The Urdu Ghazal Podcast

Gulzar was born in Dina (District Jhelum, now in Pakistan) in 1934. After partition, the family split and moved to Delhi and Mumbai. Partition and the horrors of partition significantly influenced young Gulzar, and later in his life, he published short stories and a novel about this apocalyptic event. As a student, he was impressed by the poetry of Tagore and Ghalib. After a short stay in Delhi, he moved to Mumbai and worked in a motor garage owned by the family, working on paints and colors. He had a great desire to be a writer, an ideal for which there was not much support from his uprooted family. He started attending meetings of the Progressive Writers Association and got to know film lyricist and poet Shailendra, who introduced him to leading directors Bimal Roy and Hrishikesh Mukherji. He wrote his first film song for Bandini in 1963, inspired by a Braj Bhasha folk line, and within a few years, he established himself as a famous songwriter. In the seventies, Gulzar took the role of a film director, and he directed many award-winning films. He is most remembered for his TV serial Mirza Ghalib in Eightees, which helped generate significant interest in the life and work of the poet. Gulzar has won more awards and national and international honors than any other Urdu or Hindi poet, including Padma Bhushan, Sahitya Akademi, Dadasaheb Phalke, National Film, Filmfare, Oscar, and a Grammy. Gulzar is the author of nearly two dozen Urdu, Hindi, and Punjabi books, and he has been translated into English and several other Indian languages. For more about Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Javed Akhtar was born in Gwalior. There is hardly any other Urdu poet connected to such eminent and epoch-making personalities on either side of his birth—maternal and paternal—where the legacy of poetry and knowledge is continuous and uninterrupted. Who wouldn’t know Allama Fazle Haq Khairabadi? He was a talented man and a great scholar of his time. Ghalib appreciated him and was fond of him. He said he assisted in the selection of ghazals for Ghalib’s Divan. Fazle Haq signed the fatwa for the 1857 rebellion and was exiled to a life sentence in the Andamans for rising against the British. Unfortunately, before the letter of release could reach Port Blair, he was released both from the British jail as well as the prison of his body. His mausoleum in the Andamans beside the ocean's blue waters, covered with green trees on a high mound, is where the world pays obeisance even today. Maulana was the grandfather of Javed Akhtar’s grandfather, Muztar Khairabadi, who was a master poet of his time. He is the son of progressive poet Jan Nisar Akhtar and Safia Akhtar of Zere Lab fame and nephew of the poet Majaz Lakhnavi, who died young. It is a house full of enlightened people and a tradition of letters where words of literary merit flow uninterrupted. Javed Akhtar was awarded Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2007, followed by the Sahitya Akademi Award and multiple National Film Awards and Filmfare Awards. Along with his wife, Shabana Azmi, daughter of poet Kaifi Azmi and renowned artist in her own right, he has participated in live-stage presentations that have helped create widespread interest in the Urdu language. He has been a nominated member of the Rajya Sabha for six years, where he did sustained work and enacted a bill to protect the rights of writers, poets, singers, and composers of the film world. For more about Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Poet Shahryar was born in 1936 in a small town near Bareilly, and early in his life, he came under the influence of Khaleelur Rehman Azmi, a prominent Urdu critic and poet. He joined the Aligarh Muslim University, where he earned his doctoral degree. Shahryar started his career at the Anjuman Taraqqqi-e Urdu, where Professor Ale Ahmad Suroor was the President. Later, he moved to the Department of Urdu at AMU and taught there until his retirement in 1996. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for one of his poetry collections in 1987. In 2008, he became the fourth Urdu writer to receive the prestigious Jnanpith Award after Firaq Gorakhpuri, Ali Sardar Jafri, and Qurratulain Hyder. Earlier, he had earned fame as a lyricist for his ghazals in Muzaffar Ali’s films like Gaman and Umrao Jaan. He wrote both short poems and ghazals, but it was due to his ghazals that he earned his fame. He died at the age of 76 due to cancer in 2012. For more about Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Jayant Parmar, born in Ahmedabad in 1954, overcame socio-economic barriers to get a good education and succeed as a poet. He also gained fame as an accomplished painter. His work has won recognition both at the national and state levels. He won the coveted Sahitya Akademi Award in 2008 and three state Sahitya Akademi awards between 2001 and 2008. Six collections of his poems and ghazals have been published. His poetry is known for its natural sensibility and the creative use of metaphors. His keywords are vanishing sunshine, ocean of turbulent blood, melting moon, flowers of words on the palm of hands, and heads stuck on spears, mostly signifying a surge of creativity against odds. For more about the Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Dr. Bashir Badr was born in Ayodhya in 1935. He received his college education at Aligarh Muslim University, where he earned his graduate and doctoral degrees. He spent most of his life as a college professor, first in Aligarh