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| Wani Nazir |
Wani Nazir (Pulwama, J&K, India)
Creativity is essentially the process of
bringing into being. It is a yearning for immortality -an endeavour of breaking
free the shackles of finitude and reaching out to the Infinite. This spots the
mysterious fountainhead of creative literature and the ultimate source from
which it derives its value and strength.
To transgress the ambits of the finite
and to touch the hem of the infinite is to usher in the realm of the
indescribable, the unsayable and the ineffable, but this is, on the dot, the
miracle of creative art. That is to say to express the inexpressible, to
describe the indescribable and to dive into the sea of the infinite make art
eternal. William Blake and Ghalib translate this truth into poetry in their
peculiar way:
"To see a world in a
grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.”
BlakeAnd a heaven in a wild flower;
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.”
"Qatra mein dajla dikhayi
na de aur juzu mein kul
Khel ladkoon ka hua, deeda e beena na hua
"Khel ladkoon ka hua, deeda e beena na hua
Ghalib
A creative artist excursions out of the
spatio-temporal limits and reaches all and belongs to all without ceasing to
exist to his time and space. He cruises his imagination to the universal and
the timeless, albeit containing himself within the particular, the historical
and the spatio-temporal. A creative artist encounters with the external world-
his raw material and moulds it into an organic unity, and transmogrifies chaos
into cosmos. In Coleridge's words he "dissolves,
diffuses, dissipates in order to recreate.” He encounters the external
reality to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his
race.
At the close of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man",
James Joyce's hero pens down in his diary:
"Welcome, O life I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of
experience and to forge in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of
my race."
The phrase "I go to encounter for the millionth time” is really pregnant with
profundity and richness. In other words, every encounter is a new experience,
and to encounter "the reality of
experience” is at the root of all creativity. The task of forging in the
smithy of soul is as onerous as the blacksmith's task of bending red hot iron
in his smithy to make something of value.
An act of creativity requires so much
courage. Why? Because it is as difficult as forging in the smithy of one's
soul. Down through the history, creative figures have consistently found
themselves at war, in struggle. Degas once wrote, "A painter paints a picture with the same feeling as that with
which a criminal commits a crime.” Creativity is a Promethean task and all
artists have to get their "livers eaten
away by vulture" so certainly that they vow never to express their
vision. But during "night their
liver grows back again ", and they wake up full of enthusiasm and
verve again to strive in the smithy of their soul. Iqbal attests this idea by
proclaiming:
"Naqsh hai sab na tamaam
Khoon e jigar ke bagair
Nagma hai soda e kham khoon e jigar ke bagair
"Nagma hai soda e kham khoon e jigar ke bagair
Again the same melancholy is strained by
a Kashmiri bard, Mohiuddin Gowhar, in his collection, Rikhi:
"Shairas
asaan chi zakhman zeu Anin."
The creative act is an encounter between
two poles, the subjective and the objective, the within and the without. In
"Poetry and Experience", Archibald MacLeish uses the most
universal terms for the poles -"Being
and Non-being" In the same book, he quotes a Chinese poet who has
said, "We poets struggle with
Non-being to force it to yield Being. We knock upon silence for an answering
music.” This means that the Being which the poem is to contain derives from
the Non-being, not from the poet; and the music which the poem is to own comes
from the Silence. The poet's toil is to clash head-on with the meaninglessness
and silence of the world until he forces it to mean, and until he makes the
silence answer and the Non-being be. An artist does not run away from the
Non-being, but by taking the bull by the horns and wrestling with it, forces it
to produce Being. He pursues meaninglessness until he can force it to mean.
The greatness of the art is that it
portrays the artist's vision cued off by his encounter with the reality. It is
because of this very fact that art is original always, never to be duplicated.
W H Auden has remarked: "The
poet marries the language and out of this marriage the poem is born.”
An artist has to first destroy the
language he uses in order to create an edifice of immortal art. Picasso's
comment "Every act of creation is
first of all an act of destruction" holds water with regard to the act
of creativity. Here, destroying the language means to tax the words with
meaning which they otherwise don't carry. That is done by breaking and
wrenching language. It is because of this act, a single word in a poem may
carry a harvest of meaning, or to say plurisignification.
Here I am again reminded of Ghalib who
asserts:
"Ganjeena e ma'na ka
tilism isse samje
Jo lafz ki Ghalib mere ash'aar mein awei"
Jo lafz ki Ghalib mere ash'aar mein awei"
By creating new and myriad of meaning,
an artist is elevated to the level where he becomes co-equal with God. An
artist cannot create like God, and I, too, do believe it, yet has the capacity
to change the divine creation with divine help, guidance and grace. In spite of
his limitations, he can bring about change in himself and his environs. This is
his sphere of creation and freedom.
"Tu shab afreedi, chirag
afreedam
Sifal afreedi, ayyag afreedam
Bayaban o kohsaar o zaag afreedam
Khayaban o gulzar o bagh afreedam
Man anam ki az sang ayeena sazam
Man anam ki az zi har nausheena sazam"
IqbalSifal afreedi, ayyag afreedam
Bayaban o kohsaar o zaag afreedam
Khayaban o gulzar o bagh afreedam
Man anam ki az sang ayeena sazam
Man anam ki az zi har nausheena sazam"
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