Poet and
Philosopher Dr. Sir
Mhod. Iqbal
I was invited by a literary organization to attend an evening of poetry and philosophy honoring Allama Iqbal in Atlanta recently. I showed up with Sandhya Bhagat hoping to hear some insights from the experts on Iqbal so that I could reduce my " Jahiliyat" to a minimum.
Well, the evening went well. The entire hall was full and had folks from all walks, all colors of life. One experts who flew in from Chicago came up the stage and began talking about Iqbal. About half way thru his speech, he deviated from the topic of the evening and began a tirade against some "other people" on the planet. I started getting restless.
Alvi Saab who were sitting beside Sandhya objected in a civilized manner but the speaker was in full flow and did not stop. And then Mushtaq and another jebroni broke all the protocols of the gatherings and gave their peace of mind to this speaker, finally running him off the stage.
The next item on the agenda was a humours " Political mushaira" which reduced tensions and brought audience back into the game again...I was happy people stood up to the hate speech and gave a befitting reply.
Iqbal's poetry is universal in nature and speaks for the downtrodden of the society irrespective of caste and religious affiliation. If one travels the world over, collects friends from all colors and races and nationalities one tends to think universal by default and Iqbal, who studied in England and Germany was no exception. ( Unless of course you eat, drink and sleep hatred).
Iqbal said:
Mazhab nahi sikhata aapas main bair rakhna
Hindi hain Hum Watan hai Hindustan Hamara!
I can not stand people who divide things, places and people among themselves. These are the people that have confined and copyrighted Ram to the Hindus, Jesus to the Christians, Moses to the Jews and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to the Muslims only. They have even given identities to famous historical places along the same lines. This excludes a lot of us who do not believe in man made boundries of any kind whatsoever as this breeds ignorance and hampers establishing a heart to heart connection between 6 billion of us.
The bombs that are falling in Iraq today have hatred for "other people" written all over them. This has always been the case, but it's about time these stupidities are checked before they result in catastrophes like Holocaust, Hiroshima and
Gujrat.....
BTW I went to the organizers after the show to confess that I was among those that misbehaved with the esteemed speaker and ran him off. I apologized for my actions and felt sorry for hurting the feelings of this senior gentleman.
But that night I slept so well....