and then in Meerut. He now lives in Bhopal. He was awarded Padma Shri in 1999, and the same year, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for one of his poetry collections. Widely published, Bashir Badr is a poet of ghazal, rich in romantic allusions and an appealing choice of words that work like magic in a mushaira with his high-pitched voice. His presence in mushaira is rare for ghazal-loving audiences, mainly when he uses his highly individualized trannum. He shows excellent mastery over using long behr and freshly minted metaphors, which have the flavor of petals of a newly blossomed rose. He is a romantic poet with a difference; love in his verse shows up wearing different apparel, and he places pangs of love’s suffering in the modern metropolitan context. For more about the Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Nida Fazli (1938-2016) was born in Delhi into a family of Kashmiri descent, but he grew up in Gwalior. During the partition, his parents migrated to Pakistan, but he decided to stay in India. Early in his life, he was influenced by the poetry of saints and bhaktas like Kabir, Surdas, and Mirabai, and this was his inspiration for writing poetry in Hindi, Gujarati, and Urdu. Later in life, he studied Urdu poetry, especially the works of Mir and Ghalib. He moved to Mumbai in 1964, and with time, he became a famous film lyricist. In 1994, he teamed up with Jagjit Singh to produce an album of his ghazals titled Insight. He was a vocal opponent of the country’s partition, and later in his life, he worked to promote communal harmony. He was awarded Padma Shri in 2013. His poems and dohas are as famous as his ghazals. Nida was a secularist in his thoughts and actions, and he stayed above all sorts of petty biases and polemics. His ghazals reflect his child-like innocence, all-embracing love, wonder of being, and a total celebration of life. For more about the Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Parveen Shakir (1952-1994) attained fame early when her first poetry collection was published in 1976. The literary career that followed consisted of several acclaimed poetry collections and honors. She was highly educated, earning her degrees from Karachi and Harvard Universities. She was selected for the Pakistan Civil Service, and her untimely death in a car accident shocked everyone. With her death, the Urdu language lost one of its most promising young writers who had much more to contribute, especially on themes that concern women. Her poetry is a beautiful blending of classical as well as postmodern. Her sensibility had a great sense of beauty and a tinge of fragrance. The keywords of her ghazal are khushbuu, rusvaaii, harjaaii, shanaasaaii, and the like. There is more interest in her work now than when she was alive. For more about the Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Jaun Elia (1931-2002) was born in Amroha, a town in Uttar Pradesh. He migrated to Pakistan in 1957 with some reluctance, but the agony of migration that forced separation from his roots never left him. Coming from a highly literate family, Jaun gained a good grounding in Eastern and Western philosophy and Islamic and Sufi belief systems at an early age. Although he was born into a Muslim family and had studied at the Deoband School of Islamic Jurisprudence, he kept religion out of his life. Still, he did write some philosophic prose on the mystical nature of existence. His elder brother, Rais Amrohi, was a famous poet who used to write a new Qat’a every day on current affairs for the daily Jung newspaper in Karachi, and his uncle Kamal Amrohi was a talented screenplay writer and Bollywood film director. Jaun Elia gained fame because of the uniqueness of his poetic style, which was essentially postmodern, emphasizing lonesomeness, subversion, and the given. There is an eccentric restlessness and playful abandon in his poetry. Because of his Sufi bent of mind, he had created an Amroha of his own in his thoughts. There is a sense of tragedy in his sensibility that wrecked his life, and he becomes an alcoholic. Jaun was married, but nothing worked for him. Several of his poetic works were published after his death. For more about the Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Nasir Kazmi (1925-1972) was born in the Indian town of Ambala in Punjab and moved to Lahore after partition. He was associated with Radio Pakistan for several years. His poetry is known for its mellow and soft lyricism and is rich in novel similes and metaphors. It is rooted in the prakritic tradition of Mir Taqi Mir and reflects sad tones reflecting the uprootedness and tragedy of partition. He wrote perceptively on Mir and also published a selection of his verse. At the same time, he was greatly influenced by Firaq Gorakhpuri, and he considered him a profound inspiration. They never met. He was a loner, a haunted soul wandering through the dark streets of Lahore in the dead of night. A mysterious silence speaks through his despondent words as he became a cult figure during his lifetime for his peculiar forlorn personality. His Pak Tea House creative buddies who would keep his company were Intezar Husain, Ahmed Mushtaq, Zahid Dar, and others who spread his words and helped publish his verse. He is considered a trendsetter ghazal poet in the post-partition era with a heart-pulling desolate sensibility influencing many younger poets on both sides of the border. Famous Pakistani singers, Noor Jahaan, Iqbal Bano, Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and