Seemuk: A legendary Baloch Bard

The mind has ways of dealing with loss and stress which enable us to remain mentally balanced and more or less happy. Likewise, we find some people who express their inner feelings, could be caused by love, loneliness or stress, by writing poems. Seemuk, a Baloch woman bard, fall in the similar category. Seemuk’s love with poetry developed at an age and time, when women poets were almost next to nothing. Women from respectable families were confined within the four walls of the house let alone express themselves with any ability. A woman could have been criticized to do poetry, but Seemuk got her own way and became the legendary Baloch bard. Probably, one usually finds attraction in Seemuk’s poems which grab the minds and interests of the readers and they get engrossed in her poems. The composed verses of Seemuk have a strong connection to the surroundings, thereby showing a much-needed mirror to the society.
Noticeably, Seemuk faced a copious number of troubles in her life, as being joined in matrimony with Natha, who was the love and the source of inspiration for Seemuk to go about poetry; seeing that Natha, whom Seemuk was crazy about, was assassinated in a tribal conflict. Seemuk got socked with assassination of her husband. Since then Seemuk could not bear the memories of her love, she went insane for a long span of time. Later than a period, regaining her consciousness, people surprisingly found Seemuk young for her age owing to finding her on top of the world as if she got a new life. When she was asked for the reason behind her happiness, Seemuk refused to answer; however, the insistence of her mother compelled her to enlighten the whole secret behind her happiness, saying that she had met Natha in burial ground, which was the reason of her happiness. After telling her tall story she cried a lot and wished her mother had not insisted to know the reason of her happiness, believing that Natha would never meet her again, since Natha had advised her to not let other aware of the secret of their meeting. This incident is wonderfully portrayed in the verses of Seemuk’s poems, witnessing the true picture of the incident:
Maan barothan branglen reshan, Chotwa dhanzth ziwa dani.
Moreover, Seemuk knew it fully well that Natha had gone to a place from where one could never come back; nevertheless, she was hopeful and confident, and anxiously awaited that Natha would come back, thinking that he had gone for a mission and would come back successfully, as reflecting in this piece of her poetry:
Pa mani chamman Natha muhima inth, pa man kareet chit-o-channian.
As said by many, love and feelings are something which force the soul into real being. Poetry was Seemuk’s lonely form of expressing emotions and feelings. It won’t be misplaced to name her a lyric poet, seeing that she considered poetry as sentimental self-expression. Her poems are mostly filled with deep emotional feelings. The love, memories, and mental illness of Seemuk provoked more interest in her towards poetry and made her the bard of the age. Most probably, Seemuk’s poems portray the real and strange picture of the world; and show the factual mirror of Baloch of her time by reflecting its passions of chivalry. Furthermore, it is believed that all modern works of literature hold a place of respect in readers’ minds; the relatively older works of literature have their own attraction in days gone by and in this age and time. Seemuk was a legend in her time as well as in present. Certainly, a remarkable production by a great bard, Seemuk’s collections of verses need to be pondered over in order for us to be jolted out of stupor_ even if only for a moment.
As all and sundry knows that life is not the friend of any being and every creature including human being is a guest in this world; one day, he is supposed to leave this human race. Like others, Seemuk also embraced the death, but it became a matter of question for Baloch of this age that when and where Seemuk was born and where she was buried. Obviously, what to know about a personality’s birth and demise who has already taken place in the hearts of thousands?
True, Seemuk, a great legendary bard, along with her work and contributions to Balochi literature remain alive in the hearts of thousands and she became a source of motivation for thousands of Baloch women who want to express themselves with any ability.