เคฏे เคเคฐเค़ू เคฅी เคคुเคे เคुเคฒ เคे เคฐूเคฌเคฐू เคเคฐเคคे
เคนเคฎ เคเคฐ เคฌुเคฒเคฌुเคฒ-เค-เคฌेเคคाเคฌ เคुเคซ़्เคคเคू เคเคฐเคคे
เคชเคฏाเคฎเคฌเคฐ เคจ เคฎเคฏเคธ्เคธเคฐ เคนुเค เคคो เค़ूเคฌ เคนुเค
เค़ुเคฌाเคจ-เค-เค़ैเคฐ เคธे เค्เคฏा เคถเคฐเคน-เค-เคเคฐเค़ू เคเคฐเคคे!
เคฎेเคฐी เคคเคฐเคน เคธे เคฎเคน-เค-เคฎเคนเคฐ เคญी เคนैं เคเคตाเคฐा
เคिเคธी เคนเคฌीเคฌ เคी เคฏे เคญी เคนैं เคुเคธ्เคค्เคू เคเคฐเคคे
เคो เคฆेเคเคคे เคคेเคฐी เค़ंเคीเคฐ-เค-เค़ुเคฒ्เคซ़ เคा เคเคฒเคฎ
เค
เคธीเคฐ เคนोเคจे เคी เคเค़ाเคฆ เคเคฐเค़ू เคเคฐเคคे
เคจ เคชूเค เคเคฒเคฎ-เค-เคฌเคฐเคเคถ्เคคा เคคाเคฒเค
'เค เคเคคเคถ
เคฌเคฐเคธเคคी เคเค, เคो เคฌाเคฐां เคी เคเคฐเค़ू เคเคฐเคคे
(เคเคคिเคถ เคฒเคเคจเคตी)
ye aarzuu thii, tujhe gul ke ruu-ba-ruu karte
ham aur bulbul-e-betaab guftguu karte
payaambar na mayassar hua, to Khuub huaa
zubaan-e-Ghair se kyaa sharaH-e-aarzuu karte
meri tarah se mah-o-mahar bhii haiN aavaara
kisii habiib kii ye bhi haiN justujuu karte
jo dekhte terii zanjeer-e-zulf kaa aalam
asiir hone ki aazaad aarzuu karte
na puuchh aalam-e-bargashta taala'aii Aatash
barastii aag, jo baraaN ki aarzuu karte
Aatish
(Khwaja Haider Ali Aatish Lucknowi is one of the giants of Urdu literature who was born in 1778 and died in 1848. Aatish and Nasikh were contemporary poets whose rivalry is well-known. Both had hundreds of disciples. The era of Aatish-Nasikh was a golden era for Urdu poetry in Lucknow.)
Poetry is a
word of Greek origin. It comes from a verb with means “to
make, to create”. A poem is “something made or created”. The
poet is the creator and language is the material out of
which s/he creates his/her work of art.
Origins:
The precise origins of poetry are unknown. It is a very
ancient art which was born as an oral form and accompanied
by simple music and dance. it expressed what people regarded
as meaningful and memorable in their lives: natural
disaster, births and deaths, brave actions, dangerous
enemies, battles, etc.
It was often part of religious rites. Poets and listeners
enjoyed playing with words, choosing and arranging them to
produce music and meaning.
What a poem is:
Today poems exist in printed form, but the careful choice
and arrangement of words still account for the unique
quality of poetry.
Like other literary works poetry is made up of words. But
what is special about poetry? How is reading poetry
different from reading prose? A good start to answering the
question is to consider what poetry is concerned with:
poems.
A poem is a self-contained text, which makes sense as it
stands. It differs from prose most obviously because it is
written in lines whose length is decided by the author, not
the printer.
How the poem looks on the page, its visual
lay-out, is as important as its sound
quality. A poem makes intense use of language,
which results in a fare greater concentration of meaning
than is commonly found in prose.
