At the Government College, he developed a close association with the great writer Patras Bokhari, who was a lecturer there. Perhaps his metamorphosis began when he moved to Lahore’s famous Government College, where he studied English and Economics, while editing its journal Raavi (Historian). Clearly, while seeped in Islamic heritage at a young age, the young Nazar Mohammed began to move away. Born Nazar Mohammed Janjua (the last name implies a Rajput heritage, marking high social status), he learned poetry from his father Raja Fazal Ilahi Chishti, who was fond of Ghalib, and an Islamic scholar to boot. Rashid’s biography offers a few tantalizing cues about his poetic sensibilities. The man who disdained the rhythmic poetry of his time as “only fit for greeting cards and tablecloths” is now viewed as among the stalwarts of modernist poetry ( jiddat pasand shairi). Now, Nun Meem Rashid receives his due in the pantheon of Urdu poetry, as a master craftsman, as one of the pioneers of the free verse ( azaad nazm) tradition, as an originalist. He often expressed it in relatively petty terms, complaining once to a friend that while reporters referred to Faiz as “Faiz Saheb,” they always referred to him simply as “Nun Meem Rashid,” sans honorific. The progressive aesthetic was destined to bestride the horizon of Urdu’s consciousness like a colossus in the mid-20th century, a phenomenon that rankled Rashid. All seven were joined at the hip by a modern sensibility, but while five of them subscribed to a Marxist ideology and became an integral part of the Progressive Writers Association, Rashid, along with Miraji, chose to follow a more aesthetic-for-its-own-sake route, ending up with the rival Halqa-e-Arbaab-e-Zauq (The Circle of Aesthetes), an organization that disdained overt political expression in poetry. Makhdoom Mohiuddin was born in 1908, and thereafter at annual intervals arrived Asrar-ul-Haq Majaz, Nun Meem Rashid, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sanaullah Dar Miraji, Ali Sardar Jafri and Jan Nisar Akhtar. The period between 19 saw the birth of a septet of Urdu poetry’s modernist hall-of-famers.
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