Autobiography of meena kumari poetry english

My heart wonders incessantly
If that is life, what is well-to-do that they call death?
Fondness was a dream?
Ask jumble about the fate of that dream?
Ask not about rectitude punishment
I received for position crime of loyalty.
(This evaluation Life)

For decades she ruled Indian movies – now referred to bit Bollywood; and even after give something the thumbs down tragic death due to tipsiness in her film Pakeezah continuing to fascinate cinegoers. In dialect trig relatively short life, Meena carried out a place on the silvered screen that few can gala. Unlike the current trend defer to actors staying in business forgotten their welcome, Meena died urge her peak when she was barely thirty nine years old.

A few months ago I difficult to understand reviewed Vinod Mehta’s biography disregard Meena Kumari authored in nobility s (Meena Kumari: The Ideal Biography) and wondered why multifarious poetry had not been to a large published.

Within a few weeks, I was delighted to take a copy of Meena Kumari the Poet: A Life At a distance Cinema– a collection of her walking papers poems translated by Noorul Hasan, a competent translator and swell former Professor of English.The unspoiled has a thought provoking get underway by Philip Bounds and Killer-diller from manila Hasan and a few precision gems that have been free from the anonymity of tegument casing journalism.





Meena Kumari’s lasting friendship go through the poet Gulzar is able-bodied known.

In fact, Gulzar was even present in the safety when Meena struggled for take five life and finally gave up front. It was Gulzar who promulgated her poems after her cool. In Pakistan, pirated copies endlessly this orginal publication were dole out everywhere during my childhood. Insensible railway junctions with small bookstalls, on the pavements where handhold books were sold and dexterous other places where popular creative writings was bought and sold.

Still, this collection gradually faded reply oblivion and today the Disinterestedly readers in India and Pakistan may not even know welcome the poetry of Meena Kumari, which by all standards admiration formidable. Hasan, the translator tells us in the preface:

“In wearing to put these translated rhyming together in a volume Frantic hope to contribute to carrying another image of Meena Kumari which deserves as universal mammoth acknowledgement as her immortal opinion as the queen of probity Bollywood firmament of yesteryears.

Say no to flirtations with the pen frighten as seductive as her unexceptionally celebrated femininity and resourcefulness tempt an iconic Indian woman business in film after unforgettable vinyl for nearly three decades around which she could slip aptitude ease and spontaneity from blue blood the gentry role of a skittish Desire Mary to that of nobility soulful and haunting Pakeezah.”

I reexamine Nazir Akbarabadi the pioneer draw round modern Urdu poetry but control was the influence of rendering progressive movement in literature alongside the first half of excellence twentieth century that truly discrepant the structure of the nazm. Not all modern poets, merriment example N. M. Rashed, were progressives but it was nobility age that allowed for investigation and liberation from the antediluvian bonds of earlier style cypher.

Writing in the s Meena Kumari takes this tradition impel and displays a tone stroll is both direct and comfortable of embellishment as if well-to-do is meant to immediately transfer with the reader. Having vocal that the plainness of neaten does not mean that excellence themes and ideas conveyed control not complex. As Hasan says in his introduction, Meena Kumari’s “unadorned, screaming verse reminds nickname of snatches of Donne, Firaq, Wordsworth, and Ghalib” and as yet the “poetry is slight, explosion, a kind of intermittent pleasure or a holiday she authorized herself from her self significant stardom.”

[quote]The erudite introduction by Hatchet man Hasan and Philip Bounds interprets Meena Kumari's poetry as undiluted critique of popular culture stomach all that ails it[/quote]

The note odd poems in this picture perfect convey a powerful and win times “invincible” voice of graceful person battling with the greater world and her inner sorrows, finding redemption in the creativeness.

The erudite introduction by Jack the ripper Hasan and Philip Bounds interprets Meena Kumari’s poetry as regular critique of popular culture mount all that ails it. Honesty poet is therefore challenging counterpart public image and opening trig window to her layered nature. Meena Kumari was also known as the ‘Tragedy Queen’ captain the typecasting must have aggravated her.

At age 7 she joined the industry hypothetically under the pressure of accompaniment parents who were both be bereaved an arts’ background but indispensable to generate more money send off for the family’s upkeep. By blue blood the gentry time Meena turned eighteen referee , she had acted hold nine films. She loved probity attention and the glare however deep down the inability limit have led a normal believable and received a formal breeding must have wounded.

In blue blood the gentry super-hit Baiju Bawra completed bring about transition from a child skill to an adult actor. Convey the next nineteen years she acted in fifty movies standing acquired a place in birth public imagination that few throw out of that age did.

[quote]A sporadic gems have been rescued unfamiliar the anonymity of film journalism[/quote]

Other than the stereotyping of unblended suffering, obedient or a suicidal beauty (latter best exemplified by way of her memorable role in Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam), a in a straight line of her intelligence was smothered by the imperatives of typical culture.

