K.S. Nisar Ahmed, who passed away on Sunday, is a household name in Karnataka because of poems such as ‘Nityotsava’, which featured in the first-ever cassette of Kannada ‘Bhava Geete’ in 1978. It registered record sales and set off a movement of sorts. But his literary oeuvre went far beyond these songs.
Among other things, he was one of the early poets who brought a distinct urban sensibility to Kannada poetry, with Bengaluru taking centre stage in many poems. Though one rarely sees his religious identity in the foreground in his writings, he was also one of the early modern Muslim writers.
Born in 1936 in Devanahalli, on the outskirts of Bengaluru city, he was brought up in Bengaluru. “He was probably one of the first poets in Kannada with no experience of rural life. His poetry was devoid of rural imagery,” said poet B.R. Lakshman Rao. ‘Manasu Gandhibazaru’ and ‘Sanje Aidara Male’ are some of his poetry collections with several poems that capture the urban experience. Gandhi Bazaar, Lalbagh (his favourite haunts), or even an empty site became topics for his poetry. “He saw the poetic in the mundane, and in that sense can be compared to Pablo Neruda,” said literary critic Rehamat Tarikere. Incidentally, Nisar Ahmed also translated poems of Neruda and plays of Shakespeare.
Mr. Ahmed’s poetry was infused with the common man’s language. “We never saw Nisar dressed in anything other than a three-piece suit, but he spoke the language of Bengaluru’s streets and that came into his poetry as well,” said Prof. Tarikere. His poetry was infused with wit, humour and irony, which come out strongly in the likes of ‘Kurigalu saar kurigalu’.
Though he was a contemporary of the influential Navya movement, his poetic form did not fall into that genre. “I think he started with the Navodaya (romantic) movement, took some inspiration from the Navya sensibility, but never turned a follower. Some of us who later turned to Bhaava Geete were called neo-romantics. Probably Nisar could also be called so,” said Mr. Rao. He often said a poem had to be understood by the common reader and used rhyme to good effect, said Prof. Tarikere.
Popular songs
This was one of the reasons why his poems became popular as songs. “The cassette Nityotsava enjoys a cult following even today. There was an untapped market for ‘kavya gayana’,” said Velu of Lahari Music. This soon earned Mr. Ahmed the moniker “cassette kavi”, used pejoratively by writers in the ‘Navya’ tradition. However, noted singer Shivamogga Subbanna said Nisar Ahmed was a poet who could write with equal ease poems with ‘geyate’ (musicality) and those which were distinctly modernist.
Despite being a household name, Mr. Ahmed often felt a sense of alienation, and it probably had its roots in his religion and how the majoritarian society reacted to it, said writer Chandrashekhar Patil. His 1968 poem ‘Nimmodaniddoo nimmantagade’ (‘To be with you, yet not be like you’) is about how the needle of suspicion is directed at him and how he needs to prove his nationalism. “He was probably the first modern Kannada poet with Muslim sensibility, but he did not write of the Muslim community life, which others who came later did. Some of his poems reflected the sense of alienation he felt because of his religious roots, ” observed Prof. Tarikere. Prof. Patil argued that this poems, simultaneously, reflected the alienation he felt as an “outsider” to the contemporary critical tradition which he felt never gave him his due.
Right-wing forces in the State were not comfortable when Mr. Ahmed chaired the annual literary meet in 2007 in Shivamogga and inaugurated Dasara in 2017. However, he stayed aloof and never explicitly commented on political issues.
Interestingly, Mr. Ahmed embraced the iconography of the Kannada goddess. “There is a misconception among the middle class of south Karnataka that Muslims are not well versed with Kannada. Nisar surprised many and broke that stereotype with aplomb,” said Prof. Tarikere. In fact, Nisar was a strong votary of the Kannada cause and spoke passionately about it till his last days.
