IndiStories: Recent Episodes
Surinder Deol
Each episode will carry a short story written by one of the leading writers of the Indian subcontinent and read by the podcaster with additional commentary.
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Gulzar, born Sampooran Singh Kalra on August 18, 1934, in Dina village in the Jhelum district, stands as one of the most distinguished figures in Indian literature and cinema. He is regarded as one of the greatest Urdu poets of this era, with a multifaceted career spanning poetry, film lyrics, screenwriting, and direction.
The trauma of India's partition in 1947 profoundly shaped his worldview and creative sensibilities. Seeking to pursue his literary dreams, he moved to Bombay (now Mumbai), where he worked in a family business while writing poetry in his spare time. His involvement with the Progressive Writers' Association proved transformative, introducing him to literary luminaries and filmmakers who would change the course of his life.
Gulzar directed films such as ‘Aandhi’ and ‘Mausam’ during the 1970s, establishing himself as a filmmaker of rare sensitivity. His cinema was characterized by lyrical storytelling, psychological depth, and innovative use of flashbacks to explore human relationships. His television work, particularly the acclaimed serial ‘Mirza Ghalib’ in the 1980s, demonstrated his mastery as both writer and director, bringing the legendary poet's life to audiences with remarkable authenticity.
Beyond cinema, Gulzar has maintained a distinguished literary career. His writing style is noted for its directness, emotional honesty, and freedom from conventional constraints of meter and rhyme, creating a distinctive voice that eschews ornate rhetoric for simple, powerful expression.
Gulzar has won 5 Indian National Film Awards, 22 Filmfare Awards, one Academy Award, and one Grammy. His song ‘Jai Ho’ from Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 81st Academy Awards. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2002, the Padma Bhushan in 2004, and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award—India's highest honor in cinema. In 2024, he received the Jnanpith Award, India's most prestigious literary honor.
At 91, Gulzar remains an active creative force, demonstrating his commitment to social causes. Gulzar's artistic journey embodies the synthesis of widespread and serious art, proving that commercial success and literary integrity need not be mutually exclusive. His poetry continues to resonate with readers, his songs remain timeless, and his films stand as sensitive explorations of the human condition.
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Syed Muhammad Bashir, known by his pen name Bashir Badr, was born on February 15, 1935, in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. He emerged as one of the most prominent voices in contemporary Urdu poetry, particularly renowned for his ghazals. Badr completed his education at Lucknow University and later taught Urdu at Aligarh Muslim University for several decades before retiring. His literary career spans over six decades, during which he established himself as a master of the ghazal form, captivating audiences across India and Pakistan. He has published numerous poetry collections, including Aas, Saya, and Dushman. His work has earned him several prestigious awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian honors.
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Sahir Ludhianvi (1921-1980), born Abdul Hayee in Ludhiana, was one of the most influential Urdu poets and lyricists of the 20th century. Born into an affluent family, Sahir's childhood was marked by his parents' troubled marriage and eventual separation. These early experiences of emotional turmoil profoundly influenced his poetry, infusing it with themes of pain, disillusionment, and social critique. He studied at Government College, Ludhiana, but left without completing his degree, moving to Lahore, where he began his literary career.
Sahir emerged as a prominent voice in progressive Urdu poetry during the 1940s. His first collection, "Talkhiyaan"(1945), established him as a bold new voice. After the Partition in 1947, he moved to Pakistan but quickly returned to India, settling in Mumbai, where he became one of Hindi cinema's most celebrated lyricists.
His major works include poetry collections, such as "Talkhiyaan," as well as "Parchhaiyan" and "Ao Ke Koi Khwab Bunein." Sahir's influence extended beyond literature into popular culture, making profound social commentary accessible to millions. He remains one of Urdu's most quoted poets, remembered for wedding artistic excellence with unwavering social commitment.
My book Sahir: A Literary Portrait was published by Oxford University Press in 2019. The Hindi version was published the following year by Vani Publications. The extended Urdu edition, beautifully translated by Stuti Agrawal, was published last year with great acclaim.
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Kaifi Azmi, born Syed Athar Husain Rizvi in 1919 in Mizwaan village near Azamgarh (Uttar Pradesh), was one of the most influential Urdu poets of the 20th century. He showed literary promise from an early age, penning his first ghazal at the age of eleven. Deeply moved by social injustice, he became associated with the Progressive Writers’ Movement (Taraqqi Pasand Tahreek) in the 1940s—a collective of writers who sought to use literature as a vehicle for social reform, equality, and resistance against colonial and feudal oppression.