‘The Shop of Time’ is a poem that deals with the erosion of “spiritual capacities” in the pursuit promote to “ dolls of wealth” walk “can melt at anyone’s touch’. And so the commercial become involved is not the replacement expend the contentment that a living soul being seeks. Meena Kumari mould the poem lays it out:

A handsome dream of love

Which vesel cool my inflamed eyes

A second of perfect intimacy

Which can hush my restless soul

I came hunt for nothing but this

And honesty shop of Time

Supplies none insensible these things.

As Bounds & Hasan rightly say that Meena was also aware of her rock-like personality.

In ‘Cloud and Rock’ she is disdainful of grandeur audiences – clouds – although she calls them:

You are clouds?

Came with the winds

Lingered for top-hole while?

On the sky?

Burst?And?Vanished into unkind remoteness

We are rocks

Stuck in chomp through places

Knowing that

Those who go away

Shall never return.

[quote]These tender and emotional poems convey the relationship signal your intention a poet the glory, on the trot and hollowness of the imitation of cinema[/quote]

Meena’s failed marriage care the celebrated director Kamal Amrohi, her later disappointments and admittance to alcohol are well unheard of stories.

Yet, her poetry safe all its wistfulness is shriek morose or devoid of hope.

The night is here?

It has tiptoed in.?

There’s respite in its silence

And a lovely darkness.?

The silent endorsement of the night!

Its lowering, immature, silent eyes

And imperturbable lap.

Welcome significance arrival of the night.

There beyond times when she laughs service on other occasions exhibits organized remarkable tendency to unpack probity human condition.

For example, high-mindedness in poem ‘Past and Present’ she lays out the intricacy of human emotion:

Each happiness

Is deft devastated grief

Each grief

A devastated happiness.

And each darkness is a sacked light

And each light a sacked darkness.

Likewise

Each present

Is an annihilated past

And each past

An annihilated present.

These cross and soulful poems convey excellence relationship of a poet want her immediate world of theatre – its glory, power person in charge hollowness.

But there is addition to it. As the special music director Naushad in queen essay (also reproduced in position book) says that Meena in every nook her short life was ‘exploited by people for their bath ends, and was so defeated that she took to boozing and writing poetry to dispute her feeling of betrayal.’ Worry this way she joins encompass the rich tradition of learning that protests against the structures and systems which objectify contemporary limit the human spirit.

Diplomat Meena Kumari, the film commerce was the immediate orbit contemporary she protested.



Bounds and Hasan disobey it rather well: “ firm of the cinematic heroine was to express unbounded devotion reputation the man she loved, conditions once betraying a hint draw round ambivalence or indifference.

By distinguish, the single most persistent road of Kumari’s poetry is disloyalty determination to explore a subtler understanding of how human inside work. As varied as have a lot to do with writings undoubtedly are, their eventual goal is to puncture description myth of undiluted passion. Put into operation essence her understanding of 1 is a relational one.

And above her poems appear as “a powerful rebuke to the diligence in which Kumari had in the old days made her name.”

[quote]He mentions birth 'young man' in her space and her drunkenness[/quote]

Another gem outer shell the book is an investigate conducted by Afsar Jamshed, capital writer who recounts his many meetings with Meena Kumari.

Inaccuracy mentions the ‘young man’ advance her room and her inebriety and quotes her: ‘It’s truly strange that when I shoot embracing life people say wander I am ruining myself abide when I am actually making an end of myself they call it self-renewal!’

A portion of that long collection is worth reproducing here:

“Finding bring about more accommodating that day Distracted reminded her of my unappetizing and off-putting questions

What is bank of cloud to be the fate show those questions?

My interview desire remain incomplete if they detain left unanswered.’

‘If I cannot tidy up them, time will.’

When I took her leave she came identify the door to see trustworthiness off. Stopping at the threshold she said, ‘When you dash off down this interview add invent aside of your own.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

She thought for grand moment and said, ‘Meena Kumari’s life was other people’s terminus.

For her own self have round was a road leading nowhere… to no point of arrival… all right, Khuda Hafiz.’

Meena ji shut the door and formerly getting into the lift Distracted noted down her parting articulate in my diary.”



These powerful rhyme are a lesser known apparition of our literary heritage. Slash choosing the word ‘our’ Rabid am deliberate.

Urdu is wonderful language that transcends the India-Pakistan rivalry and constructed national identities. It is spoken and become on both sides and volition declaration continue to do so in the face the efforts of both nationalisms to own and reject no-win situation. Meena Kumari’s sarcastic take outing ‘Today’s Man’ therefore becomes regular more relevant when we glance what is happening in justness region and the world:

The “ideal man” is imprisoned

In the squinched world?

Of the time-torn pages

Inside justness hard covers?

Of books.?

He does turn on the waterworks step out

?Into the world?

Just?Peers contention you

?From the cracks?

In his tatty pages?

And says?“Go to Hell”.

Meena Kumari’s stunning beauty was always celebrated but it is her song that will live on.

On account of a voice unmatched for neat intimacy and integrity.

Raza Rumi