Urdu Poetry: 200 Ghazals and Nazms

Urdu poetry transcends geographical boundaries and is understood and loved by millions who can’t read a word written in Urdu script. I am happy that my other blog now has a collection of 200 selected ghazals and Nazms, each in Urdu, Hindi and Roman English scripts, for the benefit of readers. Read.

Due to the linguistic politics, Urdu unfortunately got identified as a language of Muslims in India, and the script of the langauge suffered as a result. However, the poetry remained as popular as it was in the past.

When you intend to put the gems of Urdu poetry on the web, you can’t ignore that a vast majority of readers can’t read Urdu script (especially Indians). While Roman script was used for writing Urdu even in Indian Army, it has certain restrictions.

Though devanagari script is quite scientific, it also has some limitations. When I started blogging I aimed at publishing the best of Urdu poetry. I soon learnt that one has to use all the three scripts as most of the readers understand Roman but are not too comfortable with the transliteration.

So I decided to write each ghazal or Nazm in English, Urdu and Hindi scripts. Roman and Hindi supplement each other. For example, if a person can’t understand a word in Roman, he can read it in devanagari and be able to pronounce it clearly.

Of course, those who can read Urdu, will have no problem. But they will also get help in pronounciation of difficult or confusing words by reading the Roman text. The result is that now there are over 200 Ghazals and Nazms which you can read at this website. Click

From classical masters like Mir, Ghalib, Momin, Dard and Dagh to progressive poets and the modernist stream, we have tried to incorporate the best verses of each generation.

Nazms are often neglected but on this site you will get to read poetry of Akhtarul Iman, Faiz, Majaz, Ibn-e-Insha, Sahir, Nida and many others. The number of posts is now well over 200 and it will keep growing.

The beauty of Urdu poetry, especially ghazal, lies in the fact that though it has at least five to six couplets, each couplet can be separately used and quoted. The quotability makes Urdu poetry unique and the ‘sher’ reverberate from pan kiosks to parliament of India.

Click to read Urdu poetry.

By Indscribe [www.anindianmuslim.com]

Ghaus Ansari’s autobiography in Urdu

No autobiography in Urdu in recent times has hooked readers to the extent as Professor Ghaus Ansari’s ‘Umr-e-Rafta’, which tells the fascinating journey of the writer, his early days in Lucknow, his struggle and subsequent migration to Europe.

Such is his eye for minute details and his memory that the reader becomes a fellow traveller with him in his sojourns. Ansari, was born in 1929 in Firangi Mahal in Lucknow. He recounts how the caste-system was prevalent among Muslims to the extent that even in Madarsa, the students sat as per their caste and the son of a sanitary worker had to sit outside at the place where footwear were kept and had only the privilege to listen to the lessons and learn whatever he could hear.

Perhaps, these experiences played an important role in his life and he turned to leftist ideas, even joining Communist Party and going to jail after Independence. The account of his early life and teenged years make interesting reading. He was in the school when he started writing stories that were published in reputed magazines and he also brought out a couple of periodicals, one for children and the other was a semi-literary magazine on film industry.

Along with the events of his life, Dr Ansari’s detailed analysis of the communal polarisation and the politics in Uttar Pradesh (UP) in the first half of 20th century give valuable insight to readers about the freedom movement. More so, his own association with leaders of freedom movement, interesting incidents and anecdotes make this autobiography unique.

However, the hopes were dashed after independence. Ghous Ansari was also disillusioned with the culture of sycophancy, bribery and the communalisation. A humanist to the core, Ansari who had umpteen close Hindu and Sikh friends, recounts the experiences of dealing with bureaucracy and later decides to leave for England.

His life in London where he stuggled hard to eke out his living and later his stay in Vienna (Austria) for his doctorate on Casteism in Indian Muslims, is truly inspiring. And makes the two volumes of Umar-e-Rafta, a must-read for any teenager or youth. An anthropoligist, Prof Ansari had stopped writing in Urdu after leaving India but when he wrote the autobiography recently, one can only marvel at his grasp of Urdu idiom. You can see the Lucknow of yore, alive in this khud-navisht (autobiography).