Kaifi’s political convictions led him to join the Communist Party of India, and he devoted his life to blending poetry with activism. He married Shaukat Kaifi, a noted stage and film actress, and their home in Bombay (now Mumbai) became a gathering place for artists, poets, and thinkers. His daughter, Shabana Azmi, is a celebrated actress who has carried forward his legacy of art with conscience.
Kaifi Azmi received numerous honors, including the Padma Shri and the Sahitya Akademi Award, but his truest legacy lies in his moral voice. His poetry collections include Jhankar, Aakhir-e-Shab, and Awara Sajde. He remained committed to secularism, communal harmony, and social justice throughout his life, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire poets and activists alike. Kaifi’s life demonstrated that poetry could be both aesthetically refined and socially transformative. In the landscape of Urdu literature, he stands as a bridge—connecting the romantic tradition of Ghalib and Faiz with the socially conscious modernism that continues to influence poets today.
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Ali Sardar Jafri (1913-2000) was one of the most prominent Urdu poets of the 20th century, born in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh. Coming from an aristocratic family, he was educated at Sultan-ul-Madaris in Lucknow and later studied at Aligarh Muslim University. He became deeply involved in the Progressive Writers' Movement during the 1930s and remained committed to leftist ideals throughout his life, joining the Communist Party of India. Jafri's poetry combined romantic lyricism with social consciousness, making him a unique voice in modern Urdu literature. He moved to Pakistan briefly after Partition but returned to India, settling in Mumbai, where he also worked in the film industry as a lyricist. His notable collections include Parvaan, Ek Khwaab Aur, and Mera Safar, which showcase both his romantic sensibility and political engagement.
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Majrooh Sultanpuri (1919-2000) was one of Urdu literature's most celebrated poets and a prominent lyricist in Hindi cinema. Born as Asrar ul Hassan Khan in Sultanpur, Uttar Pradesh, he adopted the pen name ‘Majrooh’ (meaning ‘wounded’), which reflected the melancholic undertones often found in his work. He began his literary career as a progressive poet, deeply influenced by the Progressive Writers' Movement in Urdu literature. His early poetry dealt with themes of social justice, love, and human suffering, earning him recognition in literary circles. He was particularly known for his ghazals and nazms that captured the essence of human emotions with remarkable sensitivity. In the 1940s, Majrooh transitioned to writing lyrics for Bollywood films, where he achieved tremendous success. He collaborated with legendary music directors like Naushad, S.D. Burman and R.D. Burman created memorable songs. His film songs retained the literary quality of his poetry while appealing to mass audiences. Majrooh wrote lyrics for over 300 films during his career and received several awards, including the Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist multiple times. Beyond cinema, he remained committed to Urdu poetry throughout his life, publishing several collections of his work. He passed away in 2000, leaving behind a rich legacy that bridged classical Urdu literature and popular culture.
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Parveen Shakir (1952-1994) was one of the most celebrated Urdu poets, known for her distinctive feminist voice and innovative approach to ghazal poetry. Born in Karachi, she earned a Master's degree in English Literature and later worked as a civil servant in the Pakistani government.
Shakir published her first poetry collection, "Khushbu" (Fragrance), in 1976, which immediately established her as a significant literary voice. Her subsequent collections included "Sad-barg" (1980), "Khud Kalami" (1990), and "Maah-e-Tamaam" (1994). Her poetry was groundbreaking for its frank exploration of women's emotions, desires, and experiences in a predominantly male literary tradition.
Her work earned numerous awards, including the Pride of Performance, Pakistan's highest literary honor, posthumously in 1999. Tragically, she died in a car accident in 1994 at the age of 42, cutting short a brilliant career. Today, she is remembered as a pioneering voice who transformed Urdu poetry by bringing authentic feminine expression to classical forms, inspiring generations of poets and readers across South Asia.
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Jan Nisar Akhtar (1914-1976) was a distinguished Urdu poet, lyricist, and writer who left an indelible mark on modern Urdu literature and Indian cinema. Born in Gwalior, he came from a literary family and developed his poetic sensibilities at an early age.
