Tag Archives: Mir Taqi Mir

AMU pays tribute to renowned poet Mir on his 300th birth anniv

INDIA:

A two-day international seminar was organised by the department of Urdu, Aligarh Muslim University here at AMU on Saturday and Sunday to mark the 300th birth anniversary of renowned Urdu poet, Mir Taqi Mir.

Seminar under way at AMU. (HT Photo)
Seminar under way at AMU. (HT Photo)

Presiding over the event, AMU vice chancellor Prof Muhammad Gulrez said that Mir Taqi Mir portrayed in his poetry a wide array of human emotions and feelings and his poetic thoughts are still considered valuable for serious studies in Urdu poetics.

Citing a number of Mir’s popular couplets, he said that the importance of Mir can be gauged from the fact that his poetry is popular even today, after a passage of three hundred years.

“Mir’s poetry helps common people express their feelings effectively and his love imbued Ghazals masterfully reflect the agonies and pleasures of lovers,” said Prof Gulrez, adding that research scholars should work to bring out the deeper nuances of Mir’s poetry.

Delivering the keynote address, Prof Sharif Hussain Qasmi, former chairman, department of Persian, AMU said that Mir’s poetry opens a wide range of possibilities to study the human emotions. He said Mir generously used Persian vocabulary giving currency to many Persian words in Urdu.

Calling Shamsur Rahman Farooqi’s book Sher-e-Shor Angez a milestone in the study of Mir, he discussed Mir’s Persian poetry with wider connotations. He said Mir has a unique position among Urdu poets because of the simplicity of his style and expression.

The chief guest and noted Persian scholar, Prof Azarmi Dukht Safavi said that Mir Taqi Mir’s thoughts and ideas are not limited to his era but are relevant for all times. She pointed out that for deeper understanding of Mir’s poetry, knowledge of Persian is necessary and Urdu scholars need to pay special attention to it to access Mir’s poetics. She further said that Mir’s couplets betray beauty and sadness that are essential attributes of life according to Mir.

Prof. Safavi highlighted the diversity, simplicity and meaningful dimensions of Kalaam-e-Mir and also discussed the salient features of his prose. Citing examples from the books, Zikr-e-Mir, Faiz-e-Mir and Nikat-us-Shora, Prof Safavi said that these books are the best example of his prose writing.

Prof Arif Nazir, dean, faculty of arts said that Mir’s poetry is popular because of its linguistic richness. He cited several couplets of Mir and stressed the need for the translation of Mir’s poetry into Hindi and other languages of India.

Earlier, welcoming the guests, Prof Mohammad Ali Jauhar, chairman, department of Urdu introduced Prof. Sharif Hussain Qasmi and Prof Azarmi Dukht Safavi, and highlighted the objectives of the seminar.

Dr Sarwar Sajid, convener of the seminar, conducted the programme, while Prof Qamrul Huda Faridi proposed vote of thanks.

Jaheedan Khatoon, a MA final year student, presented Mir’s popular Ghazal “Dikhai Diye Yun Ke Bekhud Kiya” in her mesmerizing voice.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Cities> Others / by HT Correspondent, Aligarh / July 23rd, 2023

Beloved Delhi — A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets review: The city of verse

NEW DELHI :

Eight poets of the past capture Delhi’s joys and sorrows

Saif Mahmood’s Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets offers offers a window into the life, times, and poetry of Delhi’s greatest Urdu poets from the 18th and 19th centuries, with witty and critical insight, in a conversational style that has become Saif’s hallmark in many a literary gathering.

Focusing on eight poets, he allows us to touch Delhi’s past and rethink its present through Urdu. Each chapter on a poet is divided into two sections — the first is biographical and provides the reader with insight into Delhi’s material conditions through the vicissitudes of the poet’s life. Thus, the 18th century poets are nomadic because of the post-Nadir Shah instabilities of Delhi.

The 19th century poets lead more sedentary lives, as the British Residency of Delhi provides the military support, at least until the cleavage of 1857. This upsets the tradition of the classical Urdu ghazal, and so the last poet analysed is Daagh Dehlvi, already writing in 1857, and a step-grandson of the last Mughal King, Bahadur Shah Zafar. The book also records this decline visually through Anant Raina’s photographs of the current gravesites of these poets, exhibiting the absolute lack of public or state support toward heritage maintenance.

The second part gives an excellent commentary on their poetry.

Saif’s familiarity with the tradition and his capacities for literary criticism shine through, as the raconteur in him narrates the stories of these poets’ poetry with coherence, complexity, and lucidity. The book highlights Urdu poets who are well known to Urdu readers, but not to listeners of ghazals or those interested in the literature from the outside.

