The Taste of Words: An Introduction to Urdu Poetry

by Mir

  3. Of its many renditions in the public domain, I like the one by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan a lot, but recommend the one by Shishir Parkhie even more strongly. Both versions are available on YouTube.

  Insha

  1. See Christopher Shackle and Rupert Snell’s exposition of the poem and their discussion of Insha’s life at ‘Insha Allah Khan, Rani Ketki ki Kahani (c. 1803),’ Columbia University, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urduhindilinks/shacklesnell/302insha.pdf.

  Mir Anees

  1. The interested reader may find much more about Anees at ‘Mir Anees: A Poet Extraordinaire,’ edited by Abu Talib Rizvi, http://www.miranees.com/. A longer marsiya has been translated by David Matthews, and is available in the public domain at http://razarumi.com/?p=794.

  Bahadur Shah Zafar

  1. Those who are interested in the poet-king would do well to visit ‘Bahadur Shah Zafar,’ http://www.kapadia.com/zafar.html—a website that contains a trove of information about him, including history, poetry and even a photograph (the sole photograph of a Mughal emperor!).

  Zauq

  1. In order to access the deevan electronically, see Malik-ul Shaura, Khaqani-e Hind and Shaikh Ibrahim Zauoq, ‘Deewan-e Zauq,’ Allama Iqbal Urdu Cyber Library, http://www.urducl.com/Urdu-Books/969-416-207-003/.

  2. See Mohammad Husain Azad, Aab-e Hayaat: Shaping the Canon of Urdu Poetry, translated and edited by F.W. Pritchett and Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001).

  3. In particular, I’d recommend Begum Akhtar’s rendition of ‘Laayi hayaat aaye’ and Jagjit Singh’s version of ‘Ab to ghabraa ke’, both of which are available on YouTube.

  4. The prophet Khizr is known to have lived for an inordinately long time.

  Mirza Ghalib

  1. For some interesting commentary, see F.W. Pritchett, ‘“The Meaning of the Meaningless Verses”: Ghalib and his Commentators,’ in A Wilderness of Possibilities, 251–72; it can be read at http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00fwp/published/ghalib_commentary2.pdf. Pritchett marshals a variety of expositions of this sher from multiple sharahs and commentaries, and rightly concludes that the search for definitive meanings in poetry is simultaneously futile, arrogant and reductive.

  2. Other places to look for Ghalibiana on the Internet include Pritchett’s work on Ghalib’s deevan (available on the web at ‘A Desertful of Roses: The Urdu Ghazals of Mirza Asadullah Khan “Ghalib”,’ F.W. Pritchett and Columbia University, http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00ghalib/index.html); and ‘Wine of Passion: The Urdu Ghazals of Ghalib,’ http://ghalib.org/, maintained by Dr Sarfaraz Niazi.

  3. I would recommend Jagjit Singh’s rendition of ‘Aah ko chahiye’. Mohammad Rafi does a great job of rendering ‘Bas ke dushwaar’ in his trademark clean style, and also does justice to ‘Bazeecha-e atfaal’. Begum Akhtar sings ‘Sab kahaan kuchh’ in breathtaking fashion (the version I heard at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqp_27apaVA included a bonus reading of a snippet from one of Ghalib’s letters in Kaifi Azmi’s dreamy voice). I would recommend a return to Jagjit Singh for ‘Hazaaron khwaahishein’.

  4. This refers to a folk reference that some raindrops, when they fall into the sea, are swallowed by oysters and become pearls. It is a metaphor for the difficulties that are encountered in the journey toward fulfilment.

  5. For Muslims, the sign of the new moon announces the festival, and here, Ghalib connects the curve of the executioner’s scimitar to the curve of the moon, to describe a martyr’s passion.

  6. Ghalib is being ironical here.

  7. Lovers eventually find their clothes torn or bloodstained.

  8. Agha Shahid Ali translated this ghazal rhythmically; it can be read at ‘Agha Shahid Ali: “Not All, Only A Few Return” (After Ghalib),’ golempoem, http://matthewsalomon.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/agha-shahid-ali-not-all-only-a-few-return-after-ghalib/.

  9. Perhaps Ghalib is extolling nightlife here. The constellation referred to is the Banatunnash (literally, ‘the daughters of the bier’, a name for the constellation Ursa Major, usually associated in Urdu poetry with beautiful women).

  10. The poet’s feelings provided the material for the nightingale’s songs, so he thinks of himself as a teacher here.

  11. Why would you want to be the scribe to letters written by your lover? Curiosity, jealousy, or a Cyrano de Bergerac–style attempt to communicate your own feelings through other suitors? You be the judge. In this day and age, Ghalib may have written verses about peeking into his lover’s Facebook page!

