TO DANTE FROM PAKISTAN WITH LOVE

Written and Compiled by Nadia Zehra

The translation of verses is attributed to website based material. Shouldn’t be taken as

copyright infringement.

------

when we meet our friend,

the protector of our honour

it is a great thing to become friends with him

he who once a close friend says

i have head enough is a heathen

if you sacrifice yourself you meet the friend

sacrifice yourself and do not demand fidelity

so says pir farid

These are opening verses of Baba Bulleh Shah poem about love and sorrows. The rules of love are
as simple as faithfulness to each others. The fidelity in times of despair and distress is what makes love
eternal and it’s also saying of prophetic spiritualists. Bulleh Shah has sent a message of promising love and
care for the whole life for the lover and can even sacrifice his life in doing so.
 O my love, do not forget your beloved,

come back from your life in the wilderness

The birds have flown home,

why do you not do the same?

Love overwhelms me again and again,

I am yours and you are mine

O Farid, I will sacrifice myself,

just to see him one more time

O Farid, I will sacrifice myself,

just to see him one more time

In this stanza, the beloved is asking her lover to come back as birds have flown back to their nests
. The longing in the verse is evident as she turns his attention towards nature and persuades him to follow
the laws of reunion. Just as the burdens of day ends, the parted mates resume and occupy each other’s
companionship. So she seeking him soaked fully with feelings of love. She demands that how this
separation can imply on them as they are made with one soul. She assures him she is incomplete without
him and swears by mystic poet Ghulam Farid of 12th century that she can even sacrifice her life, just so see
him once more.

Baba Bulleh Shah was a Punjabi Sufi poet in early 18th century. He was more of a humanist who
wrote on social values inclined morally towards justice, liberation and equality. He can intellectually be
regarded as rebellion as he speaks tendentiously on subjects which were prohibited to be even think about
in his times. That could be dissent with system of rulers of his times or monopoly of affluent classes. He
stood as voice of oppressed.

The peculiar thing about the above mentioned poetry is that he speaks on behalf of woman. This
was not common in those times as poets usually constructed verses on attractiveness of a female and all the
metaphors and expressions consequently contained elements of praise and admirations for women. But sufi
poetry is different, it does justice to both the genders as god seeks his creatures wholly not discriminating
with race, femininity or class. The women were not given leading roles in the society, and their voices no
heard meaningfully. They were considered vulnerable and were dominated by patricidal norms. Sufism
overthrew this system of negligence to women tribe and intellectually became their spokesperson. There is
also reference to the legendary epic love of Warish Shah poetry, which is also a reference to subject of ‘s
love from pen of a sufi poet. The lover exceeds from her physical attire and takes shape of her beloved
Ranjha. She in desperate pursuit finds him in her innerself.

The next stanza as in continuation of our debate depicts that woman is so lonely ridden in life that
she compares it with movement of spinning wheel. As those times yarn was prepared by spinning machines
commonly called as “Charkha”. The woman of Bulleh shah poetry longs for her match with every passing
moment. She claims that rotation of the spinning wheel makes her closer to thoughts of her beloved. She is
not materialized with possessions of the world, nor she spends her time earning worldly desires. She in
solitary confinement as a bewitched lover spins with passion, every movement of thread get tangled in her
fingers and fabricates the yearnings of her heart.

The spinning wheel of love, the unspun balls

of grief

As I spin, so my love grows stronger,

And every turn of the wheel, I remember you

What good is my life without you my dear

lover

The heart strings of my memory resound in

every pore,

every vein of my being.

She in moment of defiance says her Charkha is priceless. It’s worth 9-lacs. That means it cannot be
bought nor her feelings can be compromised. The desires arise from a woman who is stuck with life and its
daily patterns. There is no liveliness except the ardent self-less love.

Here it provokes me to look back towards a 13th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri. Recently I
came across his literary work and found that he like Bulleh Shah was a great dissident of his times. A
Guelph by political stances but substantially rejected and fought against all corrupt and misdemeanors of
either monarchy or church of his times. This is reflected in most of his poetry which he wrote while living
in Florence, Italy; the city of his birth and also dwelling of his love Beatrice. His poetry revolves around
Beatrice; from the moment he saw her at tender age of 9 and fell in heads to heels in love with her. He was
arrested by her sheer beauty and innocence and spent almost all of his youth in courtly love of her as was
tradition of those times. He wrote love poems, sonnets for her. But his love couldn’t materialize as she died
tragically at age of twenty.