Akhtar was known for his progressive ideals and was associated with the Progressive Writers' Movement. His poetry reflected a social consciousness, humanism, and a profound concern for the struggles of ordinary people. He wrote extensively in various forms, including nazms (free verse poems) and ghazals, with themes ranging from love and romance to social justice and political awareness.
In addition to his literary work, Jan Nisar Akhtar made significant contributions to Indian cinema as a lyricist and screenwriter. He penned memorable songs for numerous Bollywood films, bringing poetic elegance to popular cinema. His film lyrics retained the literary quality of his poetry while appealing to a mass audience. His works include several poetry collections, and his writings continue to be celebrated for their lyrical beauty, social relevance, and artistic merit.
He passed away in 1976, leaving behind a rich corpus of work that continues to inspire readers and writers in the Urdu literary world.
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Ahmad Faraz (1931-2008) gained prominence for his passionate ghazals and progressive poetry. His distinctive style blended classical Urdu poetry traditions with contemporary themes. What he wrote was characterized by romantic intensity, social consciousness, and political resistance. His verse focuses on love, loss, and human dignity, while also addressing issues of social justice and political oppression. Some of his most famous poetry collections include Tanha Tanha and Dard-e-Ashob. His ghazal Ranjish Hi Sahi became particularly iconic and was popularized through Mehdi Hassan's rendition.
During General Zia-ul-Haq's military regime, Faraz faced persecution for his progressive views and spent several years in self-imposed exile in London, Canada, and Europe. His resistance poetry during this period earned him great respect among both intellectuals and the general public.
Faraz received numerous awards, including the Pride of Performance (1989) and Hilal-e-Imtiaz (2004). He passed away in Islamabad in 2008, leaving behind a rich legacy that continues to influence Urdu literature. His poetry remains widely read and recited, particularly his verses on love and social justice, which resonate across generations.
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Faiz Ahmad Faiz (1911-1984) was one of the most celebrated and most loved Urdu poets of the last century. Faiz began his literary career in the 1930s and became associated with the Progressive Writers' Movement, which sought to use literature as a tool for social reform. His poetry masterfully combined classical Urdu literary traditions with revolutionary themes, addressing issues of social justice and political oppression. He served in the British Indian Army during World War II, and then worked as a journalist and editor for various publications. After independence, his leftist politics brought him into conflict with the military government. He was imprisoned from 1951 to 1955 on charges of conspiracy against the state, during which time he wrote some of his most powerful poetry. Faiz spent years in exile during the 1960s and 1970s, living in Lebanon, Moscow, and London. He received numerous honors, including the Lenin Peace Prize in 1962. His verses, particularly "Hum Dekhenge" (We Shall See), became anthems of resistance across South Asia. Faiz's work transcended political boundaries, earning him recognition as a poet who gave voice to the oppressed while maintaining the highest artistic standards. He died in Lahore in 1984, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire poets and activists worldwide.
Surinder Deol published an authoritative commentary on Faiz’s life and his work titled FAIZ: From Passionate Love to a Cosmic Vision with a Foreword by Professor Gopi Chand Narang (Rupa Publishers, 2021). The book is available from Amazon and other online book sellers.
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Raghupati Sahay, known by his pen name Firaq Gorakhpuri (1896-1982), was one of the most celebrated Urdu poets of the 20th century. Born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, he bridged cultural and religious divides through his literary work. Firaq was not only a poet but also a distinguished academic and critic. He served as a professor of English literature at Allahabad University for many years and was deeply influenced by both Eastern and Western literary traditions. His academic background in English literature brought a unique perspective to his Urdu poetry.
He received numerous honors during his lifetime, including the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960 and the Jnanpith Award in 1969, making him one of the few Urdu poets to receive this highest literary honor in India. Firaq continued writing until he died in 1982, leaving behind a rich legacy of ghazals, nazms, and rubaiyaat.
Surinder Deol’s book about Firaq’s poetic contributions and his life will be published by RUPA later this year.
