Syed Wali Muhammad سید محمد ولی (takhallus Nazeer نظیر), more commonly known as Nazeer Akbarabadi نظیر اکبرآبادی , was born in Delhi دہلی in c. 1735 CE. His fathers name was Syed Muhammad Farooq سید محمد فاروق . His was a respected and rich family. His mother was the daughter of Nawab Sultan Khan, the Governor of Agra fort. Agra was then known as Akbarabad after Akbar and was the capital city for 4 Mughal emperors (Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan [builder of the Taj Mahal تاج محل, finished in1653], and Aurangzeb). By the time of his birth, the decline of the Mughal Empire had started. A period of chaos had started when the future became uncertain and even cities like Delhi and Akbarabad went through great destruction. It was a period of Tawaif-ul Malukiطوائف الملوکی (Urdu term, literally meaning a horde of kings). When Nazeer was young, the city of Delhi went through a very difficult time due to repeated invasions and chaos (one by Nadir Shah, another by Ahmad Shah). When Nazeer was in his early 20′s, he moved to Akbarabad along with his mother and grandmother.
He had to go through difficult times due to the social upheavals as the livelihood of a poet depended on the ruling elite, if he himself was not among this class. At age 28, a few years after he moved to Akbarabad, Akbarabad was attacked and captured by Suraj Mal Jat. As he left, he appointed Soha Ram Jat as the ruler of Agra. They destroyed buildings and dug them up, searching for buried wealth. This caused great destruction and Nazeers life went into a downward spiral. Since he had saved his books, he started a long career as a tutor. He tutored the children of Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan, and then Lala Bilas Rai. In his last years Nazeer was linked with the court of Raja Balwan Singh of Kashi (Varanasi, Banaras). When Nazeer passed away in c. 1830, he was in his 90′s.
Nazeers life overlaps partially with that of some other famous Urdu poets like: سودا Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda 1713-1781, میر Mir Taqi Mir 1723-1810, جرات Shaikh Qalandar Bakhsh Jurat c. 1747-1807, مصحفی Ghulam Hamdani Mushafi c.1750-1824, and انشا Insha Ullah Khan Insha c. 1756-1818. In his time, there were the Delhi and Lukhnow schools of Urdu poetry. He steered clear of both, and I believe, founded a third. Later on, Altaf Hussain Hali (1837-1914) حالی also wrote in a similar style, with more stress on nazm نظم ، rather than the ghazal غزل .
Nazeer was a prolific writer, but only a small percentage of his verses have survived to this date. Looking at his asha’ar, they clearly are very different. There are mostly local words. Farsi was the official language of India at that time and based on his background, he must have been be well educated in Farsi and Arabic. I (this humble Tamashai) think that it was because by nature he was a rebel, a trendsetter, and he wrote for the common people, in the language they spoke and understood. I think he willfully ignored Farsi. He mostly wrote poems. The titles of some of his poems: Banjara Nama بنجارا نامہ (the one uploaded here), Taj Mahal تاج محل (also located in Akbarabad, or Agra), Eid عید , Basant بسنت , Eid-ul Fitr عید الفطر , Bachpan بچپن , Jawani جوانی , Burhapa بُڑھاپا , Kullo nafsin zaiqatul maut کل نفس ذائقہ الموت , rahey naam Aallah ka رہے نام اللہ کا , Dunya, دُنیا Ahl-e Dunya اہلِ دُنیا , Kori کوڑی , Muflisi مفلسی , Roti روٹی , Pait پیٹ, Tandrusti تندرستی , Khushamid خوشامد . It should give an idea about his poetry. There is not much detail about his life in the literature due the chaos of that time, and also due to the fact that Nazeer was not well known during his time and was ignored by future researchers / critics of Urdu poetry. Muhammad Hussain Azad (1830-1910) completely ignored him in his extensive and well known masterpiece, Aab-e Hayat آبِ حیات.
This poem: Banjara Nama literally means Poem of a Peddler. I have not used the term chronicle on purpose. Peddlers were the traders on the move. Their trade declined from mid nineteenth century onwards due the mass migrations to big cities, and development of rails, automobiles, and big city markets. They sometimes were also fortune tellers. One can believe that they had to use their verbal skills to boost their sales. Hence there is a negative connotation about the word banjara (or peddler). In India they were mostly the traders of edibles who used ox carts. Nazeer has used the term banjara in 2 contexts. First is his addressee in the poem. The second, I believe, is the one who carries animal carcasses on his cart to throw them away (translated as the angel of death on the Internet translations). See this European banjaran of milk with her dog cart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dogcart3.jpg
خاموش تماشائی
KhamoshTamashai
Duration : 0:4:47
[youtube -NxuXZSDn9M]
September 6th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
ਸਬ ਠਾਠ ਪੜਾ ਰਹਿ …
ਸਬ ਠਾਠ ਪੜਾ ਰਹਿ ਜਾਵੇਗਾ, ਜਬ ਲਾਦ ਚਲੇਗਾ ਬਨਜਾਰਾ।
sab thath para rah javega….
Fantastic