Barqaab – Where Ghazal Breathes Anew
By Aqeel Abbas
Armughan Matbuat
ISBN 978-627-94700-3
Reviewed By Nageen Khalid
Aqeel Abbas is not merely a poet or a prose stylist—he is a realm of wonder, where, with the opening of every door, a new world rises in full significance. Much like the Chinese Box technique in narrative prose—story within story, layer upon layer—his personality is similarly stratified. Just when you believe you have unveiled the mysteries of his inner world, he appears again, draped in a new hue, shining from a fresh angle.
On the horizon of Urdu literature, his voice gleams luminous and arresting, deftly threading the delicate strands of tradition with the vibrant colours of modernity. At once an astonishing poet and an enthralling prose writer, he moves with equal mastery between verse and narrative. His microfiction collection دلہن اور دوسرے مائیکروفکشن is a landmark in introducing the genre formally to Urdu literature, while his ghazal collection برقاب stands as a rare triumph—its pages a mirror to his aesthetic quest and intellectual diversity.
In literature, content carries weight, but style is its soul—the unseen current that animates the work. Abbas’s style is a torchlight in the crowd: distinctive, charged with fresh meanings, and perfumed with the fragrance of romanticism. His poetry is a swift, exhilarating ride—like a roller coaster that carries the reader in moments through the worlds of myth, history, abstraction, romance, modernism, civilization, culture, nature’s beauty, and beyond.
وقت فرمانروائے دلی ہے
اور میں بخت ہوں بریلی کا
اشوک و پورس و گوتم کی سرزمین سے ہوں
حضورؐ آپ کا خادم ہوں، منکرین سے ہوں
زمانہ کاکلِ خیبر ہے اور اس کے لیے
جمال کار وہی ہے جو حیدری بھی ہو
Primarily a poet of the ghazal, Abbas breathes into the form a refreshing new life—eschewing both ponderous ornament and the labyrinths of artifice. With graceful ease, he handles themes of intellectual heft, leaving the reader quietly astonished.
چڑیا اچک کے لے گئی وحشت کے بیج کو
رکھا ہوا تھا سانپ نے منکا نکال کے
پنج سیری کا سامنا تھا مجھے
بات کاٹی تھی ایک رتی کی
A devoted reader of towering poets like Pablo Neruda, Abbas possesses an acute sensibility for beauty. His portraits of feminine grace linger like the after-scent of rare perfume. Even in sensuality, he treads the fine line between delicacy and cultural restraint—passion framed without vulgarity, meanings deepened without burdening taste:
دائرہ دائرے کو چھوتا ہوا
اور قوسین پر حجاب اس کا
ایسی بارش میں بھوک لگتی ہے
کہنیاں میز پر ٹکا لیجیے
This artist is unparalleled in candor, transparent in the transmission of thought and emotion. In his youth, he drew pearls from the deep seas of literature, forging connections with the hidden recesses of history and culture. His ghazals pulse with the heartbeat of rural life:
اس نے اپلوں پہ دیگچی رکھی
اور پکنے لگا شباب اس کا
روز کرتی ہے وہ مٹی سے لپائی لیکن
روز دیوار میں سوراخ نکل آتا ہے
His mythic sensibility astonishes—advancing in multiple creative and intellectual directions at once. Rustic simplicity blends with artistic audacity to infuse vitality into his verse:
ڈٹے ہیں دیوتا اپنی رتھوں کے اندر بھی
رچا لیا گیا سنجوگتا سوئمبر بھی
پانی کی پیش رفت نے سوکھا بھگا دیا
بارش کے بعد گھاس کی ٹکڑی لہک اٹھی
He is unafraid to let the ghazal absorb foreign words, idioms, and slang, grafting them so naturally that they bloom in Urdu with all their original nuance:
خدا کو خط لکھوں گا خودکشی کا
لکھوں گا میں ریزائن کر رہا ہوں
کچھ تو ہماری سوچ کے بھی پیرالل نکال
یعنی غلافِ جسم ہٹا اور پھل نکال
It is no overstatement to say that Aqeel Abbas is a mind of fertile depth and an artist of exceptional creative power—a rare gem that, with each new facet cut, reveals fresh rays of light. In his work, the ghazal does not merely survive; it breathes anew—carrying within it the fragrance of cultural memory, the tensions of the present, and the signposts of the future.
Nageen Khalid
Lecturer in Urdu
Government Graduate College for Women, Sheikhupura
About The Author