Guidelines for reading Poetry:
In approaching a poem, you can ask the text some simple
questions which should help you to understand it:
- What is the poem about?
- Who is the voice speaking in the poem?
- To whom is the poem addressed?
- How is the poem written?
- Why has the poem been written?
Then… just enjoy it
Nazeer Akbarabadi (real name "Wali Muhammad") was an Indian poet of 18th century who wrote Urdu ghazals and nazms under nom de plume "Nazeer". His father was Muhammad Farooq and his mother was the daughter of Nawab Sultan Khan who was the governor of Agra Fort. Agra, the Indian city, was known as Akbarabad after Mughal emperor Akbar at that time.
Nazeer's date of birth is not certain but most of his biographers believe that he was born in Delhi (then called "Dihli") in 1735 AD. The period of his birth coincided with the decline of the Mughal empire in India.
In 1739 Nazeer was still a child when Nadir Shah attacked Delhi and Muhammad Shah Rangeela was arrested. He was later released but countless people were mercilessly killed in Delhi. The horrors of this plunder were still fresh in the minds of people when 18 years later, in 1757 AD, Ahmad Shah Abdali attacked Delhi. People left Delhi for safer cities. Nazeer along with his mother and grandmother also abandoned Delhi and migrated to Akbarabad. At this time Nazeer was 22 years old.
It is said that Nazeer's poetic treasure consisted of about 200,000 verses but unfortunately a bigger portion of it is destroyed and only 6000 verses are available in printed form. No other Urdu poet used as many words as Nazeer did. Nazeer's poetry conveyed the plight of the common people in their own everyday language and was very popular among the masses. It was due to this lack of the "elite" element perhaps that Nazir's genius was not recognized until much later.
But in spite of this neglect, some of his poetic treasure is still available and some of his poems, such as Banjara Nama (chronicle of a nomad/gypsy), Kaljug nahin karjug hai yeh, Aadmi Naama (chronicle of man), etc., became immortal. Such poems find their place in school text books and discerning fans of Urdu poetry will not fail to recognize the greatness of Nazeer's verse.
He left for us about 600 ghazals, although his nazms are said to be more worthy of admiration. In fact, Nazeer's growing popularity is due to his nazms. He was purely a "People's poet" and his nazms reflected various aspects of the daily life of his age, all types of religious and social events with even minor details in which common people can be seen laughing, singing, teasing, playing.
He wrote nazams about religious and social festivals, such as Diwali, Holi, Eid, Shab-e-baraat, about fruits and about animals and birds, about seasons and even inanimate objects, such as paisa, rupaiaa, rotiyaan, aata-daal (meaning "flour" and "lentils"), "pankha" (meaning "fan") and "kakrhi" (a kind of cucumber). He wrote nazms about different aspects of human life, such as "muflisi" (Urdu word meaning "poverty") and "kohrinamah" (chronicle of a leper). The canvas of Nazeer's nazms is so vast that it encompasses all aspects of human behavior and every person can find nazms that can suit his taste.
Nazeer Akbarabadi's contemporaries were Mirza Muhammad Rafi Sauda, Mir Taqi Mir, Sheikh Qalandar Bakhsh Jurat, Inshallah Khan Insha, and Ghulam Hamdani Mushafi. He was young during the age of Sauda and Mir and might be a middle aged man during the age of Jur'at, Insha and Mushafi.
Though the era of modern nazm credits Altaf Hussain Hali and Muhammad Hussain Azad, Nazeer could arguably be considered Father of Urdu Nazm because he preceded them.
Nazeer died in 1830 AD, at 98.
Parveen Shakir represented an era. A bright student, popular in the company of such gifted friends as Shahida Hassan and Khushbakht Alia, she started writing verse at a young age, simultaneously devoting herself to the study of English and Urdu classics as well as modern literature, thereby enriching her knowledge and embellishing her diction.