Besides, his long stay in Iraq where he taught in University and later in Kuwait, are also recounted in the second volume. His wife Vadia, hails from Baghdad. Ansari has also written about the politics of oil and the turbulent era in Middle-East.

Indscribe

Faruqi’s Urdu novel ‘Kai Chand the Sar-e-Aasman’

Hardly any novel in Urdu has generated so much heat in recent years as renowned litterateur Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s ‘Kaii Chaand thay Sar-e-Aasmaan’, which is probably the first literary work in Urdu published by Penguin.

Faruqi’s literary standing is such that Urdu world naturally expected a magnum opus from him. The fact that he is a critic, a poet, a linguist and former publisher of the now-defunct Shabkhoon, apart from having received awards like Saraswati Samman, it is not unjust that we expected the novel to be truly outstanding.

At the function to release the novel sometime back, encomiums were poured on the novel, which Ahmad Mahfooz termed as a ‘Jadeed Aab-e-Hayat’. Syed Hamid said that it will help the reader in understanding the Indo-Islamic culture.

The central characters of the novel are Yusuf Saadakar, his daughter Wazeer Khanum and their family. It starts from Yusuf’s grandfather Makhsus Ullah and the last generation is Wazeer Khanum’s grandson Waseem Jafar.

The novel starts from Kishangarh where Makhsus Ullah, an artist lived, and one day he draws the picture of a woman ‘Bani Thani’ (bedecked woman), which has a strange resemblance with the daughter of the Maharawal. It remains a mystery how the painting has such resemblance with the photograph of Manmohini.

The family is forced out of the princely state and they move from Uttar Pradesh to Kashmir. The story continues with Makhsus Ullah’s son Yahya Badgami and later his sons Dawood and Yaqoob. Circa 1803, British take upon themselves the task to rescue Emperor Shah Alam from the ‘captivity’ of Marathas and the brothers fight on the side of the English.

The families of Dawood and Yaqub are killed and only the latter’s son Yusuf, who is a 10-year-old survives the war. A tawaif, Akbari, brings him up and marries her daughter Asghari to him. Asghari’s daughters, Anwari, Umda Khanam and Chhoti Begam, take the story forward.

The eldest gets married to Maulvi Nazir. Nawab Syed Yusuf Ali Khan Bahadur liked Umda Khanam and she went to live with him without marriage. The youngest of the three, turned out to be a rebel. Due to the death of her mother, she was closer to her grandmother and this naturally influenced her ways. She says to her sister, ‘Jo mard aayega, chakhungi, pasand aaya to rakhungi’.

She starts living with an Englishman Morriston Black. They plan to marry in 1829 but he dies in a riot. She returns from Jaipur to Delhi and is sought by Resident William Fraser and also Nawab Shamsuddin. She goes with the latter and they have a son Nawab Mirza. After Shamsuddin is exectured for suspicion of killing Fraser, she gets married to Mirza Fakhru, who had his upbringing in the Qila-e-Moalla in the era of Bahadur Shah Zafar…

Faruqui is unquestionably the biggest name in Urdu linguistics and the ease with which he has brought the language used in 18th and 19th century to the pages of the novel written in 21st century, is simply amazing. The depiction of the era especially the exploitation of Indian peasantry and masses during British rule, is remarkable.

Such is his mastery in depicting the sexual encounters and love scenes that if the novel was written in modern Urdu, it would have sold by lakhs, says Haider Qureshi, an eminent poet. As it is a novel about Indo-Islamic culture and Mughals, the finest couplets of Urdu and Persian poetry abound in the book.

In fact, the novel enlivens the entire culture and the bygone era in front of the reader. The book is published in Pakistan also where it has attracted the Urdu lovers. ‘Kai Chaand the Sare Asman’ is a novel worth buying. You can get it from Shabkhoon Kitabghar, Post Box Number 13, 313, Ranimandi, Allahabad 211003 (Uttar Pradesh) India.