  12. Referring to one’s love as infidel is an old practice in the ghazal tradition; it indicates that, at its peak, love begins to resemble worship, and so produces religiously undesirable effects.

  13. Over the course of time, Ghalib’s poetry has occasionally been infiltrated, sometimes by people who deleted a few verses, and at others by those who inserted a few ‘rogue verses’ in it. Purists swear that this is one such rogue verse that Ghalib never wrote. This, however, is not a book for purists, and I also include it to highlight this delightful phenomenon of plagiarism-in-reverse.

  14. Ghalib at his best. Without my parenthetic comments, the words sound cryptic. But once illuminated, the sher shows myriad possibilities. For example, what does it mean to say that a desert is hidden by dust? Ghalib deploys the metaphor of ‘being left in the dust’ to indicate an upstaging. The desolation of the poet shames the dryness of the desert, just as his tears upstage the oceans in their volume.

  15. This is the recrimination of the dumped lover, who accuses the beloved (who is presumably either pale or red-faced, you decide).

  16. The poet, at death’s door, seeks to remain close to his killer libations. You may choose to read this as a denunciation of habit, or a celebration of faithfulness, or . . . knock yourself out!

  Momin

  1. A very good rendition of this ghazal can be found in the 1981 film Kudrat. I would also urge you to listen to Begum Akhtar’s beautiful rendition. Both can be found on YouTube.

  Dagh Dehlavi

  1. Some of his poems with English translations can be read at ‘Daagh Dehlvi: Famous Poet at Allpoetry,’ Kevin, http://allpoetry.com/Daagh_Dehlvi.

  2. ‘Lutf voh’ was performed by Noorjehan and is available on YouTube. While ‘Sabaq aisa’ was set to music by A.R. Rahman for the 2003 film Tehzeeb, and sung evocatively by Madhushree, my favourite is Shruti Shadolikar’s composition, set to Raag Kaafi (in Dadra Taal, for the cognoscenti), which is, again, available on YouTube.

  Mohammed Iqbal

  1. See Muhammad Suheyl Umar, ‘Iqbal—Poet-Philosopher,’ Iqbal Academy Pakistan, http://allamaiqbal.com/.

  2. See Kiernan, Poems from Iqbal.

  3. The poem first appeared in Iqbal’s Baal-i Gibreel (Gabriel’s Wing) in 1935. For a translation and discussion of that poem, see Varis Alavi, ‘Gabriel and Lucifer,’ Annual of Urdu Studies 20 (2005), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/20/04AlaviLucifer.pdf.

  4. Iqbal here references the love between Mahmud of Ghazni and his slave Ayaz. This is a metaphor for the ideal love that breaks all boundaries of class and status (and, incidentally, decentres heterosexual normativity).

  Brij Narain Chakbast

  1. These poems have been well analysed by Neil Krishan Aggarwal in ‘The Rama Story of Brij Narain Chakbast,’ Annual of Urdu Studies 22 (2007), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/22/11AggarwalChakbast.pdf.

  2. This is an excerpt from the eponymous poem.

  Jigar Moradabadi

  1. I have used the male and female pronouns in consecutive shers to highlight that there is no default gender in many ghazals. Indeed, more often than not, the object of the poet’s affection is male.

  Firaaq Gorakhpuri

  1. For elaboration, see Ruth Vanita and Salim Kidwai, Same Sex Love in India: Readings from History and Literature (New Delhi: Pe
nguin Books India, 2008), 264–66.

  Josh Malihabadi

  1. Refers to the 1757 Battle of Plassey, in which Robert Clive defeated Nawab Sirajuddowlah, through the connivance of his general, Mir Jafar.

  2. Bahadur Shah Zafar’s two sons were beheaded and their heads sent to him as a punishment for his role in the 1857 war. Zafar died in Rangoon, which is referred to later in the poem.

  3. Metiaburj was where Wajid Ali Shah, the king of Avadh, was imprisoned; he died and was buried in Qaisar Bagh, nearby. Wajid Ali Shah’s takhallus was Akhtar, which is referred to in the poem.

  4. Josh may not be referring to Reginald Dyer, who perpetrated the Jalianwala Bagh massacre (he died in 1927) but to Michael O’Dwyer, the lieutenant governor of Punjab in the JB massacre days, who supported Dyer’s actions, and was alive then (he was assassinated by Udham Singh in 1940).