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Asghar Hussain, known by his pen name Asghar Gondvi, was born in 1884 in Gorakhpur. Despite formally studying only up to the 8th class, Asghar achieved mastery of Urdu, Persian, and Arabic through self-study, and also gained proficiency in English. He was under the spiritual influence of Sayed Abdul Ghani Kazmi, a religious saint and mystic, and led a life of piety and self-control. Asghar worked in various occupations - he traded optical items, worked in the railway engineering department, and later worked at the India Press in Allahabad. He was associated with the Urdu magazine ‘Hindustani’ as an editor for many years, working under Tej Bahadur Sapru's Hindustani Press. He became a close associate of the famous poet Jigar Moradabadi, who guided him in his poetry. Jigar was married to a sister of Asghar's wife. His poetry collections include ‘Nishat-e-Rooh’ (Bliss of the Soul) and ‘Surood-e-Zindagi’ (Song of Life). Asghar Gondvi died in 1936 due to a paralytic stroke. While his work is relatively small compared to that of classical poets, the quality and spiritual depth of his poetry make it superior in its own right. His poetry continues to be celebrated for its mystical content, philosophical depth, and the unique way he expressed spiritual love through the traditional imagery of romantic Urdu poetry.
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Jigar Moradabadi (1890-1960) was one of the most celebrated Urdu poets of the 20th century, renowned for his passionate ghazals and romantic poetry. Born as Ali Sikander in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, he adopted the pen name ‘Jigar’ (meaning heart or liver, symbolizing intense emotion), which perfectly captured the essence of his deeply emotional verse.
During his lifetime, Jigar was considered one of the leading poets, alongside luminaries such as Josh Malihabadi and Firaq Gorakhpuri. His poetry collections gained widespread popularity, and he was known for his powerful recitations at mushairas. His verses often dealt with the pain of unrequited love and the anguish of separation, themes that resonated with listeners and readers alike.
Jigar's contribution to Urdu literature was significant in maintaining the classical tradition while infusing it with contemporary sensibilities. His work continues to be widely read and appreciated, and many of his verses have been adapted into popular songs in Bollywood. He passed away in 1960, leaving behind a rich legacy of passionate and memorable poetry that continues to move readers today.
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Josh Malihabadi (1898-1982) was one of the most significant Urdu poets of the last century. Due to his revolutionary poetry during the freedom movement, he became known as Shaayir-e-Inquilaab. Josh was born Shabbir Hasan Khan on December 5, 1898, in Malihabad. He studied at St. Peter's College in Agra and later at Tagore's University, where he acquired proficiency in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and English. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru held him in high esteem and frequently attended the mushairas where Josh recited his poetry. The most dramatic chapter of Josh's life came in 1958 when he migrated from India to Pakistan. He had great difficulty in adjusting to the new reality, but could not return and had to live in Pakistan till his death in 1982. His work was celebrated posthumously when the Pakistani government commemorated his centenary by issuing a postal stamp. He was also bestowed with the Hilal-i-Pakistan, the country's highest civilian award, in 2012. Josh's significant poetry collections include Naqsh-o-Nigar, Shola-O-Shabnam, Fikr-O-Nishat, and many others. His autobiography, Yaadon ki Barat, is noted for candid writing.
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Hasrat Mohani (1875-1951), born Syed Fazl-ul-Hasan in Mohan, a town in the Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, was a multifaceted personality who impacted literature and politics in India. He was not only a romantic poet but also a journalist, politician, parliamentarian, and fearless freedom fighter. When he gave the call of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’—Long Live Revolution—he relentlessly fought for India’s independence from British rule. He was imprisoned several times for his rebellious attitude towards the British, but always maintained his spirit, refusing to succumb to any pressure. After India’s independence, he served as a member of the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Indian Constitution, but did not sign it due to certain reservations. He passed away in Lucknow and was buried there.
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Yaas Yagana Changezi (1884–1956), born Mirza Wajid Hussain Changezi, was a bold and unconventional Urdu poet known for his rebellious spirit and modernist outlook. Born in Patna, Yagana carved a unique niche in Urdu literature by defying the traditional romanticism and conventional themes that dominated the poetry of his time. He was heavily influenced by Western philosophy, particularly the works of Nietzsche, and brought a tone of existentialism, skepticism, and self-awareness into his verse. His poetry often critiqued religious dogma, social hypocrisy, and romantic idealism, which made him a controversial figure in literary circles. He frequently challenged the norms contemporaries like Iqbal and Hasrat Mohani upheld, asserting a more personal and introspective voice. Yagana's language was direct, at times abrasive, and deeply philosophical. His major works include collections like Tarana, Nishtar-e-Yaas, and Ghazalistan. He also wrote critical essays, such as Ghalib-Shikan, where he questioned the excessive glorification of Mirza Ghalib. Though marginalized during his lifetime, Yagana is recognized as a precursor to modernism in Urdu poetry and admired for his individualism, intellectual honesty, and fearless expression. He died in Lucknow in 1956, largely forgotten, but modern scholars have rediscovered and celebrated his legacy.