Indscribe

Remembering Qurratulain Hyder (1927-2007)

For several centuries Urdu was a language of poetry. We had great poets like Meer, Ghalib and Iqbal, but we had no major work of prose to be kept alongside the novels of West. Ainee changed this forever and Urdu world will always be indebted to her for penning ‘Aag ka Darya’.

Her name meant ‘the delight of eyes’. The daughter of an illustrious couple, Sajjad Hyder Yaldaram and Nazar Zehra, brought Urdu fiction at par with writings in other major languages of the world.

I don’t buy the charges that she was arrogant, temperamental and sympathetic to the feudal system. Qurratulain Haider was beautiful and extraordinarily intelligent from her childhood. And she knew that she was special.

She could write about the upper class and the feudal system beause she was part of it. Though she could see the hollowness of feudal society, nostalgia remains the essence of her writing. (Yaldaram’s ancestal jagir was taken away by British for the family’s role in 1857). And this nostalgia took her back to 2500 years of Indian history.

Afaq Ahmed writes that Ainy was born in a broad-minded family. Her father Sajjad Hyder had told his wife to drop purdah in 1918 when Mustafa Kamal Ata Turk ended the custom in Turkey.

Yildaram was one of the triumvirate that founded the modern Urdu short story writers, the other two being Dhanpat Rai (Prem Chand) and Sultan Haider Josh.

Afaq Ahmed writes that she had a deep insight into the third world issues and knew its intricacies. She was fond of eastern high values and Indians’ innate goodness.

I liked Rahat Indori’s comment that ‘if Prem Chand, Saadat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chander and Rajinder Singh Bedi are considered four pillars of Urdu prose (story)’ then Ainee was the entrance to this structure. She was modern, had seen the world, more than any other contemporary Urdu writer of her times.

And Jawaharlal Nehru was a personal friend. But the stories that she just rejected a proposal because the high ranking officer ate biscuits dipped in tea, are simply ridiculous. She knew she was special and like a great writer when she didn’t get the mental compatibility needed for a person to spend life with, she decided against marrying. One can see its reflection when Kamal returns to India and asks Champa why she didn’t marry.

She became a disciple of Sufi Arif Miyan at Majgavan Sharif near Lucknow. While going from Lucknow to Lakhimpur Khiri, she would walk to the hospice on foot. Such was her devotion to her ‘pir’. Ainee wrote pathbreaking novels that attained huge popularity but couldn’t get a penny out of Aag ka Darya’s royalty.

On the evening of August 21, her Namaaz-e-Janaaza was held and later she was buried at the Jamia Millia Islamia’s Qabristan. She will rest in the same grave yard where Abid Husain, Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari and Sajjad Zaheer are buried.

On Her Demise:

Shamsur Rahman Faruqui (Urdu’s foremost critic, novelist, poet): With her demise, the era of modernism in Urdu ends. She was the only fiction writer in Urdu who successfully portray Western and Oriental sensibilities alike.

Her novel, Aag ka Dariya, even if it is considered a failure, still it would be a great failure, the kind of work we can truly take pride on. She kept writing till her last breath. Her forte was in describing the composite culture of the sub-continent and the role/status of women in the society, which has existed for millennia.

Nida Fazli: With ‘Aag ka Darya’, Qurratul Ain Hyder had opposed the ‘two-nation theory’ and this made it difficult for her to live in Pakistan. She left Pakistan and returned to India.

Zubair Rizvi: Her novel demands a slightly different sensibilities from the reader. She never wrote such literature that could provide momentary delight. Even when she wrote in a popular non-literary magazine like Shama, her standard of writing remained the same.

Abrar Rahmani:

She was one Urdu writer who was interviewed the most and these interviews are enlightening. Talking to a critic of the standing of Faruqi, she gets slightly aggressive and says, ‘Critics feel that they are kingmakers of literature’. Even Shamim Hanafi, gets a curt reply to a question,’hamaare aksar naqqad lakeer ke faqeer hi rahnege’. To Zubair Rizvi, she says, ‘most critics don’t understand fiction’. She complains to Asif Farrukhi that women writers have been ignored.

Afaq Ahmed:

It would not be correct to call her just an Urdu writer. She was actually an Indian writer whose work measures up to international standards. She was our last great fiction writer and her style died with her.