  5. In Islamic history, Husain is the ultimate symbol of the righteous person who suffered injustice; Yazid and Shimr are the paradigmatic dispensers of tyranny and injustice.

  Makhdoom Mohiuddin

  1. Of the many renditions of this poem, the best perhaps is the version sung by Jagjit Singh and Asha Bhonsle, which is available on YouTube.

  Majaz

  1. A rendition of the whole poem in Majaz’s own voice can be found on YouTube.

  2. This is an excerpt from the eponymous poem.

  3. Chengiz Khan and Nadir Shah are notorious in Indian history as raiders and despoilers of local wealth.

  4. A gathering of kings in Hindu mythology. Serves here as a metaphor for an assembly of the elite.

  N.M. Rashid

  1. For an analysis of one of his poems titled ‘Samandar ki Tah mein’ (‘Under the Sea’), see Muhammad Hasan Askari’s piece ‘A Poem by Rashid: An Analysis,’ Annual of Urdu Studies 24 (2009), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/24/10AskariRashid.pdf. Rashid’s friend Miraji analysed two of his poems, translations of which can be found in ‘Two Poems by Rashid: An Analytical Reading,’ by Riyaz Latif in Annual of Urdu Studies 24 (2009), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/24/11MirajiRashid.pdf.

  Faiz

  1. See the official web site of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, http://faiz.com/.

  2. See Kiernan, Poems by Faiz. For a more freewheeling translation of his poems, one could enjoy Agha Shahid Ali’s The Rebel’s Silhouette (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1995), and see one of its poems, ‘The Dawn of Freedom’, translated by Shahid in Annual of Urdu Studies 11 (1996), http://urdustudies.com/pdf/11/06dawn.pdf. I would also recommend Pritchett’s essay on the craft of translation using Faiz as an example, ‘The Sky, the Road, the Glass of Wine: On Translating Faiz,’ Annual of Urdu Studies 15 (2000), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/15/07pritchett.pdf.

  3. Ted Genoways discusses Faiz’s prison poetry as reflected in his book Dast-e Saba in ‘“Let Them Snuff Out the Moon”: Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Prison Lyrics in Dast-e Saba,’ Annual of Urdu Studies 19 (2004), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/19/07GenowaysFaiz.pdf.

  4. ‘Aaj bazaar mein’ is available on YouTube, both in Faiz’s own voice as well as sung by Nayyara Noor. ‘Tum aaye ho na shab-e intezaar guzri hai’ sung by Noorjehan is also available on YouTube. In Nandita Das’s 2008 movie Firaaq, Naseeruddin Shah declaims ‘Ye dagh dagh ujaala’. Everyone loves Noorjehan’s rendition of ‘Mujh se pehli si mohabbat’, but let me also recommend the Fariha Parvez rendition, both of which are available on YouTube.

  5. Faiz’s metaphor reflects his incarceration, and he reads signs of his garden’s (country’s) fate from the breeze that eventually reaches his cage (prison cell).

  Miraji

  1. Geeta Patel’s exhaustive book on Miraji combines context, biography and literary criticism: Lyrical Movements, Historical Hauntings: On Gender, Colonialism, and Desire in Miraji’s Urdu Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

  Ali Sardar Jafri

  1. Sardar Jafri Foundation, ‘Ali Sardar Jafri: Centenary Celebration of Ali Sardar Jafri,’ http://www.sardarjafri.com/.

  2. Syed Akbar Hyder, Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) 185–87.

  3. This is an excerpt from the eponymous poem.

  Jan Nisar Akhtar

  1. Akhtar is also well known as the muse for some remarkably beautiful literary output; his wife Safiya’s letters to him, well translated by Mehr Afshan Farooqi, are available at ‘Letters to Jan Nisar Akhtar’ by Safiya Akhtar, Annual of Urdu Studies 20 (2005), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/20/18SafiaAkhtar.pdf.

  2. A recording of this can be accessed on YouTube.

  3. This is an excerpt from a longer poem by the poet.

  Majrooh Sultanpuri

  1. One can view a recording of Majrooh’s performance of this very ghazal at a mushaira on YouTube.

  2. This is a classic progressive trope, condemning those who do not join the movement for social change. Kaifi had said: ‘Jo door se toofan ka karte hain nazaara / Un ke liye toofan yahaan bhi hai, vahaan bhi’ (‘Those who watch the storm from afar / For them, the storm is both here and there’).

  Kaifi Azmi

  1. There is an official web page—http://www.kaifiyat.in—as well as a web page dedicated to him by the Library of Congress New Delhi Office at the South Asian Literary Recordings Project—http://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/kaifiazmi.html. There are also assorted places like the website dedicated to the play Kaifi aur Main—http://www.kaifiaurmain.com/.

