Baba Pervez Chishti’s life does not end here. It is interesting to note that in the tributes given to him by each of his children in the book, all of them have told that their father was a brave person who never let his children down, as a result of which Baba Pervez Chishti emerges as a man striking a perfect balance by keeping the courage of his family alive while doing his own catharsis in the form of poetry, the proof being his daughter’s preface to the book in which she tells that it was after his death that his children assembled his notes to find some amazing poetry which had not made it to the public, such was the personal pain it carried.

The book is now out, and introduces the readers to the many facets of Baba Pervez Chishti’s life, who gave up romantic film poetry in the face of life’s miseries and used his talent for personal catharsis as well as for providing a glimpse into Pakistan’s seemingly perennial imbalanced social system.

Muhammad Ali has an M.Phil in classic and contemporary Pakistani television drama, Partition Novel and Literary Environmental Literature. He has written extensively on these topics for various local newspapers between 2015-2020. His research on Sahira Kazmi's classical drama serial "Zaib un Nisa" has been presented on various platforms such as Olomopolo Media and ICDELL, 2019. He can be reached on Twitter @MuhammadAli_DT, and through email at [email protected]