Mukhtar Ali Khan alias Partau Rohilla was born in Bareilly, UP in 1933, and raised in Bareilly, Badayon and Rampur. After graduating from Islamia College, Peshawar he did LLB from Khyber Law College, Peshawar before going on to earn a Masters degree in Persian literature. He remained a dedicated civil servant in the Department of Taxation and CBR until his retirement in 1993.

Partau Rohilla's poems are interesting for many reasons - historical, emotional and formal - including their nature as experiment. They represent his attempt to incorporate the affectionate, earthy, daily political vision in a 'classical' body, that of the ghazal. Once we realign our concept of him, we can understand him better as a poet of a more generous political spirit, of exuberance for physical realities and of a populist aesthetic, all coming from the same joyous impulses.

Equally proficient in ghazal, free-form nazm, prose and the rare genre, dohey, his use of a conventional rhetorical structure is what most closely allies his own poems with the tradition. Partau's particular innovation is his use of voice, in sound and in syntax, as the force that binds lines and stanzas into integrated wholes. That delicate adhesive force of the voice, that sense of organic information, like the sound of wood, links a more personal devastation to the destiny of his homeland. Infused with passion and grief, from 'Aawaz' (nazms) to 'Safar Gashti' (travelogue) to 'Shikast-e-Rang' (ghazals) to 'Bagh-e-Do Dar' (translation), his voice is unerringly eloquent. Amidst rain and fire and ruin, in a land of 'doomed addresses', steeped in myth and reality, Partau is intensely musical.

Excerpts of an interview with him follow:

The News on Sunday: When did you have your first brush with the poetic muse?

Partau Rohilla: It's hard to recall when I wrote my very first poem, but as far as my memory serves me, I must be in the First Year of college when I started to write. Some friends and colleagues initially inspired me to write. Among them Shakaib Jalali and Zulfiqar Hussain, who later became known as Ahsan Zulfi, were the most prominent influences. Zulfi and I went to school together in the ninth grade in Bareilly.

It was soon after Partition, in 1948, that I experienced the first poetic call. Shakaib and Zulfi, who had played with me as young boys when I was in Badayon for a year, had now settled down in Lahore while I had come to Bannu with my family. In spite of the distance, we continued to correspond regularly. I would send drafts of my poems to Shakaib for correction, and he would make alterations from time to time. We would also get to meet quite often in Lahore until Shakaib's death in 1961, when he committed suicide by jumping off a train to Jhang.

TNS: What prompted your family to migrate to Bannu in the newly-founded state of Pakistan?

PR: My father, Mohammad Himayat Ullah Khan, was an active member of the Muslim League, and by virtue of being in possession of acres of land, was also one of the most influential members of the League. Before Partition, Bareilly was surrounded by Hindu-majority areas, and it may have been quite impossible for such a majority to tolerate the presence of a resourceful Muslim landlord among them. In addition, since my eldest brother from Aligarh University did not wish to stay in India while another brother, graduate of Agra University, had already migrated two years earlier, my father did not have much of a choice than to leave.

When my brother landed in Karachi, he met Abdul Qayyum who got him a job in the Custodian Department in Bannu. Since we had an ancestral link with NWFP -- my great grandfather had emigrated from NWFP and founded the principality of Rohail Khand in UP -- we decided to settle back here. The excitement to reach Pakistan was so overwhelming that one did not consider it as an exodus to a new land but as a journey towards the pursuit of an ideal.

TNS: Did you ever translate the trauma of transition into your verse?

PR: The melancholia in my poetry is not born of the experience of migration from Rampur to Bannu -- it was more of an extended excursion for the family -- but of seeing one's expectations fall to pieces. I saw my dreams shatter at every step. Returning to NWFP was like going back to one's land of dreams, to the paradise my great grandfather had left behind. But we became mohajirs in our own land. While we'd been busy building a new homeland, we'd also been cutting each other's throats. My father had left everything in Rampur with my uncle who was the chief justice.

Char ghari ka jeewan apna is nagri mein yun hai jaise

Gehri neend se chonke baalak, karwat badle aur so jaye'

and

Saans ki aisi narm chhuri se kat-ti hai yeh jeewan dori

Jeene wale kitne bhole phirte hain chhati ko ubhare

Aalha audal khatm hui, chaupal pe chhaya sannata

Yaad ka ik dukhiyara jheengar reh reh kar her aan pukare'.

TNS: Your first collection of poems is said to be inspired by Ibn-e-Insha. Comment.

