Towards the end of the last decade, around the time when Mahabharata, scripted by the late Rahi Masoom Raza, made history on the small screen and Gulzar created yet another masterpiece in Mirza Ghalib, a quiet revolution had begun away from the glare of the arclights. Started on a more modest scale, it was equally ambitious in intent.

The idea was to liberate Urdu enthusiasts belonging not only to the generation of Mirza Ghalib's lead actor, Naseeruddin Shah, but also those that followed. For, interestingly, the man who came to personify the great poet couldn't, not unlike most of his contemporaries, read his poetry in the original script and had to make use of notes scribbled in Devnagari.

Firaq Gorakhpuri, who foresaw the situation much earlier and had suggested that Urduwallahs would do well to switch to Devnagari to ensure the survival of the language, would have certainly approved. But developments hadn't quite taken the course that the late master poet had recommended. And, for years, Urduwallahs expended a great deal of energy bemoaning the imminent demise of the language, what with its tragic politicisation and identification with a particular community after Partition. It took an unassuming lover of Urdu to retire from a lifetime of teaching English poetry at the University of Delhi to take up what may well turn out to be a historic mission. K. C. Kanda began to translate the works of great Urdu poets, some of which had been done before but not quite in the same spirit and pattern. Each poem was first presented in calligraphic original, followed on the opposite page by its English translation, which, in turn, was followed by the Romanised version of the original text.

Until then, strangely enough, the books that occasionally appeared in English (everybody seemed to be concentrating on Ghalib, Faiz and Iqbal), sometimes had translations printed alongside the original script. But neither the publishers, nor the authors cared to consider the fact that anybody who could read the text in its original script would have little use for the English translations, except, maybe, for academic purposes.

A greater service was rendered by Prakash Pandit of Hind Pocket Books, whose unattractive, low-priced collections in Devnagari were, for a long time, the only source of original text to non-Urdu-knowing readers. But as anybody who has had to plough through those editions knows painfully well that some of the couplets make little sense, even if one checks out the meanings of difficult words listed below.

Kanda changed all that. And the response has been most heartening. Each volume brought out by Sterling Publicationshis Masterpieces of Urdu Ghazal appeared in 1990 (months before he finally retired after a five-year extension) and was followed by Masterpieces of Urdu Rubaiyat; Masterpieces of Urdu Nazm; Urdu Ghazals, An Anthology: From 16th to 20th Century -- has run into successive editions.

Even as the first volume is well into its fourth edition, Kanda has come out with his first book devoted to one poet, the Khuda-e-Sukhan (God of Poetry), Mir Taqi Mir: Selected Poetry. He is all set to follow it up with Masterpieces of Modern Poetry and selections from the works of Firaq Gorakhpuri.

To say that Kanda is equal to the task he has undertaken would be an understatement. Born in Phagwara and educated at Lahore, the nerve-centre of culture in the pre-Partition North, Kanda came to Delhi in 1947, when his M.A. exams got postponed because of communal riots, to acquire a doctorate in English from the University of Delhi, Master's degrees from Punjab and Nottingham universities, and a Master's in Urdu from the University of Delhi. And his innate love for Urdu poetry gives his work the much-needed soul that breathes life into something as spiritless an exercise as translation. Consider one of Mir's classic couplets:

Kaha main ne kitna hai gul ka sabaat,

Kali ne ye sun kar tabassum kiya!

(How long, I said, is the life of a rose?

The bud replied with just a smile!)

Kanda's judgment is reflected well in his selection of poets and the verses he picks up for translation, though he sometimes gives in to popular taste including Iqbal in Masterpieces of Urdu Ghazal alongside Mir, Ghalib and Firaq, even as he omits Zauq and Chakbast, for instance. His avowed objective remains the dissemination of the best in Urdu poetry: ``To underscore the beauty of each poet and rouse the interest of the reader.''

Perhaps, even more than his collections of classical poetry, Kanda's Masterpieces of Modern Poetry should turn out to be a collector's item. For, it is still easier for those who can't read Urdu to get to savour the poetry of, say, Zafar, than to get hold of the verses of Majeed Amjad. The latter is just one of the many Pakistani poets who figure in the forthcoming anthology.

(K. C. Kanda's Mir Taqi Mir: Selected Poetry has been published by Sterling. It is priced at Rs 395.)

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.