Rahmat Shah Sail
Written by Shamsur Rahman Shams
Saturday, 20 May 2006
Sweet are the uses of adversity, says William Shakespeare. It is a poisonous toad which contains in its head a precious jewel. It gives us more scope for the exercise of our faculties and there is no better school for man. What is learnt in the school of adversity cannot be learnt anywhere else, either from books or from schools and colleges.
The noble and sublime of the world are those who have risen from the ranks. The world has benefited more form these struggling souls than by men nursed in prosperity.
Mr. Rahmat Shah Sail has suffered his full share of adversities. Born among a family of laborers in 1943, he went through many trials and tribulations during his childhood. His father, Amin Gul, and grandfather, Syed Gul, are stated to be the poorest people of Warter (Dargai) in Malakand Agency.
Sail was admitted to a local primary school for formal education at the age of five, but it became difficult for his parents to bear the expenses and thus he was deprived of getting any education. According to his colleagues he was the most intelligent student but after passing class three, he was compelled to leave school and assist his parents in earning a livelihood. He worked from morn to dusk and brought a few coins home to buy corn. His spirit, meanwhile, was no dormant. He had a heart filled with emotions and thoughts, and after a hard days labor he used to compose poetry to lessen his fatigue.
This capacity later developed and he emerged as a poet and was given a prominent place among the other poets of the territory. Nobody guided him except in showing him how to labor harder and harder. It is astonishing to note here that the early life of Rahmat Shah Sail was arduous and full of difficulties, but his early poetry was concerned with nothing but his roaming about confounded by the teasing love of his beloved. His early poetry is an echo of his grieved heart, not due to hard work but to the faithlessness of his beloved.
On the one hand he used to help his parents while on the other he burnt midnight oil developing his emotional thoughts and expressing his feelings through his pen. As soon as his senses matured, his ideas and feelings ripened and his poetry took on new shape and color.
Emboldened also by a local poet, Rahmat Shah Sail won a position and became famous for his poetic and literary talent. Now, instead of composing only love poetry, he gave vent to many other subjects and made his poetry universal. He started studying the work of ancient and modern poets. He went through the works of Khushal Khan Khattak, Rahman Baba, Abdul Hamid, Ali Khan and other Pashto poets, as well as those of Sahir Lodhianvi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and Josh Maleeh Abadi and Urdu. He was considerably influenced by their technique and sublime style.
Though uneducated, Sail is the author of three books, Da Weer Pa Chum Ka War Da Naghmu and Da Lumbu pa Soori. The former contains sonnets and the latter ghazals, plots, stanzas and tappas. His third book, Da Khaistoonu Da Sparly Badoona has come to the market recently. It is compiled from his latest ghazals written in modern Pakhtun society.
Saadullah Jan Burq, a renowned poet and a distinguished writer, writes about Sail that if a flower has color but no fragrance or fragrance but no color, it can not be called a rose. Only when it has both these features does a rose attain perfection and as every flower is not a rose, so every poet can not be compared with Rahmat Shah Sail. What makes Sail most highly regarded is his melodious poetry. There is a harmony between his poetry and voice. His poetry is more impressive when recited by himself.
His ghazal interprets various aspects of life. If he talks about the rosy cheeks of his beloved, he also feels light and darkness, happiness and sorrow. If he discusses flowers, he also refers to the thorns surrounding them. The salient characteristics of his ghazals are their separateness, mannerisms and similes. These make his ghazal completely different from that of other poets.
Sail writes poetry and prose and has full command on both. He is full of vigor, courage and capable to continue and spread his work:
He writes:
My wisdom is not to be perished or destroyed. Only hard times will paralyze it.
On analysis, two things emerge: his poetry is dominated first by delicacy and second naturalness. Every verse he says in such a natural and delicate manner as to touch the heart. He says:
O my beloved! Why does my presence so confuse you? I am like spring and will make blossom your youth.
He is a highly anxious lover ready to suffer every sort of agony to get the hand of his beloved:
Saqi! Give me wine of the rosy eyes today. No matter if I am anguished for it tomorrow.
Any poet or writer who, after observing certain facts, tries to hide them or produce in a different way does not fulfill his responsibility as a poet or writer and is said to be coarse and dishonest. Sail stands innocent of any such act.
He is a sensitive heart. Virtuousness and good feelings are overflowing in his personality. Being a true Pakhtun, he is greatly distressed to see the disloyalty of his Pakhtun brethren and says:
Owing to the disloyal nature of my Pakhtun brothers, I am compelled to make relationship with strangers.
Rahmat Shah Sail pays rich tributes to Baba-e-Pushto Khushal Khan Khattak and is greatly impressed by his poetry.
His own life is an imitation of Khushal Khan who endured forays, house arrests and imprisonment. Sail was also imprisoned and put to severe trails for nothing, besides voicing his opinions. Even in jail, he did not give up his line of action. It was the result of these tortures and torments that Sail's poetry contains many dreadful events and examples of human cruelty that took place in the past. In his sonnet Hiroshima, he depicts the destruction of nuclear disaster and criticizes the words-with-out-action approach of the global powers towards preventing the nuclear race. He reminds the two superpowers and other states of the world of the widespread devastation caused by the bomb in Hiroshima and urge them to work for the peaceful use of nuclear energy. He says that it is of no avail merely to show anger and resentment over the tragedy but the need is to take some practical measures to prevent such calamities. In another such poem "Vietnam War", Sail calls for the co-operation and unity of Muslims through out the world to foil the barbarism and evil designs of those treacherous nations who try to mar global peace.
At present, Rahmat Shah Sail runs a tailoring shop in Dargari Bazar to earn his livelihood but most of his time is spent in literary activities. He is a member of Pashto Adabi Jirga, Malakand Agency.
Khatir Afridi, Ikramullah Gran and Shamsul Qamar Andesh are his favorite poets among these colleagues. He holds Amir Hamza Shinwari in most high regard for his meritorious services to the cause of Pashto literature.
It is quite unjust an ugly spot on the Pashto language, that a man of such literary talent sews cloths to make his both ends meet. He has been denied his due place in society due to his great sin of not having passed examinations in any school or college, even though he has more ability than a well-educated person. If supported, he will be able to do more for the betterment of his mother tongue; otherwise it is feared that the may give up his struggle due to constant disappointment.
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