Apart from Ghalib (described by Saif as ‘Master of Masters’), and Mir Taqi Mir (‘the Incurable Romancer of Delhi’), poets such as Sauda (‘the Great Satirist’), Mir Dard (‘Urdu’s Dancing Dervish’), Ustad Ibrahim Zauq (‘The Poet Laureate’), Bahadur Shah Zafar (the ‘Emperor’ who has an ‘Affair with Urdu’), and Daagh (‘the Last Casanova of Delhi’) get the attention they deserve.

The collection also brings out the specificities of their poetry including the great licence, often through satire, that many of these commanded with the ruling powers as dissenters. Tolerance for such criticism today rests uneasy with the crown. The poets extol the city of Delhi as picturesque, showing colours unimaginable, but also to be lamented after each violent tragedy, with a sense of loss, sometimes in a dedicated genre, the shahr-ashob or city-lament.

Beloved Delhi is for keeps and must be read by all with the remotest of interests in Urdu, Delhi, or poetry and poets.

Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets ; Saif Mahmood, Speaking Tiger, ₹599.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> Reviews / by Maaz Bin Bilal / November 03rd, 2018

The City of Mushairas

The life and times of Delhi’s leading poets of the Mughal era and their enrichment of a syncretic language

Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets

Beloved Delhi: A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets
Saif Mahmood
Speaking Tiger
367 pages
Rs 599

Shaikh Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq, the poetry ustaad of the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’ saw, in his lifetime, the Mughal Empire brought to its knees (though not formally ended — Zauq, perhaps mercifully, died three years before the ‘Ghadar’ of 1857, the uprising that was to so impact the fabric of Delhi’s social, cultural and literary life). But an impoverished Mughal court and an equally penurious north Indian aristocracy meant that many of Zauq’s contemporaries drifted south to Hyderabad, where there was still patronage to be sought and stipends to be earned. Zauq, however, when asked why he did not migrate to the Deccan, had famously remarked, “In dinon garche Dakan mein hai bohot qadr-e-sukhan/ Kaun jaaye Zauq par Dilli ki galiyaan chhor kar?” As Saif Mahmood translates this in his book Beloved Delhi: “Although poetry is greatly valued in the Deccan these days, Zauq, who would trade that for the lanes of Delhi?”

It is this — the connection between Delhi and her Urdu poets, an almost umbilical cord that binds the city to her greatest bards — that forms an important theme in Mahmood’s book. Beloved Delhi has, as its subtitle, A Mughal City and Her Greatest Poets, and those words describe the book perfectly: it is about the Mughal city of Delhi — not the city before or after the Mughals (though there is a fleeting mention of those as well), and about its greatest poets of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Mahmood examines the life and work of eight of Delhi’s greatest Urdu poets, against the backdrop of the city. Mirza Mohammad Rafi Sauda, Khwaja Mir Dard, Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, Momin Khan Momin, Bahadur Shah Zafar, Shaikh Mohammad Ibrahim Zauq and Nawab Mirza Khan Daagh Dehlvi are the eight poets who form the subject of Mahmood’s book. For each poet, Mahmood begins with a biography (often preceded by a description of the current state of the poet’s grave or former home). The biography is followed by an insight into the most relevant aspects of the poet’s work — Sauda’s satire, Zauq’s use of everyday language, Momin’s sensuality, Ghalib’s often cryptic verses, and so on. Finally, there are selected verses (with translations) by each poet.

There are several reasons to recommend Beloved Delhi. Firstly, it’s a well-written, readable book that manages to strike a balance between being informative on the one hand and unintimidating, entertaining, even witty on the other. Mahmood handles with commendable skill a subject that is often perceived as unapproachable by those not familiar with the Urdu script, or who are daunted by the more Persianised form of the language. But it’s also a subject that is regaining popularity and Mahmood’s translations, his occasional helpful notes, and the very fact that he takes care to bring in popular connections — Hindi film music’s use of couplets and ghazals from classical poets, for example, or ghazals rendered by popular singers — helps make this poetry more relatable.

Also playing a major role in making the poetry easier to relate to is Mahmood’s approach to the lives of the men who wrote that poetry. He uses various sources — autobiographies, reminiscences of contemporaries, memoirs, correspondence, even the poetry they penned— to bring alive the men behind the verses. Sauda, so acerbic that his satire repeatedly got him into trouble. Mir, the mad egoist, who willingly wrote poetry in exchange for groceries. Momin, a brilliant hakim as well as a great poet. Ghalib, so addicted to gambling that it brought him into repeated conflict with the law (which, Mahmood, himself a lawyer, points out as being reflected in the many legal and judicial terms — muddai, talab, hukm, faujdaari, giraftaari, etc — that Ghalib uses in his poetry). Mahmood even busts some myths, such as the authorship of popular works attributed to poets like Zafar and Ghalib.