Read more about her works at my BLOG here.

Indscribe

Ibn-e-Safi’s novels are gems of Urdu literature

This was a long overdue post and was delayed due to unavoidable reasons. The seminar on Ibn-e-Safi was held in Delhi sometime back.

Eminent Urdu scholar from Germany, Christina Oesterheld said that the characters of Ibn-e-Safi’s novels live a Western lifestyle but are quintessentially Oriental when it comes to their behaviour towards women.

The main characters Imran and Faridi don’t look at women as an object of sex, rather for them a woman is a symbol of purity and dignity. They treat her as equal in all regards. Dr Christina, who is the senior lecturer at Institute of South Asian Studies, Heidelberg, Germany regretted that Ibn-e-Safi’s writing was not given enough attention in comparison to so-called serious literature.

The Sahitya Akademi president Dr Gopi Chand Narang questioned why ‘Jasoosi Adab’ is not considered literature and if it is not literature then why the word ‘adab’ (literature) is attached to it, during such seminars. He said that Ibn-e-Safi was published in Devanagari and Bengali as well, and rather than ignoring his works, there is need to change our own attitude.

Professor Akhtarul Wasey said that Ibn-e-Safi not only taught Urdu to a generation but also taught us nuances of language, story plot and an understanding of the world, especially the third world countries. He said that Ibn-i-Safi B.A. had indicated several things in the 60s and 70s which we are witnessing today.

The participants said that the novels of Ibn Safi are gems of Urdu literature. Often in serious literature the readers is left detched and searching for answers, which is not the case in his novels. And they are serious nonetheless on another plane as the satire is unmistakeable.

Another famous litterateur, Izhar Asar, who has written hundreds of novels and considered a pillar of ‘popular literature’, attended the seminar, which was held under the aegis of Urdu Acdemy. Yunus Dehlvi, Khalid Mahmood, Dr Sadiq, Shabana Nazeer, Najma Rahmani, Kifayat Dehliv, Sheen Kaf Nizam, MR Qasmi, Abu Bakr Abbas, M Arif Iqbal, Arujumand Ara, Maula Bakhsh, Seemab Sultanpuri and Moin Shadab were amongst the other participants.

Interestingly, later at a seminar in Mumbai, legendary Urdu writer Intizar Husain, who apparently tried to shock the audience with the comment that he ‘had neither read Ibn Safi nor felt he was important enough‘, invited flak for his comments. There was severe criticism of the comment on the stage itself. Several litterateurs reminded Intezar Hussain that though one may be entitled to his personal views, and his literary status apart, Ibn Safi can’t be simply dismissed as just another writer.

Indscribe

Sahitya Academy awards to Makhmoor Saeedi

The Sahitya Academy president Dr Gopi Chand Narang presented awards to writers of 22 Indian languages at a function in New Delhi.

Urdu poet Makhmoor Saeedi was amongst the recepient of the award for Urdu. He is a veteran poet. Personally I am no great fan of Makhmoor but he does represent a tradition as flagbearer of the Tonk school 9dabistan) of Urdu poetry.

Makhmur, a ‘kohna-mashq’ shaair, has been a permanent feature at the mushairas and poetic meets in Delhi for decades. Urdu India congratulates Makhmoor Saeedi.

Indscribe

Fiftieth death anniversary of Majaz

The 50th death anniversary of Majaz Lakhnavi was recently observed. A programme was held in Aligarh where a mushaira was also organised. Here is the report:

Aaina: An Urdu web magazine

Aaina, an Urdu web magazine, which I recently discovered on the net, adds to the growing presence of Urdu media, especially from India, on the world wide web.

Yaadash bakhair! Oldies would remember that nearly five decades back, the Shama group had come up with a lifestyle magazine Aaina that was much ahead of its times.

And at the dawn of the twenty first century we have the new Aaina, a standard e-zine, which we hope would surely achieve success and have a long run. You can check the website here.

