There are certain things that settle deep into a person’s soul. They seep into one’s being. Like the poems of certain poets who seem to have been born to cast a spell with their words. One of them is Abdul Qadir Bedil Dehlavi. His poetry, when you read it, carries you away with its magic to a nowhere-place. This nowhere is a strange realm — a place that both exists and does not exist. A place with no name, meant only to be entered so that one may drown in it, utterly submerged. Even if we read Bedil line by line or hemistich by hemistich, each fragment overflows with beauty. This beauty alone is enough for a person’s life. It is enough to bring joy to a single day. I write these words from Bedil for the happiness of all — so that we may all read them and become happy together in the presence of such beauty.
When he considers silence the very essence of peace: “In silence there is only peace; there is no war here.”
Or when he speaks of the road and of departure: “The road opens its arms in every direction, for it has torn open the pocket of the desert.”
It is as if the road is calling you, yet also telling you not to go. The road is the very image of separation, of distance — of my being here and your not being here — and how painful that absence is. It is the same word Bedil uses, “torn,” wild and wounding, as though he is splitting a person’s life in two. He seems to say that everything exists in life: joy and sorrow, openness and tearing. Then this very separation leaves a trace of pain, and another radiant line emerges: “The whole world turned to blood and dripped from our eyes.”
It feels as if Bedil wrote this poem to make the liver bleed. And these are the very things I call happiness. They form a terrible and beautiful paradox — containing both pleasure and pain at once. It is as though these verses were written to set the soul on fire and burn it, while at the same time bringing delight and vitality.
Or look at this other line: “I go away from myself, and the regret of shedding warm tears remains.”
It is as if this departure constantly changes shape and settles into the soul as poetry. “Going” becomes a word, then an image. It steps out of the image and becomes life itself. It exists within life and is real. It is a current that Bedil sets in motion — one that seeks a rival, that demands an opponent. One cannot approach it easily. He hides himself among his vast body of verses, and you must search through them to find him and grasp him. This is the special quality of Bedil. This is the special quality of poetry.
Here, where he says: “Do not be deceived by the cup of existence, for it is like a whirlpool; if you plunge your head into its pocket, it is a well.”
It is as though he is issuing a warning. He is calling a person toward the path that is life itself. This is why I say his poetry is the very image of life. It resembles longing and imagination. Even when he speaks of desire, it is striking: “The heart’s desire has fallen like a tear from our eyes.”
Or this equally astonishing couplet: “It is no easy task in existence to behold non-existence; whoever has seen us is proud of his bewilderment.”
It seems as if all these lines were written for that very bewilderment. Both the poet is bewildered, and so am I, who reads his poems.