  2. A translation of his poems into English by Pavan K. Varma was published in 2001 (Penguin).

  Sahir Ludhianvi

  1. In our book Anthems of Resistance, Ali Mir and I devote a chapter to Sahir which we have titled ‘An Exemplary Progressive’. Also, see my article titled ‘The Poetry of “No”,’ Outlook magazine (July 2004), http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?224642.

  2. Muhammad Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature, 2nd ed. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984).

  Sulaiman Khateeb

  1. In ‘Urdu’s Progressive Wit: Sulaiman Khatib, Sarvar “Danda” and the Subaltern Satirists Who Spoke Up’, Akbar Hyder suggests that not only were the Dakkani poets stigmatized by classicists in the field of Urdu poetry, but their progressive counterparts also undermined their work, implicitly censoring all that was not written in a certain officialized Urdu. A new website dedicated to him—http://sulaimankhateeb.com/—contains a few audio and video files.

  2. A gampa (untranslatable in English) is a multipurpose household appliance, a receptacle for carrying heavy stuff. Construction labourers carry sand and concrete on their heads in gampas.

  Habib Jalib

  1. See ‘Ten Poems by Habib Jalib,’ Revolutionary Democracy 9, no. 1 (April 2003), http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv9n1/jalibpoems.htm.

  2. Mansoor Hallaj was a Sufi mystic of Iran, who was famously executed in the tenth century by the Abbasid king Al-Muqtadir for putative heresy. Mansoor had proclaimed that God existed inside him, which was equated with polytheism. In Socratic fashion, Hallaj was executed for his steadfast refusal to recant his words. He is the patron saint of all martyr poets, after a fashion.

  3. Here, Jalib shows how the progressive poets never abandoned the classical metaphors, especially Ghalib. These words come from a sher in a Ghalib ghazal, where he taunts those who do not understand him: ‘Na sitaish ki tamanna, na sile ki parvaah / Gar nahin hai mere ash’aar mein maani, na sahi’ (‘I desire neither praise nor recompense / And if my verses mean naught to you, so be it’). In the maqta as well, the term shah ka masaahib is derived from a Ghalib sher.

  4. Implying they are written in the poet’s blood.

  Mustafa Zaidi

  1. Laurel Steele’s doctoral dissertation on Zaidi, titled ‘Relocating the Postcolonial Self: Place, Metaphor, Memory and the Urdu Poetry of Mustafa Zaidi (1930–1970)’ (University o
f Chicago, 2005) remains the definitive word on Zaidi in English. Her brief article on Zaidi, along with translations of six of his poems and an elegy by Salam Machhlishahri can be found in the Annual of Urdu Studies 17 (2002), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/17/18_Steele.pdf.

  Ahmed Faraz

  1. Ali Mir’s obituary of Faraz, ‘Remembering Ahmad Faraz’, containing a translation of a brief snippet from the poem, was published in the web section of Outlook magazine on 11 September 2008 at http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?238364.

  2. This can be heard in Faraz’s own voice on YouTube.

  3. Mehdi Hasan’s rendition of this ghazal is considered to be the best. I would like to provoke the wrath of the purists and declare that I like Asha Bhonsle’s version better. You can compare for yourselves as both renditions are available on YouTube.

  Gulzar

  1. This appears in the song ‘Aane wala pal’ in the 1979 movie Gol Maal, and can be viewed on YouTube.

  2. The song ‘Is mod se jaate hain’ is from the 1975 film Aandhi. Gulzar’s own rendition of the last poem was performed at the Vishwa Hindi Sammelan in New York in July 2007. Both are available on YouTube.

  Shahryar

  1. Qurratulain Hyder also won both awards, for fiction. A brief biography of Shahryar, followed by a translation of some of his poems by Rakhshanda Jalil, can be found in the Annual of Urdu Studies 17 (2002), http://www.urdustudies.com/pdf/17/19_Shahryar.pdf; while a recent obituary by Mehr Afshan Farooqi, ‘Farewell, Shahryar’, published in the web section of Outlook magazine on 21 February 2012, can be read here: http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?279957.

  Asif Raza

  1. This sher is from Asif Raza’s poem ‘Amreeka’, and includes a reference to the legend of Prometheus, who was of course condemned for stealing the gods’ fire.

  Iftikhar Arif

  1. Both poems have been performed by well-known artistes. The first qaseeda has been performed by Ali Haidar, and the second is a poem sung by Noorjehan; both performances can be viewed on YouTube.