A notable voice in contemporary Urdu literature, Khurshid Akram – who demonstrates his prolific literary taste and sensibility through his fiction, poetry and other writings, recently shared with me his latest collection of nazms (poems), titled Safha Se Bahar (Outside the Page). BY A Naseeb Khan
Initially, the title seemed simple but when I looked at it again, this time with more seriousness, I realised how evocative it was, and how powerfully it stirred my curiosity. Even before I could enter into the poet’s world, I found myself contemplating the implications embedded in that phrase. To be honest, the title stayed with me. It lingered in my thoughts, slowly revealing the poet’s unapologetic boldness and quiet defiance beneath its surface.
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Now, I feel that Khurshid Akram aspires to explicitly signal a poetic consciousness that resists boundaries and confinement. Khurshid Akram believes that poetry offers a vital space for voices that challenge convention, and embraces experiences and emotions that are both raw and radical. Striking as the title is, it also seems to draw our attention to the margins of expression, to the silences, omissions and narratives often left untold or studiedly excluded from the hegemonic social and literary discourse. One can appropriately refer to Khurshid Akram’s another poem, “Mera Nam” (My Name) in which he employs phrases like “in the dark,” “faded ink,” and “outside the page.” These expressions evoke a sense of marginalisation, exclusion and fragility, suggesting that the identity of the speaker, though undeniably present, remains obscured – it is not within the visible or socially acknowledged space.
Safha Se Bahar of Khurshid Akram also seeks to emerge as metaphor for poetry
Safha Se Bahar of Khurshid Akram also seeks to emerge as a metaphor for poetry that exists beyond the printed pages, occupying the space between thought and utterance, presence and absence. It indicates a kind of creative overflow where emotion, memory and inner chaos refuse to yield to rigid structure. Thus the collection appears to defy both formal and thematic boundaries, and also invites us also engage with what lies beyond the visible text – the unsaid, the inhibited, the suppressed and the untranslatable. Moreover, the book opens with the poet’s candid declaration, “Poetry is not my end, it is a vehicle of expression” – it echoes with the title of the book, reinforcing its underlying critique of the imposed forms, censorship and normative social and literary expectations.
As I read the poems with focused attention, I discovered a meaningful and compelling relationship between its first and last poems entitled “Pahli Azan: Do Nazmain (The First Call: Two Poems) and ‘Maut ka Ant’ (The End of Death). Reading them in silence, I tried to grasp what the poet intended to convey through these poems, and how their beginning and end echo across the rest of the poems in the collection. As I progressed, it became clear that these poems serve as a protest against oblivion and also as a powerful affirmation of being, insisting on presence, memory and the right to live and abide in a world that tends to forget everything so easily. Together, the first and last poems form a philosophical and existential narrative, emerging as meditations on birth, identity, memory and death – articulated in a voice that is both intimate and universal. Written in vivid and accessible language, these poems not only share a strong thematic unity but are also interlinked with the other poems in the collection, offering insight into the underlying thrust and direction of the work as a whole.
Comprising two companion pieces, “Pahli Azan: Do Nazmain” opens with the lines: “Welcome! / My son / Welcome!” Notably, each stanza concludes with the same refrain, “Welcome!” – initially functioning as the father’s greeting to his new-born son. With the repetition, this simple word transforms into a powerful emotional refrain, expressing not only love and acceptance but also a protective firmness through which the child is recognised and affirmed.
The father’s moment of joy unfolds, as it seems, against the backdrop of a suffocating world, mutilated by moral decay, religious and cultural corrosion, political oppression, social ostracism and brutal inhumanity. Amidst such despair, birth is not merely a celebration but a complex emotional reckoning. Seemingly, the father appears relieved that his son will inherit the legacy of his forefathers. But at a deeper level, his solace lies in the child’s readiness for struggle and in latter’s “nails, teeth, fire, fast grip, thorns.” Needless to say, these are not just the signs of vitality and agency but tools of resistance. They are both weapons and shields, suggesting that the child is born not merely to exist but to assert, defy and claim space in the world.
It is a matter of satisfaction for the father that the child enters the world not as a blank slate but already armed with instinct, strength and a deep-rooted lineage. But the fact is that his happiness is laced with sorrow. He does not celebrate these traits – he only accepts them as necessary tools for survival in a world where vulnerability invites ravages and ruin. His declaration that the child is “the heir of my ancestors” reflects not pride in legacy but the burden of a tragic inheritance – a survival instinct shaped by generations of struggle. This is not a legacy of wisdom or comfort but one of endurance. Ironically, in this world, even birth is not a peaceful beginning but a battlefield. That what should mark the start of innocence and hope, signals readiness for resistance and survival. Isn’t it is a haunting commentary on the brutal conditions of contemporary existence?
