Manjul Bajaj’s ‘The Book of Bullah’ is a modern retelling of the Sufi mystic’s poetry

By Julia Dutta

To the Bullah in my reader, a thousand salaams
And the Bullah in me, I bow again and again.

My first brush with Bullah Shah’s lyrics was as a teenager, belting out and swaying vigorously to disco queen Runa Laila’s rendering of Dama Dam Mast Qalandar – a famous qawwali composed by the 13th-century Sufi poet Amir Khusro in honour of the Sindhi Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, and later modified by Bullah Shah. We threw our arms in the air and danced with abandonment. 

The Kafi-styled Punjabi poems by the Sufi mystic poet and philosopher Bullah Shah (1680–1758) of Kasur, now in Pakistan, performed in both traditional and contemporary modes, continue to be immensely popular, particularly in the Subcontinent. 

Among the many and diverse translations of Bullah Shah’s Punjabi songs into English, one recently found its way to my home: The Book of Bullah by Manjul Bajaj (Amaryllis, 2024, INR 399). Unique to this translation is the artwork created for each lyric, often sharing the page with the verses.

I have been following Manjul Bajaj’s work with my ear to the ground and am enthused by all her book releases, including fiction and poetry. A former development professional now based in Goa, Bajaj’s first novel, Come, Before Evening Falls (Hachette India, 2009) dealt with the complex social issue of honour killing explored within a meticulously structured, beautifully woven love story.

Her second work of fiction was a short-story collection Another Man’s Wife (Hachette, 2014). Both these books were shortlisted for the prestigious Hindu Literary Awards. These were followed by two delightful children’s books.

I was not at all surprised that she took up The Book of Bullah. Her last publication was In Search of Heer (Tranquebar, 2019), a theme which was dear to Bullah too, although the love story of Heer and Ranjha have different meanings for Bullah Shah.

A renowned scholar of Persian and Arabic, Bullah Shah was an Islamic theologian before encountering his spiritual master, Shah Inayat of the Qadri Sufi order, in Lahore. That meeting was the turning point in his life. Bullah fell in love with his master, whose presence and teachings opened the floodgates of his heart and soul to an altogether higher plane of consciousness.

The songs he composed after this radical transformation of his being are suffused with intense adoration, desire and longing. However, differences arose between teacher and disciple, and Bullah was forced to return to Kasur where he lived for the rest of his days. The extreme agony of separation from his master and incessant craving for reunion, passionately expressed in sensual and nuptial metaphors, recurs in song after song:

Let me merge in you
Make me one with you.

You are the one 
Who awoke this love 
Now hold my hand
And take me through [p. 83]

Don’t forsake Bullah now
His worship is true
Be with me
Till the veil is removed
And I have seen my bridegroom. [p. 85]

The lyrics are deceptively simple, but must be read several times in order for the deeper meaning to be grasped. Here is an example: 

I know only myself 
Nothing other than the Self
Nothing greater than the Self
Who then is that I see watching me? [p. 5] 

Bullah’s lyrics are as powerfully universal and social as they are personal: he calls to people to abandon their fixations on temples, dargahs, scriptures, priests and rituals, and to come together as one human race, with Love as its common language. For example:

Look beyond this world’s duality
There is a river there
where everyone swims
He is here, there, everywhere
The servant the master
Bullah, such is his game
He does everything
He does nothing (p.221)

A simple truth ends the matter
Forget your calculations
Stay away from doubt
Dismiss thoughts of hell and heaven
Banish imaginary concerns
Truth enters a clear mind (p 183) 

Beautifully augmenting the poetry, the illustrations by Danette Gomes in this latest book provoke much contemplation too, as they support the words yet offer their own narrative trajectory. An elegant, subtle cover invites the reader to enter, and the visual device of small footprints is deployed, to ‘walk’ and ‘wander’ with the reader like an intimate companion from page to page, beginning to end.

The Book of Bullah will be appreciated by all who love poetry and Sufi philosophy. This is not the first time Bullah Shah’s poems have found an English voice. But this time, his potent, timeless celebration of the divine has taken a fresh stride into the contemporary through the adept collaboration of two women, translator Manjul Bajaj and illustrator Danette Gomes.

The reader may like to explore further in the domain of divine love and where it comes from. This stage of matwala is experienced by many poets, especially those who fall into the category of the bhakti tradition. In this book, Bajaj has left the reader to explore more on Bullah Shah as a human being and his relationship with his master, which was so against his parents’ wishes. 

Interestingly, Bajaj was a winner of eShe’s 2020 Lockdown Poetry Contest; her prize-winning poem juxtaposed the magnitude of nature with humanity’s frailty during the pandemic. With this new development in her writing oeuvre, we await more translations – and more poetry – from Manjul Bajaj in English. 

Julia Dutta is an author, writer, blogger, poet and advertising professional cooling her heels as of now, finding joy and happiness living in places close to the river, surrounded by greenery and simple people. When not cooking, she spends her time reading and reviewing books. She blogs here.