others sang his ghazals, adding to his popularity. His admirers published several of his poetic collections after his death. For more about the Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Ahmad Faraz (1931-2008) was a close friend of both Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Ali Sardar Jafri, and he followed in their footsteps to be an icon of modern progressive poetry. Because he opposed the military rule of Zia-ul Haq, he was arrested, lost his job, and on his release, he went into a self-imposed exile, spending many years in foreign lands. He started as a romantic poet, and when Mehdi Hasan sang one of his ghazals, ranjish hi sahi, his popularity touched new heights. Following Faiz, there is musicality and lyricism in his poetry, though in a different order. There is, of course, a mix of romantic and modern in his ghazal writing. For more about Urdu Ghazal poetry, please see: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture.New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Majrooh Sultanpuri (1919-2000) was called Mir Taqi Mir of Urdu poetry, as someone who had fully internalized the legacy of ghazal writing. The humanistic aspects of Marxism are very much present in his poetry. He was a poet of the people, which is what he wanted to be. He had one slim volume of poetry that he expanded every few years. Since some of the keywords were common among the progressives, some readers felt that some of Majrooh’s couplets sounded like Faiz wrote them. His significant contributions to the Indian film industry through his lyrics were recognized when he received the Dada Sahib Phalke Award. Jigar Moradabadi introduced him to the film industry, but after he wrote lyrics for the film Shah Jahan, sung by legendary K.L. Saigal, there was nothing to hold him back. His composition Jab Dil Hi Tuut Gaya became so popular that K.L. Saigal wanted this ghazal to be played at his funeral. The last part of Majrooh’s life was complex and challenging. He was not getting as much attention from film producers as before and was not healthy. Just before his death, he told poet Javed Akhtar, “I have been trying to sell mirrors to the blind in this city.” For more about Urdu Ghazal poetry, please see: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture.New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Kaifi Azmi (1919-2002) was born in a conservative Muslim family near Azamgarh in UP, but he adopted socialism as his creed. He was an active participant in the Communist Party of India. He published his first collection of poems called Jhankaar in 1943. Sajjad Zahir welcomed Kaifi as a valuable addition to the front-ranking poets in the assembly of Urdu poetry. His entry into Hindi films and his energetic presentations in mushairas brought him great fame. Kaifi stood firmly for three things. First, he was against all forms of communal divisions, caste system, inequalities, etc. Second, he was against all forms of social injustice. That meant speaking for the oppressed, workers, and those without a voice in the system. Third, he was optimistic about the future. Humanity survives because there is hope, he used to say. In the absence of hope, there is no future for anyone. Although he suffered a stroke, he did not limit his public presence. Despite his limited mobility, he continued to attend poetical symposiums and led an active life. To read more about the Urdu ghazal poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture.New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Jan Nisar Akhtar (1914 – 1976), father of poet Javed Akhtar, was a part of the Progressive Writers Movement and a famous lyricist for several Bollywood movies. He was the son of poet Muztar Khairabadi and great-grandson of freedom fighter Fazle-Haq Khairabadi. From his early days, he was sympathetic to progressive thinking. Although he wrote both ghazals and poems, we find the soul of his poetry in his ghazals. His poetry collection Khaake Dil (Ashes of the Heart) got him the Sahitya Akademi Award. Prime Minister Nehru asked him to collect the Hindustani poetry of the last three hundred years. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi later released the two-volume work called Hindustan Hamara. He married Safia Akhtar, the sister of poet Majaz and mother of Javed Akhtar in 1943, whom he left behind while trying his luck in the Bombay film industry. Unfortunately, she died of tuberculosis. Javed Akhter left the house when his father married another woman. To read more about Urdu ghazal poetry, please refer to: Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Jigar Moradabadi (1890-1960) was born in Benaras. Because he lost his father at an early age, he struggled to get a start in life and gain proficiency in Urdu and Persian. Due to his friendship with Asghar Gondvi, he settled in Gonda, a town near Lucknow. Jigar kept alive the classical, rhythmic traditional style of ghazal writing, and his name often occurs near the top of twentieth-century Urdu poets. His ghazals have a rare psychological touch and a sweeping lyrical flow. While making a socio-political point, he handles the metaphor masterly so as not to deviate too much from the make-belief art of the ghazal. He was awarded an honorary D. Litt. by the Aligarh Muslim University – a rare honor he shares with Allama Iqbal and Sarojini Naidu. For more information about the Urdu ghazal poetry, please get a copy of: Gopi Chand Narang, Trans. by Surinder Deol, The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.