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Fani Badayuni, born Shaukat Ali Khan on September 13, 1879, in Badaun district, was a distinguished Urdu poet renowned for his poignant and melancholic poetry. He hailed from a family that had migrated to India from Kabul during the reign of Shah Alam. He graduated from Bareilly College in 1901 and earned his Bachelor of Laws from Aligarh Muslim University in 1906. Fani began composing poetry at a young age, completing his first Divan by age 20. He persevered despite initial resistance from his orthodox family, who disapproved of his poetic pursuits. His first collection was published in 1917 from Badaun, and his second, ‘Baqiyat-e-Fani,’ was published in 1926. In 1932, Fani moved to Hyderabad at the invitation of Maharaja Kishan Prasad 'Shad,' an Urdu enthusiast and poet. There, he served as a school headmaster and was actively involved in the literary circles of the time, including the court of Prince Moazzam Jah. Fani's poetry is characterized by its deep exploration of sorrow and existential angst, drawing comparisons to the works of Mir Taqi Mir. Fani Badayuni passed away in Hyderabad on August 27, 1941, leaving a profound and introspective legacy.
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Dagh Dehlvi (1831–1905) was one of the most celebrated poets of classical Urdu ghazal of the late 19th century. He came from an aristocratic family, but his father, Nawab Shamsuddin Ahmed Khan, was implicated in the murder of the British Resident William Fraser in 1835 and was executed by the British. This event drastically altered Dagh’s childhood. Following his father’s death, his mother, Wazir Khanum, married the Mughal crown prince Mirza Fakhru, bringing Dagh into the Mughal court's cultural sphere. Dagh was greatly influenced by Zauq, the poet laureate of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s court. The 1857 Revolt and the British suppression of Delhi forced Dagh to leave the city. He moved to Rampur, where the Nawab patronized him, and he later shifted to Hyderabad, where he enjoyed the patronage of the Nizam. Unlike Ghalib and Iqbal, who explored deep philosophical themes, Dagh’s poetry remained centered on the traditional ghazal themes of love and passion. He was also a great poetry teacher, and Allama Iqbal was briefly among his students. Dagh passed away in 1905 in Hyderabad, where he spent his final years under the patronage of the Nizam.
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Momin Khan Momin (1800-1851) was one of the most significant poets of the late Mughal period in Delhi. Born into a family of physicians, he was educated in Persian, Arabic, and traditional Islamic sciences. His real name was Muhammad Momin Khan, but he is known by his pen name ‘Momin.’ Momin was associated with the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, where he was highly respected for his poetic genius. Unlike many of his contemporaries who wrote primarily in Persian, Momin chose to write predominantly in Urdu, contributing significantly to the development of the Urdu ghazal. He is mainly celebrated for his expression’s delicacy (nazakat) and his masterful use of Urdu. His poetry is known for its sophisticated wordplay, subtle imagery, and deep emotional resonance. While his contemporary Mirza Ghalib is often considered the greater philosopher-poet, Momin is regarded as unmatched in his ability to express the nuances of love and longing.
His most famous couplet, ‘Tum mere pas hote ho goya’ (You seem to be near me), remains one of the most celebrated couplets in Urdu literature. Despite his significant contribution to Urdu poetry, Momin lived in relative poverty, supporting himself through his practice as a hakim (traditional physician).
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Maulana Altaf Husain Hali (1837-1914) was a significant Urdu poet and writer from the nineteenth century. He was born in Panipat and wrote in classical Persian and Urdu poetic traditions. However, after meeting Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, he became an essential voice for social reform and modernization in Muslim society. Hali's most famous work is the ‘Musaddas-e-Hali,’ a long poem that critically examined the decline of Muslim civilization and called for social and educational reforms. He was also known for breaking away from the traditional ghazal form to write more socially conscious poetry. He served as a teacher and wrote several influential works of literary criticism, including ‘Muqaddimah-e-Sher-o-Shayiiri’ (An Introduction to Poetry and Poetics), which helped establish modern literary criticism in Urdu. Hali also wrote biographies, including an essential work on Mirza Ghalib, with whom he had studied poetry.