Tahsin Usmani is the editor of the webzine. The site doesn’t tell much about the publication and how long it has been on net, but the contents are interesting. Importantly, fonts are soothing to eye. (The Rashtriya Sahara group has made a mess of its website with fonts).

Aaina has several sections including News, International Affairs, National Issues, Cultural Activities and the poetry section. The best part is that it has a kids’ section, which is often neglected in Urdu papers and magazines.

The mushaira link on the site has nearly two dozen poets’ couplets/ghazals. Do they have an archive section, I wonder! Also, I felt that the site took slightly extra time to load. However, Mr Tahsin Usmani and his team needs to be congratulated for the effort for this bi-lingual webzine. Our best wishes for them.

–Indscribe

Hindustan Express (Urdu): A quality e-paper

At last, Urdu newspapers in India, have paid attention to the global audience and web editions are now being launched. The latest in the series is Delhi-based Hindustan Express.

The paper was launched in 2006 and has achieved success in little duration. But now the internet edition has also been launched. The website is www.dailyhindustanexpress.com

The site is neat and refereshing. The fonts are clear and unlike Rashtriya Sahara, the Urdu script used on this website is familiar to Indian eyes (not the Arabic fonts). Khalid Anwar is the editor while Sohaib Ahmad is the printer and publisher, as the printline says.

It is the beginning and so far the paper looks neat. Hopefully the website would be run efficiently unlike Urdu Times Mumbai where most supplements and other links are not updates. Inquilab has also the similar problem.

Another minor issue I noticed is that when you click on a page, either the link back to homepage is not available or the back button gets de-activated. Rest is fine. Best of luck to the e-paper and the entire Hindustan Express team.

Indscribe

Sahara Urdu goes global

The Urdu daily Roznama Rashtriya Sahara, that is published from Delhi, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Patna, Kolkata, Mumbai and Hyderabad with soon-to-be-launched editions from Sri Nagar, Punjab and Bangalore, is now available on the internet.

The function was held in New Delhi to launch the web edition of the newspaper. K Rahman Khan, the Deputy Speaker of Rajya Sabha, launched the web edition http://www.saharaurdu.in

Aziz Burney, the Editor, was also present. Burney has rose in stature over the years with successful launch of multi-editions. Besides, his recent ‘special editorials’ including the series on Shia-Sunni differences in wake of Saddam Hussein’s execution and the Congress’ ‘secularism’ have been praised all over the country amongst Muslims.

He has called a spade a spade. Naturally, the newspaper is Sahara India’s venture and the tilt towards Samajwadi Party (SP) is evident. Or, is it the group that is grooming him to play a certain role!

His fiery speeches at the Muslim conferences all over the country–from Delhi to Bangalore, visits to Malegaon and Mumbai apart from the strong rhetoric on Muslims issues have been quite surprising. The newspaper has grown very strong and with Bazm-e-Sahara and weekly Alami Sahara also under his arm, the group is growing from strength to strength.

–Indscribe
(http://www.indscribe.blogspot.com)

hum-zubaaN na milaa…

dayaar-e-dil meN pursaan-e-be-dilaaN na milaa
huaa bhii koii muKhaatib to ham-zabaaN na milaa

voh Khaak-daaN jo banaa haft qila-e-miina
usii ke khaanabadoshoN ko KhaanamaaN na milaa

uroos-e-asmat-e-kirdar ki Khabar mafquud
jab ek baar gayaa, ganj-e-shaae’gaaN na milaa

ye musta’aar tabassum ye mol ka Ghaaza
nishaan-e-anjuman-e-mehr-chagaaN na milaa

vo daGhdaGhe to faqat the qadam uThaane tak
nikal chale to sunaa thaa jo haft-KhwaaN na milaa

use ki aahan-o-faulaad mom karne the
jahaan-e-qaqam-o-sanjaab-o-paraniyaaN na milaa

Rashid Kausar Faruqui

AnIndianMuslim.com

Iqbal award to Urdu poet Sheen Kaf Nizam

Sheen Kaf Nizam alias Shiv Krishna Nizam has been conferred the Madhya Pradesh government’s prestigious Iqbal award.