These poems show that Khurshid Akram’s themes reflect generational continuity
These poems reveal that Khurshid Akram’s thematic preoccupations are rooted in generational continuity, the silent annihilation of individual presence through death, and a defiant longing to assert one’s singular self against the encroaching tides of forgetfulness. He explores the tension between the impermanence of life and the enduring impulse to leave a trace – to resist fading into obscurity and anonymity. In “Pahli Azan: Do Nazmain”, the father’s emotionally charged welcome diverges from conventional celebratory tones. His greeting acquires a tone of urgency and heightened awareness. He says, “…That a human being is born is not enough in this world.” This shows that mere existence is not adequate in a world demanding assertion and, at times, rebellion. He means to stress that birth is no longer the start of innocence but the threshold of struggle.
Moreover, the father wishes his son “to exude his own fragrance and grow his own thorns.” It is a poignant metaphor, capturing the need for individuality and resilience. The “thorns” in the poem signify both strength and the friction of survival. The father’s awareness that even the essential, freely-given bounties of nature – sun, earth and wind, are “miserably less” lends the image a burdened weight, revealing his quiet confession of deprivation and his deep-seated fear for his son’s future. He wants his son to flourish but he knows that the world may not offer the proper space or nourishment to him.
But there remains a flicker of hope. The father finds meaning in the fact that his son is born with a voice – his own cry, his own language and his own mark. Here he musters up courage to gesture towards a culture that silences individuality. So the child is not just welcomed but urged to remain boldly unique. Thus, this metaphor’s beauty lies in its existential undertone – the desire to leave a trace, even in a world that conspires against becoming.
The closing poem of Khurshid Akram “Maut ka Ant…”
The closing poem, “Maut ka Ant,” shifts in tone from celebration to contemplation and ultimately, confrontation. It grapples with inherited silence and the fear of death. Reflecting on his father’s death, the poet notes, “Grandfather’s father had also died just the same…” This observation is steeped in more than grief. It carries anger and disbelief at the quiet erasure of memory. Despite long lives, the poet laments, “Such a long life – and not a single moment eternal?” The lament intensifies into existential defiance. He refuses to inherit passive acceptance. He will not live in fear of death nor vanish without a trace. His voice becomes an act of resistance against forgetting.
This defiance grows into a deeper desire, “I want to leave the footprints of my steps behind.” The line becomes a personal philosophy to live consciously, passionately and memorably. The poet does not reject death but resists the kind that erases all signs of existence. This poem, therefore, becomes a cry against cultural amnesia and historical indifference. It speaks for all who wish to be remembered and to be inscribed in the collective memory of humanity. To live, Khurshid Akram insists, is to stand upright and resist.
The poet also critiques the imitative nature of life itself, where even emotions like grief and hope feel rehearsed, passed down like inherited scripts. He poses disturbing questions: Are we really living, or just repeating the lives of those before us? Is our death uniquely ours, or merely another version of a familiar end? Though the poem offers no definitive answers, it suggests that even recognising these patterns is a form of resistance. Khurshid Akram deconstructs death as a mechanical, routine process, emptied of uniqueness. Each death becomes a silent, indistinguishable repetition. In response, the poet proposes a quiet rebellion – to live with intention, to assert one’s presence and to resist silent annihilation and erasure.
Khurshid Akram captures full narrative of existence through eyes of a father, a thinker and a mourner
The emotional honesty of the poems elevates them. From the awe surrounding birth to the numbness encompassing death, Khurshid Akram captures the full narrative of existence through the eyes of a father, a thinker and a mourner. The birth poem is not simply about a child – it is about a soul entering the world under the weight of generational expectations. Likewise, the death poem is not just about loss but about sameness and obliteration. Together, they grieve the loss of originality and pose an urgent challenge, “Can we live differently? Can we break the pattern and embrace singularity?’ In writing them, the poet does not simply speak from the pages but he also writes from Safha Se Bahar (Outside the Page), against repetition and towards the space where the erased, the unspoken and the silenced can ultimately be heard…
A Naseeb Khan, award-winning translator, bilingual poet and author, has rendered Ghalib, Premchand, Khalid Jawed, M Ashraf and several others into English. He works at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
