Shehzad Ahmad has often been called a poet’s poet. During and after an active corporate career and a lifelong habit of extensive reading, his verse flowed mostly as ghazal. (The ghazal is usually an amatory poem, a lyrical ode made up of couplets in which the same rhyme is carried by every second line. The couplets are independent and complete but connect to form a unity. Most ghazals are addressed to an elusive beloved, the self, the tormentor, or people at large. In good ghazals, the central thought develops with each distiche.)

The ghazal is still a favoured genre of Shehzad Ahmad. He is a highly regarded lyricist. He takes delight in composing every misra (line) of a ghazal. And all those who hear, applaud (with a highly developed ritual exclusive to ghazal, not duplicated in any language or with any other genre). Forming a misra requires a gift with which Shehzad Ahmad is richly endowed. And this places him in the front row of ghazal poets.

The ghazal is most difficult (most say, impossible) to translate. It has a certain ethos and flavour which resists transfer to a different tongue. An attempt has been made to translate a few ghazals. These have been placed at the end of the book. To those who are bilingual, in Urdu and English, the original alone may be enjoyed. To those who are adept at English alone, only a modicum of the original’s flavour may be experienced in the translations.

Since in Urdu the verb comes at the end of a sentence, a whole tradition of radeef has developed. (Radeef comprises one or more independent words placed after kaafia: rhyme words which are placed penultimately in the second line of every distiche and usually in both lines of the first couplet of a ghazal. Retaining the radeef is extremely difficult to achieve within the confines of English grammar as the verb in English is in the ‘middle’ of a sentence.

Some experimentation has been attempted with ghazal translations:

In the first ghazal, radeef is also present in the translation. In the first five ghazals the rhyme scheme AB.. AB.., is preserved in the translations, as is usual in the ghazal form. In the sixth ghazal each couplet is rhymed – AA, BB, CC, & c. In all ghazals the integrity of the couplet has been maintained.

Shehzad Ahmad has been skewing towards naz’m (poems with a structure which may not draw upon rhymes or metre which remain persistent throughout the poem). Much of his poetic output in the last several years has been in this genre. He sometimes uses internal rhymes and end rhymes, in an understated way. The language is often (deliberately) tethered to prose. But the thought is always poetic. An attempt has been made to retain the flavour of the language in the original, indeed to be as close to the original as possible.

There are several moods in these poems. In this selection traditional naz’m, which uses rhyme and metre, free verse, and blank verse have been included. Prose poems are not here. A variety of metres speaks of both dexterity and spirit of adventure in Shehzad Ahmad.

Shehzad Ahmad has vast readings in the sciences and psychology and has authored many books in these disciplines. After due incubation these inclinations surface in the poems, naturally and poetically. Many of the more recent poems journey into the cosmos within, among visible stars, and in space and time.

Translations are never meant to show up the original (unless one wants to do a Fitzgerald with Khayyaam). They must be taken as ‘beating a path of the original’. Or of reaching those who want to make contact with the poetry in another tongue but don’t have the language. Translations hardly ever match the original. Somewhere the language, the ethos, or the poetry is left behind. This I know from experience and don’t make (can’t make) any apologies for it.

In this collection the original Urdu and the English translations are placed side-by-side. The bilingual reader may enjoy the original and, if so inclined, grapple with the translation. No attempt is made at the easy-way-out of ‘rendering’ the poems. These are translations. This book carries originals of very fine verse, and translations deliberately kept as close to the original language as possible. This may irk those who are ready with an idiom in English. But usually idioms of another language impose a different response.

Shehzad Ahmad’s subjects included in this selection can be divided into two parts: themes which follow the rich tradition of Urdu poetry (often presented from unique Shehzadian angles) and those which present modern and often untouched motifs in Urdu verse which present subjects which are new for our own or European sensibilities. These subjects are the gain of the latter part of the twentieth century. Perhaps Shehzad Ahmad is beating a path to new directions and marking out new avenues for Urdu naz’m.

I hope you will enjoy this book as much as I have in translating the fine verse of Shehzad Ahmad.

MUZAFFAR A. GHAFFAAR