And there is Delhi. The Delhi of mushairas. A city where fakirs and courtesans could be heard singing Ghalib’s ghazals, where a language born out of a syncretic confluence of cultures and traditions was nurtured even through the turbulence and horror of 1857 and its aftermath. As much as he brings alive the eight poets he focusses on, Mahmood brings alive the Delhi that was so beloved to them.

Madhulika Liddle is a Delhi-based writer

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Books / by Madhulika Liddle / May 18th, 2019

Amer Ali Khan releases book on ‘Karbala’

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

KarbalaMPOs24oct2018

Hyderabad:

Mr. Amer Ali Khan, News Editor of Siasat Urdu Daily released the Sovenir of “Zawia Adab” society.

It is the first book of the society. In his speech, Mr. Amer Ali Khan told that the incident of Karbala is the eradication of evil forces and support of the values of Islam.

On this occasion, he made a references to various literary books published in English, Hindi and Urdu right from Meer Taqi Meer to the present day.

At the beginning of the function, Mr. Mazharul Haq, President of the society highlighted its aims and objectives.

Present on the occasion were Mr. Ali Anjum Sadiq, Mr. Ali Inayat, Mr. Baquer Mehdi Abedi, Mr. Akhtarul Hasan and Mr. Meer Haider Ali.

Mr. Faraz Rizvi thanked Mr. Amer Ali Khan and the audience.

source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> Hyderabad / by Sameer / October 23rd, 2018

DOWN MEMORY LANE – Revisiting the poet’s hearth

Agra, UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

AT HOME Visitors at Ghalib’s Haveli | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
AT HOME Visitors at Ghalib’s Haveli | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

We know Mirza Ghalib as a Dilliwallah, but the bard had a strong emotional connection with Agra as well

Mirza Ghalib’s death anniversary on 15th February did not evoke the same interest as his birth anniversary two months earlier. Of course, there was a literary festival in Connaught Place and another in India International Centre, one can say the 210th birth anniversary drew greater public attention than probably that of any other Urdu (or Hindi) poet. The haveli he lived in and the Town Hall were the main venues of the functions then, along with the Subz Burj Park in Nizamuddin, now named after him. But nobody thought of holding a function at Kala Mahal in Agra, where Mirza Nausha was born on December 27, 1797 and of which he was so nostalgic because of childhood memories. Just goes to show how possessive Delhiwallahs have become of Ghalib and of Mir Taqi Mir, who was not only born in Agra but also had an affair with his cousin in the vicinity of the Taj. An enraged family then shunted off the Mir to Delhi where he attained great heights before moving to Lucknow at the invitation of the Nawabi Court of Awadh, where his outdated attire provoked him to recite his famous introduction: “Dilli jo ek Shahr tha alam mein intikhab…/Jisko falak ne loot ke bezar kar diya/Hum rehne wale hain usi ujre dayar ke” (I’m a resident of the same looted garden, Delhi, devastated by heaven).

Incidentally, it was the Mir Sahib who had predicted that the boy Ghalib (whose early recitals he had heard) would one day become a big shair. But Yours Truly spent a whole afternoon in and around Ghalib’s haveli last week and wondered at the sudden twist of destiny that has brought it into the limelight again. The area of Ballimaran, of which Gali Qasim Jan is a part, got its name (there are other versions too) from the boatmen who once inhabited it. Thereafter, it saw a sea-change with the high and mighty deciding to build their havelis there. It is after Nawab Mir Qasim Jan, an Iranian nobleman, that the gali is named. Qasim Jan at first lived in Lahore, where he was attached to the court of the Governor, Moin-ul-Mulk, in the 1750s. That was the time when Ghalib’s grandfather also migrated to India from Turkey.

Qasim Jan was an influential man and a great friend of the Governor. But when the latter fell fighting Ahmad Shah Abdali, who had invaded Punjab, Qasim Jan helped Moin-ul-Mulk’s widow, Mughlai Begum, to rule the province in the name of her infant son. He seems to have been particularly close to the begum, who admired his sagacity. But the admiration was mutual for Qasim Jan could not have been immune to the charm of the begum who continued to defy Abdali despite losing her husband.