PR: On a subconscious level, one keeps imbibing influences from one's immediate environment, but on a purely conscious level it was Ibn-e-Insha's 'Chaand Nagar' that awakened my poetic interest. When I started to write poetry as a serious pursuit in my 3rd Year in college, Insha was incessantly on my mind. As a mature poet, I could hear his voice resonate in my verse, the reason why I was inclined towards writing in the Hindi Ang. In comparison, Shakaib and Zulfiqar were traditional Farsi Ang poets. I continued to write in Insha's style for a long time, so much so that Dr Jamil Jalibi, in the foreword to my first collection of poems entitled 'Partau-e-Shabi' lamented that due to my carefree nature I let go off this style too soon. He went on to add that since I did not adhere to it, many others who arrived on the scene much later, claimed it was their discovery.

TNS: What inspired you to write in this Ang?

PR: Words of Hindi origin are so soft and lyrical in comparison to their Arabic and Persian counterparts that I felt naturally drawn to them. I feel afraid to say that since the invasion of Islam, even literatures and languages have come to be divided. Urdu is fortunate enough to find six different words to signify a single thing, from Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Prakriti and the regional languages. As a language, Urdu is one of the most discursive and diverse languages which incorporates words from everywhere. Take, for instance, two words: Mala and Tasbeeh. They are not interchangeable because mala stands distinct from tasbeeh, and does not have 100 beads. But in common jargon, they connote the same thing.

The image that the term 'dhooni ramani' conjures up is Hindi in essence, on the contrary. I don't subscribe to the notion that languages are subservient to religions. The Muslims of India did contribute a lot to the Urdu language, which is not to say that the Hindus did not. This kind of confusion was created by the politicians, so much so that Munshi Premchand who had been a well-established short story writer of Urdu, declared himself a writer of Hindi short story. How can I admit that Ghalib was a Hindustani poet? In the verse 'Sharm tum ko magar naheen aati', only 'sharm' is Farsi while the rest is Urdu. Can we exclude Firaq Gorakhpuri just because he was Hindu? There is only one universal truth but there are several paths leading to it. Coincidentally, it was Ram Babu Saxena who wrote the first comprehensive book on the history of Urdu literature.

If Ghalib wrote in 'Persianised' Urdu and Meeraji in 'Sanskritised' Urdu, should it be regarded as a separate literature? This goes to establish the diverse wealth of Urdu language.

TNS: What made you take up 'Partau' as your nom de plume?

PR: The word 'partau' comes from archaic Persian meaning shadow, whereas in modern Persian language it signifies the ray of light. Shadows had always had a profound relation with my psychology. Shadows would often visit my mind as a phenomenon. In my early poetry 'paechal' or footfall and shadows loom large as a recurrent leitmotif. Hence:

Sayon ki apni awazein aur samey ki apni paechal

and

Beetey samey ki tehni pakrey jhool rahey hain gehrey saye

Purab pachhim kaawe kate man ka panchhi baith na paye'

TNS: How did you make a foray into the genre of 'Dohey'?

PR: Dr Jamil Jalibi felt that I had the ability to write dohey. In the preface to my book, he quoted that if I took keen interest in the genre, I could excel in breaking new ground. For the next 3-4 years, I devoted my time to writing only dohey which culminated in the publication of my second volume of verse called 'Raen Ujiara' the first ever complete book of dohey to come out of Pakistan. I borrowed numerous words from Punjabi that sat perfectly well with their Hindi cousins. In my opinion, Punjabi is the base of Urdu!

The book was an instant success and went into the second and third editions soon after its publication, followed by a reprint by the Ambala Urdu Academy. In the preface written by its governor, Burney Sahab, he likened me to Keats. The book became so popular that EMI record company cut a disc of it featuring Kubra Sheikh, and Sadequain illustrated a set of twelve dohey for a subsequent edition.

TNS: What led you to translate Ghalib's 'Maktoobat' from Persian into Urdu?

PR: Five years after Sufi Tabassum had his book of comprehension of Ghalib's Persian poetry on the market, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi requested that I should send him an article instead of ghazals. I was afraid that he might avoid printing an article that criticises Sufi Tabassum's observations because Sufi Sahab had a very large following.

Instead, Qasmi Sahab decided to carry the article in the next issue of 'Funoon', in agreement of my views. I believe that's the article that compelled Mushfiq Khwaja - columnist, poet and researcher - to approach me to write comprehension of Ghalib's Persian poetry. I declined immediately because to comprehend Ghalib's Farsi kalaam fully, one needs a handful of philosophers, sufi saints, and poets to come together and join heads.

He then suggested me to translate the first volume of Ghalib's letters in Persian, 'Nama Hai Farsi-e-Ghalib' into Urdu. Once the book came out, it was enormously praised by Urdu Adabiyat based in Hyderabad Deccan who also serialised it in their journal 'Sabras'.

If Mr. Speed of ICC staged the 2007 cricket World Cup tournament to prove that the difference between Australia and the rest of the cricket playing world was as between 'night and day', he succeeded. In all other matters he failed.

Everyone who has the slightest interest in cricket knew that the Australian cricketers have been awesome for quite a few years. It was only their defeat in New Zealand just before the World Cup that gave cricket fans a flickering hope that if New Zealand could beat them not once, not twice, but three times in a row, the Australians were perhaps not as unassailable as imagined.

