| Abstract
and Bio-data of Participants
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Towards
Understanding Indian Social and Cultural Values as Dipicted in the
Old Elegiac Verses of Marsiah, Soz and Nauha
S.
Athar Raza Bilgrami
No literature of the world can survive in absence of socio-cultural elements of the society. Deeper the rootedness of literature into the cultural heritage greater would be its association with the society and even more greater would be its role in building up a healthy society. This makes the literature an ever-green treasure of the society. In this paper a modest attempt is made to investigate and assess such elements in the old elegiac versus of
Marsiah, Soz and Nauha that has made the literature alive and comparable to any international standards of literary criticism.
Bemoaning and mourning on agonies of life or over the death of a relative and friend is a universal expression of grief. In India, in its intensity, people begin to utter words and sentences in melodious tone expressing their intense grieve. They often describe the character, recollect the deeds and memorise the long and personal association with the departed soul. Chanting and reciting the elegiac verses over the dead body is, thus, natural expression and is our old rich tradition, specially associated with the rural female folk. This is our life style and has been deeply picked up with all its details by elegiac literature.
Chanting of dirges commemorating the sufferings and the brutal martrdom of Imam Hussain (A’s) and his family members and companions at
Karbala, thus, found a very homely ground in India because of deep pathos associated with this great event of history. This became a rich heritage of Indian literature. Its origin appeared in form of “Dahey” and “Dohey” which gradually shaped into most sophisticated and reformed version of long tragic poetry in Delhi and Lucknow.
This paper attemps to highlight the socio-cultural elements of Marsiah, Soz and Nauha of an early age. The literature is submerged in the rural culture and traditions. The style, feelings and sentiments are all colloquial which shows highest level of transparency, fairness and spontaneity. These are the roots of our literary heritage on which the whole empire of modern sophisticated elegiac literature has been developed later on. The investigation of such roots is of special significance and need proper attention, which is gradually fading out.
S. ATHAR RAZA BILGRAMI Former Professor of Economics, Jamia Millia Islamia University; his area of interest are agriculture and rural development, health and environment; poverty and human resource development; his book on Public Sector Banking growth has been widely reviewed; the second book was on Agriculture Economics which has been prescribed as a text book for M.A. syllabus of Agriculture Economics in various universities; besides as a prolific writer he has published more than 50 research papers in various journals and also around 45 articles in Urdu have been published on different issues in noted Urdu journals and newspapers; he has attended several National and International Seminars, Conferences; at present he is working on qualitative dimensions of Human Resource Development with special reference to folk arts.
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