Rediscovering the magic of Kabir

In what was almost an informal chat with a select audience at Krtashraya Aurodhan Garden recently, Prof. Sehdev Kumar, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada, shared his excitement of his rediscovery of saint-poet Kabir Das.

Mr. Kumar recalled how his exposure to Kabir’s dohas during his childhood didn’t have an impact until he was 36 years old.

“It was at the age of 36 when I was in Canada that I rediscovered Kabir’s vision and his insights through his verses. Being a student of mysticism, it was a great discovery and exciting,” he said.

Mr. Kumar said Kabir was a mystic poet who did not write poetry.

“It is fortunate that some of his disciples wrote it down. Kabir’s couplets reflect his vision and love songs. He lived near the city of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, which is the holy city of India,” he said, adding that it was a a city full of pandits, who wielded a lot of power. “Kabir in his couplets ridicules them. Kabir is believed to be abandoned in childhood and was brought up in a Muslim weaver’s family. This caste was looked down in the Indian society and they were considered dumb. Interestingly, Hindus and Muslims call him sant and peer.”

‘A great wordsmith’

Mr. Kumar expressed how people in Iran, Iraq and Jordan during his lecture on Kabir, felt that he was theirs too. “Kabir plays with words like an artist who mixes paints and creates new colours,” he said.

Reciting Kabir’s poems, Mr. Kumar explained about Kabir’s emphasis on simplicity, humbleness and oneness. Bhakt Kabir is considered a saint of Sikh and is revered by them. He transcends Islam and Hindu religion through his poetry and is not caught in any of the orthodoxies, he said.