It was during the reign of Shah Alam that Qasim Jan joined the court at Delhi. He was conferred the title of Nawab, and in order to be close to the Red Fort built his haveli in Ballimaran. After the death of Qasim Jan, his son Nawab Faizullah Beg resided in the haveli. Ghalib also lived in Ahata Kale Sahib for some time after his release from debtors’ prison and that is the time he is said to have remarked that after being an inmate in the “Gora” (white man’s) jail he had moved to Kale’s (black man’s) jail.

Ghalib subsequently moved to the haveli in Qasim Jan Street. But during the First War of Independence of 1857, he lived for some time in Sharif Manzil where Hakim Ajmal Khan’s father used to reside. The reason was that Sharif Manzil was a protected place in those days because its owner was the personal physician of the Maharaja of Patiala, who was on good terms with the British. After the upheaval, Ghalib went back to his house, where his wife Umrao Begum held sway and made it into a virtual mosque.

However, there is still a mosque next to Ghalib’s house. An old bearded man, wearing a brand new sherwani and with a stick in hand, was standing next to it. Asked if Ghalib ever visited the masjid, he shook his head and declared, “I don’t think so, unless when he became old. What else can you expect from a man who wrote: ‘Masjid ke zer say ek ghar bana liya hai/Ek banda-e-qamina hamsaye khuda hai” (I have set up abode in the vicinity of a masjid so a wretch is now God’s neighbour). As one walked away after hearing him, the first “degh” of biryani was being opened by the roadside seller and the smell was too appetising to resist the temptation of tasting it. Ghalib too must have eaten like this sometimes or sent his faithful servant Kallu to buy the stuff.

Before settling down in Gali Mir Qasim Jan, Ghalib lived in the house of his in-laws, where several mushairas were held. Why they were discontinued at the haveli is not known but one reason may have been the opposition of his puritanical wife. So the mushairas the poet attended were generally the ones held at the Red Fort and Haveli Sadr Sadur in Matia Mahal. In Agra, of course, he was too young to take part in poetry recitation and instead flew kites with the son of Raja Chet Singh at Kala Mahal, where some claim that his spectre is still seen on moonlit nights. He, no doubt, missed Kala Mahal and the Redstone Horse at Sikandra, Agra, to which he always sent greetings through his friend Mirza Tafta Secundrabadi. The Ballimaran haveli somehow did not evoke the same nostalgia in him, probably because most of his children died in it in infancy. Wonder if he would have approved of the museum set up there! But at Kala Mahal fateha is still offered for his repose.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture> Down Memory Lane / by R.V. Smith / February 26th, 2018

Celebrating Urdu

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

A student posing as Mirza Ghalib
A student posing as Mirza Ghalib

It was an expo with a difference. No, it was not an art, fashion or product fair. It was all about language, something unheard of till then. The city of domes and minarets was witness to a unique celebration of Urdu. And it took school children to bring out the sweetness and magical lyricism of the Urdu language.

Titled after Daagh Dehlvi’s famous couplet ‘Urdu hai jiska naam …’, the exhibition hosted by students and teachers of Central Public High School, Khilwath, recently at the Mehboob Husain Jigar hall in Siasat daily was a runaway success. Students of different schools in the city and lovers of Urdu flocked the show necessitating extension of the expo.

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are headed. The expo did just that.

It not only traced the history of Urdu but gave visitors something to remember long after they left the premises. Some of the finest Urdu couplets and ‘nazms’ were on display.

What added to the appeal was the way students donned the attire and looks of the famous poets of yore. One could see the poet of East, Allama Iqbal, reclining in his trademark black suit and Mirza Ghalib with his typical cone cap and snowy beard, holding a hookah. There was also Wali Deccani, Mohd Quli Qutb Shah, Mir Taqi Mir, Hazrath Amir Khusro besides writers like Ibne Safi, Premchander.

Students waxed eloquent about the works of the poets apart from reciting their verses. Presentation of ‘Shikwa’ and ‘Jawab-e-Shikwa’, the epic poems of Allama Iqbal by students was the high point of the expo.

“We decided to present the language in all its glory as these days everyone is talking about the decline of Urdu,” said Mohd Zafarullah Faheem, Director, Central Public High School.

The limits of one’s language are the limits of one’s world. But there was no limit to the poetical appeal of the expo. Wherever one glanced one was greeted by ‘shayeri’.

Talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to this head. And if you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. That’s what the Urdu expo did — it went straight to the heart.

source: http://ww.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by J.S.Ifthekhar / Hyderabad – November 26th, 2015