A quest for truth against the tide

My love for poetry was right from my schooling. Ghalib, Iqbal and Firaq, I had enough of it from my father, a sensitive poet, as well as a profound teacher. His own poetry, mostly I would go to attend Musharias in Bandipur. I failed in science, but was saved by literature.  I did well in social sciences, for I had left for Banaras Hindu University, just after my bachelors’ degree in 1974. Contrasts to that, my brothers were sharper and had equal interest, both in sciences and literature. By any measure, they were better students and passionate for learning. They had no opportunity to excel.

Their brightness dimmed because they were in Kashmir and then had to face displacement. This has been story of bright students, irrespective of religion, caste and class, who could not come out from Kashmir. The professional colleges or the university did not give them flourishing to their academic potential, as it could have been. The societal measure was if, you could earn well for yourself, you will get respect and appreciation. So the bright people would opt for professional degrees to earn more money. Some would do it honestly; some would taste ill gotten money also. They had more admiration in the society. That was what society and state could do with our bright students. Those who could go out for research did brilliantly well, even if, they were average students in their schools. The brilliant and bright when opted for research have touched niche in the institutions, which provide resources, level playing field with choice and guidance.

America is one such country that values brain, gauges it with institutional merit and then accepts the person with utmost trust, unimaginable. We may say it a brain drain, but in actuality, it is nourishing the brain. Since my interest is in Urdu poetry, I find Dr Azra Raza’s story of wonderment. She has blended science and poetry, imagination and actuality, mortality and existence, in her heart and mind to make her scientific project; an endeavor to find  the ultimate essence of humankind.

Dr Azra was born in Karachi and at the moment is practicing oncologist of international repute, par excellent in her research, a distinguished scientist. Her life epitomizes human quest for truth, beauty and glory. She has been engaged for the last four decades in the treatment of cancer patients. In this pursuit, she developed a tissue bank that contains several thousand specimens of patient tissue to find the root cause of cancer. She has come close to her mission, locating perhaps the strange stress that generates cancer cell’. She has given us the wonderful book  The First Cell and The Human Cost of Pursuing Cancer to the Last. It is a lyrical narrative exploring cancer from medical, cultural and from her personal position.

The passion of her research to discuss thread bear the first cell is amazingly interwoven narrative of history and biography and its interface of scientific exploration of the human tissues. The truth, she tries to find is not an ordinary exploration. It would diminish human suffering. It is a holistic assemblage, rebel and retain the identified episteme from tradition, modernity and beyond the two, in one single search to know the very basis of human nature. How could she do it? By living on the edges of science and non science, she has moved beyond the limits of codification of tradition and modernity. In surmounting the dualism of human nature, she has developed connection between her research and poetry.

Who would reveal the quintessence of human nature better than Ghalib? Thus, she cultivates Urdu poetry especially, its nostalgic Oudh social world view, to overcome the schism of codified duality. She is on scientific endeavor, to find the treatment of cancer that has consumed endless lives, including her husband. Ghalib gives her methodology to unravel the mystery of duality. Her optimism smiles through her work on tissue bank, the ‘architectonic idea’ of Ghalib, ‘ Arsh se idhar hota kaash ke makaan apna’..

She loves Ghalib and Faiz, one unfolds the mystery of the ‘First Cell, and the other fills it with hope of life. Both satirize the far granted power of tradition. The poets mock ‘Naseh and Mullah and Sahid’ and Azra does with her formal procedures. Her project of ‘First Cell’ has been hard resistance against the established policies. She overrules the hierarchal stepping of models and moves ahead  with her firm conviction, ’Mujko gumrahe ka koyee gum nahe har rasta tere ghar jaye hai’, a position that is now vindicated after years of  her struggle. Her assumption is instead, cancer reaching us, why not to search cancer before it strikes. The process of annihilation can only be addressed by the mission of sustenance, which needs no boundaries, but co travelers with passion. It is where her research and sublime poetry ‘lit us up’. She is a blend of versifier and scientist, a genius of rare combination of compelling verses with convincing assumptions. ‘A tribute to Ghalib: Twenty –one Ghazals reinterpreted’, is arguably the best commentary in English on Ghalib’s poetry, my father would explain it to me that way in Kashmiri. Her research is like a ‘last leaf’ to us,

‘Dam har mauj mein hai halqa-sadkaam-e-nihang

Dekhein kya guzre hai qatre pe guhar hone tak’

Her work on the verses gives joyful reach, explanation with limitless range to understand human nature, dwelling between hope and despair; she has removed the layers of limit. Her delightful lectures blend structure with superstructure; the verses make agencies and agenda intrinsic.  Giving is pleasure, moral exigency to overcome mundane. The moment knots are untied, the perennial accountability losses its significance. The interpretation is so lucid and so clear that meaning comes with ‘grace and beauty’. With ‘remarkable impunity’, Azra and Sara have been able to go beyond a ‘dilettante’s sins’ to give us the meaning of life, ‘Bazeecha-e-itfal’.  Its fragility is the dance of day and night, our journeying is the human quest for truth and glory in its historical existence, unending,

‘Poochta hun har musafir say

Bhaye manzil  pa  koye puhncha hai’.

Azra’s passion for research and poetry in lectures give you wonderment how human mind can excel in the honest quest for truth. No matter how lonely her life has been, she has earned her place in the hearts of multitudes.

Her work, lectures and the two books reveal her commitment for the search of human good, libration of mind and body from the sufferings. It hardly matters whether ‘the old man gets the whale or not’ but in its honest and passionate quest, lies the meaning of existence. Her gratitude to America is genuine, for it has unfolded her unlimited potential. Living in patriarchal codified worldview would have deprived the world from the contributions of her genius. She is nostalgic about Oudh and its esthetic traditions. She is conscious of her Karachi identity, but values her co-travelers. She belongs to that tribe of humanity that is engaged in the emancipation of humankind project. We wish during her life time she finds the cause of   ‘the stress diagnosis’, which shall provide life to the distressed. With her delightful presentations in awesome eloquent interpretations, reciting beautiful verse after verse, she brings merriment with a yearning for tracing your own cell.

Prof. Ashok Kaul, Retired Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Banaras Hindu University