A well-known Punjabi writer prof, Harinder Singh Mehboob was awarded with the prestigious Sahit Akademi Award for his masterly epic Jhanan Di Rat which marked the crowning of a life spent in the service of literature. The Prof was taken into police custody on some false charges & later released after detaining him for two months.
A man with a muscular physique and the countenance of a mystic comes striding into the room followed by a handful of eminent poet’s writers and his admirers.
Each one in the group tries to comer him exclusively for a few moments and he has time for al. His eyes are large and expressive and a smile dances mischievously on his lips as he tums to talk his group members.
This is Harinder Singh Mehboob the winner of the 1992 prestigious Sahitya Academy award for his literary creation Shanan Di Raat a collection of over 200 poems written over a period of three decades as seven different anthologies which the poet has collected into a single compendium this year.
While this is his second literary output the professor has long been known for his understanding of Sikh philosophy; aesthetics met a physics and art interpretation of history in the light of universal truths.
His visionary quests into religion to unearth the core rationale behind this human pursuit has led to his being regarded as more a con-temporary philosopher than a mere litterateur.
The 55-yr-old writer was born in Chak village. In Lyalipur district of present day Pakistan A scholar of great promise he took his postgraduate degree in English and Punjabi and today continues his links with both through a career of professional writing in Punjabi and a lectureship in English at the Khalsa College at Garhdiwala in Hoshiarpur district.
Mehboobs love affair with writing began in the early 60s when he started publishing essays in magazines. His first book was voluminous presentation of his dynamic thought process entitled
Sahii Rachio Khalsa It was a monumental effort comprising 1237 pages.
The first edition of 2000 copies sold within six or seven months of its publication. Asif that was not enough the book brought along tremendous recognition for the author in the way of awards like the Bhai Kahan Singh Nabha Award and the Bhai Mohan Singh Vaid Award.
While the recent award brought him a sense of satisfaction he says “Prizes and awards were never my destination I thought of doing the right thing when I was writing this epic volume and my whole concentration was centered upon this work.
“I felt it was a gesture of love to be chosen for this award and life is a manifestation of this love. The book is more a search for religion collected in seven books. It covers all the great religions like Islam Buddhism Sikhism and Hinduism. It encompasses the time span from the 605 to 1985.”
It is the deep nostalgia for the past glory of Punjab that makes his work so endearing and lends to his works a poetic intensity. His style of writing to is not a farfetched scholastic expression but comes nearer home with it folk traditions coupled with contemporary trends that give the work certain timelessness.
“The variety of styles that he has adopted has allowed Mehboob to propound the innate thought process of the poet through mixture of metaphor and images amalgamating folk forms and modern fay diction Thus the work has appeal not only for the serious student of philosophy and religion bat even for the common reader who wants to read something different from the normal run-of-the mill books.
In his own words Mehboob does not pursue writing as an empty exercise of literary output. “I want to find a harmony of subtle shades of religion revealing the multifarious sides of the soul.” I these words make one stop and think his fun her utterances am even more reflective. “I want to explain the met a physical problems of man making concept and content a single minded pursuit.”
Being a man of the present times he is no dry-as-dust philosopher lost in the unearthing of tomes from a bygone area. His concern for the present situation in Punjab is never far away.” My first awakening into writing resulted from the bloodshed of 1947″ he recounts. “It simply created a terror in my mind and that terror expressed itself in my writing.”
Even today he says the bloodbath that has wrecked life Punjab has left its scars upon his psyche. As a writer of these troubled times Mehboob has not kept him alienated from this situation. Yet it is not a volatile condemnation in strong vituperative that he takes recourse to make his point of view.
Instead Mehboob has examined the situation from a unique insight Says he “The seventh book of my poems deals with the theme of bloodshed. I always highlight universal justice. I have tried to reveal the different dimensions of a martyr always believe that all those nations die who do not feed upon the eternal springs of Grace the main focus of the consciousness of the strength of prayer. I mean collective prayer.”
“The true meaning of prayer in his diction is not left vague. It is too important a part of the human race to be left unsaid. He thus elaborates with the precision of a surgeon revealing the inner truth in all its palpable vibrancy. “I am reminded of a line from the Gurbani” he states Dawa adam bahut trim saad/Koyi hare boot jale/Koyi hare boot re hori (They have burnt in numerable forest and only the blades of grass remain These green blades that survive will give new births; they will be the forces of rejuvenation in man).
“This source comes from prayer. I am not speaking of mechanical prayer but prayer which is the culmination of all love. It is the part that gives expression to the lyrical side of love.
The fact that he chose the epic theme in his prize winning work to bring for his touching concepts of personal prayer and the wider bedrock of all religion is not a chance occurrence. This conscious deliberation has been inextricably linked with his understanding of literature.
“I believe that the destination of literature is to realize the extreme points of the apical grandeur of life. My poetic experience shows that there is an eternal dignity of man this is an everlasting distinction of individuality which has its claims beyond space and time beyond the mundane side of nationalism beyond the static designs of human consciousness and perhaps beyond the lifeless super-structure of religion that distorts spiritual origins.
“The second phase of this apical dimension is even more profound. It includes such concepts that are related to the aesthetic patterns of nature racial enigma’s far off horizons of time and space and above all invincible self-respect of man in the perspective of permanent socio-political dignity.”
Besides the apical wellspring of creativity the authority intensely aware of a “poetic sensibility.” Again this concern of his has subtle shades of intuitive interpretation “I think a sense of dominant justice especially an intense justice of conscience should remain in the center of poetic sensibility.”
“The apical grandeur” he further reiterates “cannot be attained without realizing an ordeal. A literary mind must be sensitive enough to register its protest against such dark situations. In the absence of actual pain victory becomes an illusion.” He goes on to relate to the poetry to Iqbal in whose works he finds “a handsome harmony.”
Mehboob has already begun work on is volume which he has titled According to Divine Grace. “It will cover the period from 1469 1708. I have chosen this time as I want to state that this was the best period in the history of Man. Ibis revelation of the prophetic mind of Man the mature and the profound. It was the age which yielded prophets like Christ Mohammad as also the 10 Gurus. In addition there were countless yogis and Sufism also come along? It envisions time and space this time of history and my book likewise travels from Teheran to Delhi to Rajasthan.”
In his works this remarkable poet has shown the worth of sincerity and conviction echoing the ideas of the Bengali poet Sudhindranath Dutta “A good man is better than a. good poet. Without the purity of the body mind and speech it is not possible to create great poetry.”
Mehboob has truly become a living example of this dictum through his prize-winning publication.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 17, 1992