Dante couldn’t endure this departure, and the sadness and grief cimuferenced the rest of his life.
The political and social agitations also continued as his love for his country, nation and for past heroes and
glory he very academically and scholarly proclaimed and asserted in his virtues as well as poetry.

There is Bulleh Shah poetry in which the woman is wailing and calling for her beloved to appear
from anywhere. And then there is Dante, who lost the love of her life and is subjected to exile in early
fourteen century. At pinnacle of depression he wrote his epic poem Inferno, the famous part of his Divine
Comedy in which he traverses through hell and sees all wrongdoer’s souls getting severely punished. His
political enemies of present and the horrific evils of past and roasted in fire, mudslinging in swarmps of
hornets and bloody fights in the shadows of three headed Satan. Dante was a Christian devotee and
following the teachings of Bible and Christ formulated every path and his vision. He is accompanied by
Virgil, a poet from past and his tutelage in voyage. Virgil tells him that he is actually sent to him by Beatrice.
There Dante thinks about her beloved and sees a chance of meeting her as it wasn’t possible in life. Beatrice
arrives in shape of goddess and fully aware of Dante’s ordeal asks for Virgil’s help.

''A friend, not of my fortune but myself,

On the wide desert in his road has met

Hindrance so great, that he through fear has turn'd.

Now much I dread lest he past help have stray'd,

And I be ris'n too late for his relief.''

(Beatrice to Virgil, Canto II)

Bulleh Shah also refers to poetic mistro of past Khwaja Ghulam Fareed and seeks guidance of him
to have one last look of his beloved. Bothe pieces of poetry seem to merge like two streams running and
sinking into each other. Dante passes through nine circles of hell, each one described with severity of
punishments. Beatrice yearns for him in limbo, the first circle of hell but this desire, craving is fully captured
in verses of Bulleh Shah a Punjabi poet born much later than Dante’s Inferno. The spinning of wheel by the
woman is proclaimed innocent so the after-life of Beatrice is. Its only full of long waiting, never ending
state of aspiration. She unlike the sinners who due to greed, tyrannical rules or opportunism are thrown in
dungeons of hell. She due to ill-fate, and early demise cannot rejoice and have her lover on her side. Dante’s
Inferno is a long piece of poetry with thousands of words boxed in 33 cantos. And them all alluded with
staunch biblical references of torments of hell through nine circles that reach the inner core of earth. And
from there they pass to other side of planet earth. But this is retribution the sinners have earned themselves.
But in parallel his love for Beatrice is shown with eminent Zeal. He doesn’t spare his beloved from perfidies
of hell as every living soul is mortal and error is in blood of her. But he considers non-faith a bigger fault.
And in this regard, he put Virgil also from Hell, as the great poet died years before birth of Christ. So despite
his immense admiration and inspiration he feels sorry for faithless Virgil.

Dante’s inferno is set in the sweet season of spring when earth is in equinox of celebration. And
prolly Easter is also in its way. It is the time believed when universe was created by God. Bulleh Shah also
carries the festive moment of Holy Eid of Islamic Faith. There is co-existence of the time frame of both
pieces of poetry that also shows that despite all state of exiles, the time to meet the beloved is an exalted
supreme occasion.

Eid has come, but my beloved has not

Eid has come, but my beloved has not

may God look after him

Adornments do not seem right,

nothing is pleasing to my sight

The happy ones sleep peacefully

while I spend my nights in grief

I will celebrate Eid when my love comes back,

without him Eid is empty

It’s a moment which is happily celebrated and the woman wants her beloved to be reunited with
him. Without him nothing suffices to satisfy. The romanticism of the poem has reached to the extreme of
her desire. Among fellow people she feels lonely, and spins the yarn leaving the world behind. In every
rotation she sees her beloved wandering in wilderness and unable to reach her. This long waiting is so
beautifully captured along with the assurance of strong love and patience. With every footfall of Dante, this
poetry of Bulleh Shah calls him that love has not betrayed him and still anxiously awaits with all charms of
life. There would be a happy end to gloomy passage as sighs of love resonates in Mount of Purgatory.