However, a section of Urdu writers are not exactly happy with the selection. Nizam is an acclaimed poet. Prior to him, Iqbal Samman was conferred on greats like Qurratul Ain Hyder, Joginder Pal, Sardar Jafri, Jagannath Azad, Upendra Nath Ashk, and Hayatullah Ansari.

There contention is that if selecting a non-Muslim Urdu litterateur was a criterion for the BJP government then Balraj Komal would have been a good choice. He is  a legend now. Besides, Pandit Anand Mohan Zutshi Gulzar Dehlvi could have been a great choice.

Literary giants who have got the award in the past also include Aal-e-Ahmed Suroor, Moin Ahsan Jazbi, Rafat Sarosh, Akhtarul Iman, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Mohammad Hasan, Rafat Sarosh, Qazi Abdus Sattar, Ibrahim Yusuf, Shaharyar, Akhtar Saeed Khan, Anand Narain Mulla and Ismat Chughtai.

Once it was the biggest award in entire world for Urdu writers. It was instituted in 1986 by the then Congress government when Arjun Singh was chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.

THIS BLOG WELCOMES THE AWARD

At this blog, we feel that Nizam may be a young poet but he is an accomplished one. There is no doubt that he has a distinct style and his poetry is appreciated by masses and classes both. He has kept a fine balance between mushairas and serious poetry.  Hence, we welcome the award to him.

Ghalib Award to Balraj Komal, Izhar Asar & other Urdu writers

The Ghalib Awards were recently given away to Urdu litterateurs at a glittering ceremony in Delhi.

Veteran Urdu novelist, poet and writer Izhar Asar got the award for Science Writing. Izhar Asar, whose mystery novels in the decades of 50s and 60s were quite a rage, especially the Nagin series, has done a great job towards demystifying the principles of science and written it in a language so that common man can understand it. Special issues of his own Izhar Asar Digest on science are considered as milestones in Urdu.

Eminent poet Balraj Komal was selected for Urdu poetry. He is a terrific poet of Nazm and his verses like Akeli are a gems of Urdu literature.

Aleem Saba Navedi got the award for overall contribution to literature. He has truly dedicated himself to Urdu language and especially in a state like Tamil Nadu where Urdu is not spoken as commonly (except in Arcot).

Hamdi Kashmiri (Urdu prose), Kabir Ahmad Jaisi (Persian literature and research), Dr Aslam Pervez (Research), Shahid Anwar (Drama) got the rest of the awards. UrduIndia congratules all of them.

Hasrat Mohani: Poetry, life and works

An article on the life and works of Poet and Freedom Figher Maulana Hasrat Mohani.

‘Aag’ & renaissance of Urdu journalism in Lucknow

Aag is the latest broadsheet Urdu daily to hit stands in Lucknow. Priced at just Re 1, the 12 page newspaper has taken the Urdu-speaking populace by storm.

With Urdu press already witnessing a renaissance in Uttar Pradesh, after the Rashtriya Sahara established itself as the leading paper, and many other quality papers, Aag has only intensified the fight.

Aag was a small newspaper but was recently bought by a Shia society that has put crores in the paper. Now it is an attractive and complete newspaper. Compared to Sahara that has 8 pages, Aag is a 12-page paper that brings out colourful supplements. The earlier owner Ahmed Ibrahim Alvi is the editor.

Just six-seven years ago Urdu journalism was gasping for breath in Lucknow after Qaumi Awaz ceased publication. Only Sahafat and In Dinon were the two newspapers left. One was a six page paper and the other a four page daily. But now the City has at least ten Urdu daily newspapers including:

Rashtriya Sahara, Aag, Qaumi Khabrein, Sahafat, Waris-e-Awadh, In Dinon, Eqdaam, Jadeed Amal and a few other small ones. Also Siasat (Kanpur) has a visibility in the City. This has suddenly turned Lucknow into a vibrant city for Urdu readers.

The impact of so many papers and the competition is that the circulation and readership has increased dramatically. The newspapers are not shying away from writing hard stories like the series by Aman Abbas against the local clergy that has only kept Muslims divided on sectarian lines.