Asrarul Haq Majaz (1911-1955) of Lucknow lived a relatively short life of 44 years, but within this short time, he made a significant impact with his alluring poems and captivating ghazals. Although he was not an excellent academic student, he influenced many people during his stay at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). He wrote his best work while at Aligarh. He composed the Tarana, anthem for AMU that is passionately sung today. His first poetry collection Aahang was heralded by Sajad Zahir, as the opening of a new rosebud in the garden of progressives. His poem Rail subtly refers to the revolution's roar in the night's pitch darkness and the upsurge of the freedom struggle. He had a carefree, witty disposition and was very popular with the younger folks of his time. Over-adornment by his fans and alcoholism killed him at a young age.

Among the modern progressives and those who were also associated with the film industry, Sahir Ludhianvi (1921-1980) occupies a very special place. It has to do with his celebrity status as much as his romantic poetry that appealed to a new generation of young people in post-independent India. Sahir was also a powerful voice against social injustice, exploitation, denial of women’s rights, and income inequalities. His collection of poetry Talkhiyaan was published in 1944, and several of the compositions in that volume were used in Hindi films. He also published a longer poem called Parchhaiyaan, considered the best peace poem written by an Urdu poet. Sahir is among those few Urdu poets who gained fame for his nazm poetry as well as his ghazals. His poem about the Taj Mahal is a rare gem in the genre of Urdu love poetry. And who can forget his lyrics for films like Pyasa and Kabhi Kabhi? Gopi Chand Narang, Surinder Deol, trns. THE URDU GHAZAL: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture. New Delhi: The Oxford University Press, 2020.

Hasrat Mohani (1875-1951) revived the Urdu ghazal after the onslaught of the Nayi Shaa’yari (New Poetry). He infused it with socio-political zeal while retaining its lyricism and charm. He learned from past masters like Mir and Ghalib about how feminine beauty is captured in verse. There is a visible influence of Mus-hafi, but his more important contribution lies in the fact that he domesticated beauty – he talked about meetings under the shadow of stars, coming up to the upper level of the house looking for the lover when the floor is emitting fire because of sun's heat, soft cries in the corner of a home -- these are the images that bring the ghazal to the scenes of daily life where people stealthily fall in love, they yearn for each other and suffer pangs of separation. Hasrat was also a passionate freedom fighter who coined the slogan Inquilab Zindabad in 1921. That was the time when the fervor of the nationalist movement was catching up. Under the influence of Gandhi, he opened a shop in Kanpur selling khadi (hand-spun coarse cloth). Hasrat was the first of the progressives, a true nationalist, and a freedom fighter who went to jail several times. He was a mercurial personality. For some time, he was associated with the Muslim League, but after independence, he refused to go to Pakistan and spent the last years of his life in India.

In this episode, I present the ghazal poetry of Josh Malihabadi. He got his education at St. Peter’s College in Agra and a brief stint at Tagore’s University at Shanti Niketan. He founded the progressive magazine Kaleemin Delhi, and after the independence, he was appointed editor of Aajkal, a government of India literary publication, where he worked for eight years. His decision to migrate to Pakistan in 1956 shocked many people, including Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who pleaded with him not to leave India. He visited India in 1967 and openly regretted his decision which led to losing his job in Pakistan. Because of the revolutionary nature of his poetry, Josh was known as Shaa’yar-e Inquilaab (poet of the revolution), and he was a great inspiration to the progressive movement. Josh published several collections of his poems. His autobiography Yaadon Ki Baraat is remarkable in revealing the intellectual evolution of the poet. The main strength of Josh as a poet lies in his progressive agenda of socialism, patriotism, and secularism, his excellent command over forceful diction, and his poems that have a solid energetic, and romantic quality. His sensitive description of female beauty and nature is superb.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911-1984) is a milestone in the ghazal tradition as the climax of liberal Urdu poetry. He was a significant departure from Iqbal and the elasticity of the ghazal structure that allowed a new creative poetic transformation. His verse's captivating musicality is unsurpassed in contemporary Urdu poetry. Faiz’s poetry, soaked in the kernel of tagazzul, the lyrical love sensibility of the ghazal, played the most significant role in enriching the Urdu ghazal’s poetic tradition. His love poetry reads as revolutionary poetry, and conversely, revolutionary poetry reads as love poetry. They are not separate but an integrated whole.

The Urdu Ghazal Podcast presents the ghazal poetry of a leading poet in each episode. In this first episode, we present the magnificent poetry of Firaq Gorakhpuri who brought the taste of Sanskrit and Hindi poetic rasa into his compositions. He not only excelled in ghazal, but the rubai collections authored by him are also memorable for the exposition of feminine beauty in all its forms-- a young girl, a married woman, and an iconic universal mother. Relax and enjoy listening to this presentation.