Dastan-e-Marsiya: A poetic journey in 'Dastangoi'

To revive and promote 'Marsiya' as a form of art, a dastangoi on Urdu literature here traced its history and evolution as a literary genre.
Titled 'Dastan-e-Marsiya: Karbala se Kashi tak', the event was organised by Jashn-e-Bahar Trust here last evening.
Traditionally, Marsiya is a form of elegiac poetry which was first written to commemorate the martyrdom of Hussain ibn Ali and his comrades of Karbala (a Sunni shrine in Iraq), but gradually it gained popularity as a form of poetry not just across the Indian subcontinent, but also across the globe.
"It is the story of the Karbala tragedy but who ever wrote Marsiya in India, they wrote with a certain Indianness to it. Their sensitivity was Indian because they had not seen Karbala. That is why I thought it is important to talk about it in India," Kamna Prasad, founder of the trust, said.

The uniqueness of Marsiya poetry lies in pathos that renders it the stature of an epic, she said.
"Marsiya (elegy) is there all over the world in every language. The elements of tragedy in it not only make it unique but important enough to be preserved," she said.

According to Prasad, Hussain's idea of peace would find relevance with Indian audience, because it is likely to resonate with Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence.
"Marsiya truly is a journey from Karbala to Kashi...From Gautam Buddha to Mahatma Gandhi. If Gandhi's concept of non-violence resonates in India, then, Hussain had also said that he does not want war. Even Gandhi said that he learnt to emerge victorious despite being oppressed, from Hussain," she said.

The evening saw beautiful renditions of poetry by popular Dastangoi artist Fauzia Dastango; poet, writer and theatre artist Azhar Iqbal; and research scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University Syed Md Kazim.
Prasad, who has been actively promoting Urdu literature, talked about how the elegiac writing gradually transformed into 'protest poetries' like 'Ae Mere Watan ke Logon' and were widely adopted by Indian poets in their writings.
"It was written on the 'shaheeds'. It's not just Muslims who have written Marsiya, but poets like Channulal Dilgeer and Mohinder Singh Bedi also penned verses in the same format," she said.
The event also featured an exhibition chronicling the journey of Marsiya and how it shaped the contemporary poetry writing.

"It was said once that if you have not written Marsiya then you cannot be a poet. Even poets like Kaifi Azmi, Ali Sardar Jafri or Faiz Ahmad Faiz, have also written Marsiya," Prasad said.