Muhammad Ayub Betab – My friend
Words are easy, like the wind: Faithful friends are hard to find.
William Shakespeare.
Date line December 5, 2005. It was a thunderbolt – Betab is dead. And O, the difference to me. He was the only friend I had. How I missed him in my life – and continue to miss him. If I dream, I dream of him – and dreams never die. He was a poet and poetry is my second love. ‘Ghazal’ in Urdu and also in Kashmiri was his forte. Whenever I remember him – and it is not for me to forget him – a Faiz Couplet comes to my mind.
Adayai Husn Ki Masumiyat Ko Kum Kar Dai
Gunahgaar-e-Nazar Ko Hijab Aataa Hai
Sincerity and beauty was writ large on his face. He was simple in attire but possessed with beauty of mind. It was poetical beauty in him, making him attractive to look at when in poetic mood. Alas! He dies before giving his teeming mind full vent. May God be forgiving with him – which he is. It is his promise.
How I remember him reciting his poetry in a glowing mood like a glowworm in a dark night or like Mehjoor’s Bulbul breaking the dawn with its sweet song. He is dead but songster Betab will not. For poetry leaves an indelible mark on sands of time.
He was simple in habit and mind. How attractive it was in him – simplicity couples with beauty. He called himself Betab – a man with patience for sorrow. And sorrow poeticized creates a red beauty- and we cry with Keats- Beauty is Truth and Truth is Beauty. What a poet he was! True to beauty and admirable in mind and heart. O, how he left me longing for his song! O, it has faded far away but couching on my vacant mind whenever on oblivion I lie. Humans are born to die. So did Betab. But his song will continue to cheer the sad hearts.
It is after a long time I remember him once again. Though to forget him is not in my power. Nietzsche comes to my mind: two things fill me with awe – the starlit sky above and the moral law within. Morality is all what man is. What inspired me most in him was his simplicity of attire and habit. Simplicity of attire and habit and mind is a lovable trait in man. Coupled with it is the beauty of mind – it creates beauty even beyond admiration.
By profession he was a teacher but by best of mind and heart he was a poet. Ever cheerful with a smile on his face, he attracted notice and one felt powerless before his smiling face. Humans are prone to die. We enter the stage only to exit. Death is the ultimate reality of life. But great in my mind and heart never die. Yazid is dead but Hussain shall live forever. His memory will continue to haunt mankind with one word of sorrow - Karbala.
Muhammad Ayub Betab was without airs of ego and surprisingly with no complexes whatsoever. That is what a poet is – a heart with feeling. And if you listen to your heart, it never deceives. Deceit is when falsehood enters man’s life. Death claimed Betab before he had given vent to his teeming mind. But whatever he has left us with, it shall continue to cheer our hearts. As Mehjoor’s Bulbul will never die, so would Betab’s song – shall never die. He had a small hut as a living house which he called ‘Thaka Paend’ - a transitory house it was for me. I used to be closer to myself in this house. To be in his house was to be among sweet feelings. To me his poetry has a lovely breeze of a dense forest. Every word he used in his poetry had that feel in it. Words speak to a poet with an innermost voice. But when they come to become real, they suffer an inevitable change. The outcome is somewhat different from the moment of original perception. The success of a poet is how original he remains to his inner voice.
Betab was a seeker of beauty in his poetry. It is what creates meaning in poetry. Keats comes to mind: “On a poet’s lips I slept, dreaming like a love adept.” When I go down the memory lane his poetry strikes my subconscious mind with a recall of the past when I used to enjoy his poetry in his own voice.
Muhammed Shafi Khan is an educationist and a veteran social animator