After Sahara group put money in Urdu journalism and succeeded, other groups have realised that a newspaper is more about power and influence in public than a money-making instrument.

Main gunahgaar aur anginat paarsaa….Muzaffar Hanafi’s ghazal

maiN gunahgaar aur anginat paarsaa chaar jaanib se vaar karte hue
jaise shabkhuun meN baukhlaa kar uTheN log ‘talvaar talvaar’ karte hue

This is a unique ghazal by Muzaffar Hanafi. I would post more of him at http://www.bestghazals.blogspot.com

Baqar Mehdi also bids adieu

Another minaret of Urdu literary world fell in Mumbai recently. Baqar Mehdi passed away at the age of 80. He was ailing but his mind was as sharp as always even on his deathbed.

An excellent critic and poet who wrote scores of ‘kaali ghazleN’ and ‘kaali nazmeN’, Baqar Sahab was an iconoclast to the core. Born in a family of zamindars in Rudauli town (UP), he had made Mumbai his home.

Jyoti Punwani writes in Indian Express that the latest issue of Naya Waraq and Diwan-e-Ghalib were by his bed at the time of his demise. Intellectually profound and an immensely well-read Baqar Mahdi was considred an ‘inhiraafi shaKshiyat’. The other day I was reading his verse on Gujarat riots’ anniversary and came to know about his death from the small piece on Edit page of the Express. Today some Urdu papers carried news of condolence meet in Delhi.

Adnan

Urdu Radio channel launched اردو ریڈیو چینل

اردو ریڈیو چینل بیشک ایک اہم ضرورت ہے لیکن اس قسم کا چینل میڈیم اور شارٹ ویو پر بھی سنا جا سکے تو بہتر ہے۔
خصوصاً تلفض صحیح ہو (معاف کیجیے پنجابی اور کشمیری کچھ اینکرز کا اردو تلفظ سماعت پر سخت گراں گزرتا ہے چونکہ ’ق’ عام طور پر ’ک’ بن جاتا ہے اور ’میں نے جانا ھے، ’میں نے کرنا ھے’ قسم کی اغلاط ذاٰقہ خراب کر دیتی ھیں۔
اللٰہ ھم سب پر رحم کرے۔

The first 24-hr Urdu radio channel has been launched. The Radio channel, Falak, was formally launched at a function held in Mumbai on Thursday.

Apart from poetry, mushaira, interviews and recordings of talks with litterateurs and people from all walks of life, the chanel will air music and songs. Falak would be available on Worldspace Satellite Radio News Network.

ہماری عمر جب سولہ برس تھی hamaari umar jab solah baras thi

tamanna kis qadar sho’la nafas thii
hamaari umar jab solah baras thii

zindagi naam hai mar mar ke jiye jaane ka…Fani Badayuni

एक मोअ’म्मा है समझने का ना समझाने का
ज़िन्दगी काहे को है ख़्वाब है दीवाने का

ख़ल्क़ कहती है जिसे दिल तेरे दीवाने का
एक गोशा है यह दुनिया इसी वीराने का

मुख़्तसर क़िस्सा-ए-ग़म यह है कि दिल रखता हूं
राज़-ए-कौनैन ख़ुलासा है इस अफ़साने का

तुमने देखा है कभी घर को बदलते हुए रंग
आओ देखो ना तमाशा मेरे ग़मख़ाने का

दिल से पोंह्ची तो हैं आंखों में लहू की बूंदें
सिलसिला शीशे से मिलता तो है पैमाने का

हमने छानी हैं बहुत दैर-ओ-हरम की गलियां
कहीं पाया न ठिकाना तेरे दीवाने का

हर नफ़स उमरे गुज़िश्ता की है मय्य्त फ़ानी
ज़िन्दगी नाम है मर मर के जिये जाने का
(फ़ानी बदायूनी)

Ek mohamma hai samajhne ka na samjhaane ka
Zindago kaahe ko hai, Khwaab hai diivane ka

The element of sorrow shines through the poetry of Fani Badauni. No poet wrote as much about meloncholy and with such intensity as Fani. In order to read the ghazal in Urdu script CLICK