Parveen Shakir also wrote prose, contributing weekly columns in Urdu, and articles in English. In addition, she was an established Mushaira ‘star’, captivating the audience by her pleasant recital without the use of melody. She exercised her talent in all genres of poetry, not neglecting free verse, and even the controversial ‘prose poem’, but Parveen emerges triumphant in ghazal.
Ghazal, a compact lyrical poem consisting of independent couplets and dealing with the themes of love, wine, life’s enigmas and cos mic mysteries, is the main offering at poetic functions. Parveen earned kudos as a ghazal writer, discovering the extra dimension of uplifting poetry, and feeling perfectly at ease with the conventions of prosody. Her rhythmic flow and polished wording blend nicely with music, enabling a vocalist to excel him or herself while rendering her couplets. Furthermore, a litmus test of a poet’s popularity is the number of times his or her lines are on the tip of everybody’s tongue. Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz are among the most proverbially quoted poets. Young Parveen shyly rubs shoulders with these exalted bards as an oftrepeated modern versifier.
Mir Taqi Mir(b. 1723 - d. 1810), whose original name was Mohammed Taqi and takhallus was Mir was the leading Urdu poet of the eighteenth century, and one of the pioneers who gave shape to the Urdu language itself. He was one of the principal poets of the Delhi school of the Urdu ghazal and remains arguably the foremost name in Urdu poetry often remembered as Khuda-e-Sukhan meaning God of verse.
He was born in Agra, India (called "Akbarabad" at the time), which at the time was ruled by the Mughals, in 1723. He left for Delhi, at the age of 11, following his father's death. His philosophy of life was formed primarily from his father, whose emphasis on the importance of love and the value of compassion remained with him through his life and imbued his poetry. At Delhi, he finished his education and joined a group of nobility as a courtier-poet. He lived much of his life in Mughal Delhi. However, after Ahmad Shah Abdali's sack of Delhi each year starting 1748, he eventually moved to the court of Asaf-ud-Daulah in Lucknow, at the king's invitation. Distressed to witness the plundering of his beloved Delhi, he gave vent to his feelings through some of his couplets. He remained in Lucknow for the remainder of his life.
Mir's literary reputation is anchored on his ghazals. Mir lived at a time when Urdu language and poetry was at a formative stage - and Mir's instinctive aesthetic sense helped him strike a balance between the indigenous expression and new enrichments coming in from Persian imagery and idiom, to constitute the new elite language known as Rekhta or Hindui. Basing his language on his native Hindustani, he leavened it with a sprinkling of Persian diction and phraseology, and created a poetic language at once simple, natural and elegant, which was to guide generations of future poets.
After his move to Lucknow, his beloved daughter died, followed by his son, and then his wife. This, together with other earlier setbacks (including his traumatic stages in Delhi) lends a strong pathos to much of his writing - and indeed Mir is noted for his poetry of pathos and melancholy.
Mir made no secret of his attachments to young louts, and wrote of his passing fancy for Attar Ka Launda the son of a perfumer and Memar Ka Larka son of a mason.
While some historians have read into Mir's verse his own feelings and experiences, whether that be love for boys or love for women, others hold that "Such contradictory visions of Mir's life and times arise from the effort to extract from Mir's ghazals information that they simply do not contain."
What Mir was practicing was probably the Malamati or Blameworthy aspect of the Sufi tradition. Using this technique, a person ascribes to oneself an unconventional aspect of a person or society, and then plays out its results, either in action or in verse.
Mir was a prolific writer. His complete works, Kulliaat, consist of 6 dewans, containing 13,585 couplets comprising all kinds of poetic forms: ghazal, masnavi, qasida, rubai, mustezaad, satire, etc.
Mir's famous contemporary, also an Urdu poet of no inconsiderable repute, was Mirza Rafi Sauda.
He died in Lucknow, of a purgative overdose, on 20 September 1810.