In that other international sporting event, which also takes place every four years -- the World Cup football -- one or two teams display such excellent qualities that nationalism notwithstanding, they become the favourites (the French team under Zidane; the Brazilians under Pele) and everyone, from Chile to Cholistan, roots for them. Not so in this tournament. The Australians won every match but lost most hearts.

Ponting's men, superior in every department of the game thrashed every team with huge margins and yet their heroics with bat and ball did not make the spectators -- or the viewers -- warm upto them. It could be argued that by virtue of their invincibility they had so distanced themselves that every non-Australian felt it wasn't fair to be playing against them. The implication was clear: it wasn't cricket.

I was in the midst of writing this piece when I received (courtesy my dear nephew) an email that my son had sent to him. My son, who lives in Dubai, never sends me an email because I do not have the apparatus to receive one. How well he has echoed my thoughts.

I quote a few extracts:

"...call it sour grapes, call it green-eyed monstery, but this game that the Australians play so magnificently, so precisely, so post-Freudian Schadenfreudally...well, I' m sorry but it's not cricket, chaps and chappesses. At least not the game of cricket I remember from my childhoodboyhoodyouth.

I'll let you in on a little secret. The Aussie cricket team is really a collection of rugby/Aussie-rules rejects who've turned themselves into cricketers because they're not good enough to play those afore-mentioned gentlemanly goal-scoring sports.

Of course we all know that there is no room for gentlemanly behaviour on a 21st century cricket pitch. So my advice to the Boards of Cricket in the rest of the world is to retire gracefully from the sport.

Can no one come up with a strategy for countering Australian brilliance? A brilliance which is an unbeatable amalgam of individual swagger, mental toughness, of the order that generals of invading armies dream of, and instruction in the fine art of psychological warfare?

I think many of us need to maintain a sense of proportion -- after all it is only a game".

My son is right about the 'rugby-reject' image. No gentleman cricketer ever learns to run like the Australians. The 2007 Cup was not the first time that I was amazed to see the way the Aussies turn every single into two, and every two into three runs. Hayden, Ponting, Gilchrist and Clarke treated every attack so contemptuously that I wondered why the Franklins, the Ntinis, the Panesars and the Nells ever considered choosing bowling as a profession. (The Sreeshanths, the Agarkars, the Samis and the Guls were spared the hiding they might have received. Mercifully, they were not allowed into the adult arena).

My heart bleeds for the poor West Indians. For some bizarre reason they were not allowed to bring to the ground their calypso bands and all the other home made instruments without which a cricket match is unthinkable in the Caribbean. When the crowds dwindled, because of their team's dismal performance, the ban on instruments was lifted, but by then it was too late. Did the authorities really think that the crowds would be dancing to a steel band playing 'Cricket, lovery cricket' while watching a match between England and Australia? And now they have been left to pick up a deficit running into millions of dollars.

The TV companies, meanwhile, raked in billions from their advertising customers, or so it seemed, whenever I watched a match. They not only showed ads in between overs (frequently overrunning so you missed the delivery of the first ball of the next over) they also hogged half of the bottom half of the screen to run scrolls exhorting you to invest in the latest housing schemes. They went overboard whenever a wicket fell, or when there was a break for drinks. It was only during one of these breaks that I flicked the remote to see what else was on.

We get about seventy six channels in our house and I haven't watched any of them. On the rare occasion that I do want to watch Ronnie O'Sullivan in a snooker match -- snooker is about the only thing worth watching on the box -- my daughter and her nanny are deeply involved in 'Devdas' or 'Dilwale Dulhania Le Janenge', which they have already seen many times.

Rather than wait for the match to resume -- and tired of the ingenue dressed in bridal red, preening and executing mincing steps in an effort to prove that she is ecstatic about her new mobile phone -- I switched to different channels. Amazingly enough, every channel was showing advertisements, quite often the same advertisement.

I mention this merely to explain that I have not developed the skills necessary to deal with the seventy six TV channels that I have now. In England I had four channels as indeed most other people that I knew. With so many channels to choose from, I couldn't afford to watch anything for fear that I might miss Murlitharan's next over. Flicking backwards at a demonic speed (I was on channel 59; the match was on channel 23 and I do not know how to switch from 59 to 23 except by pressing the reverse button one by one) I got there only to find the lady in bridal red once again.

What can I say about the finish? Australia, as expected, won. It was a mockery of a match. To see the hapless Srilankans batting the last few overs in total darkness was a sight so pathetic it defies description Mr. Speed may have had nothing to do with it, but how dare he condone it?

So much has been written about the weird, grotesque ending of the World Cup event that I hesitate to add anything other than what Mr. Eliot observed about the lives of the hollow (and the stuffed) men, who end up never 'with a bang but a whimper'.