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Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, better known as Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869), was one of the most influential and celebrated Urdu poets. Born in Agra during the decline of the Mughal Empire, he moved to Delhi after his marriage at a young age, where he spent most of his life. Despite facing personal tragedies, including the deaths of all seven of his children in infancy and persistent financial difficulties, Ghalib produced some of the most sophisticated and philosophically complex poetry of his time. His ghazals, characterized by their deep intellectual and emotional depth, often explored themes of love, loss, and the nature of existence. Though he considered himself primarily a Persian poet, his Urdu works earned him lasting fame. Ghalib served as the poet tutor to the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and witnessed the traumatic events of the 1857 uprising against British rule. While his work was not fully appreciated during his lifetime, his poetry became recognized as among the finest in Urdu literature, influencing generations of poets and writers across South Asia.
There is a library full of books about Ghalib and his poetry. But if you have the time to read just one book, it should be ‘Ghalib: Innovative Meanings and the Ingenious Mind’ by Professor Gopi Chand Narang, published by the Oxford University Press in 2017. Nothing else comes close.
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Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810) was born in Agra into a family that enjoyed great respect because of his father’s spiritual leanings. His father inspired Mir to follow the path of universal love and compassion. A tragedy struck when Mir was still young. He fell in love with an extended family member he could not marry. Heartbroken, he left Agra for Delhi, but that city was already in turmoil due to foreign invasions. Lovestruck and without any support, Mir lost the balance of his mind. When Nadir Shah attacked, he left Delhi and settled in Lucknow, where he got an offer of support from Nawab Asifuddaulah, which he turned down and preferred to live in misery. Mir left behind six divans of Urdu ghazals and one of Persian ghazals, apart from other writings that included Zikr-e Mir (an autobiography).
If you wish to gain a deeper understanding of Mir Taqi Mir’s work, please consult ‘The Hidden Garden: Mir Taqi Mir’ by Professor Gopi Chand Narang (translated from Urdu by Surinder Deol), published by Penguin / Viking in 2021.
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Khwaja Mir Dard (1721-1785) was born to a highly respected religious family in Delhi. His father had relinquished his position in the Court to lead the life of a Sufi. Dard, therefore, received his spiritual education from his father. Although many poets left Delhi during the invasions of Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah Abdali, Dard stayed in Delhi and witnessed horrible atrocities. He attained mastery over the Arabic, Persian, and Urdu languages. His close reading of the Quran showed in his poetry. He left behind a collection of Urdu ghazals, a Persian Divan, a prose discourse, a compilation of mystical sayings called Chahaar Risaala, and a book on the Muhammadi path.
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Mirza Mohammad Rafi Sauda (1713-1781) belonged to a family of traders who had migrated to India from Afghanistan. Because of his father's influence in the social circles, Sauda had easy access to nobility and social prestige that others longed for. But this situation didn’t last long. When Delhi came under attack, the family had to find a new place to live. Nawab Asifuddaulah patronized Sauda and was rewarded with an annual stipend of six thousand rupees. Sauda wrote in Persian before coming to Urdu. The Persian literary tradition helped him acquire a tone and tenor, which he adopted to his benefit for writing his poetry in Urdu. He practiced various forms of poetry like panegyric, satire, and elegy and emerged as one of the foundational poets of Urdu Ghazal.
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Zehra Nigah, lovingly called Zehra Aapa, was ten years old when her family moved from Hyderabad, her place of birth, to Karachi after the Partition. Her father was a civil servant who had a deep interest in literature. He passed on his love of books to his children, who excelled in various literary and artistic fields. Zehra Nigah started writing early and gained great popularity among Mushaira audiences. She settled in London after she married Majid Ali. Her house in London became the center of literary activities and poetry recitations, especially when Faiz visited them. She has won several awards and honors for her scholarly achievements. Her notable publications include Shaam Ka Pehla Tara, Warq, Firaq, Gul Chandni, and Lafz.
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Rahat Indori was born in Indore in 1950 in a family that was going through a rough financial time, and as a result, he had to face the brutal realities of life, starting in his childhood. Despite these challenges, he struggled to get a good education, including a doctoral degree. His poetry had an element of directness that summed up the social and political difficulties facing ordinary people. In addition, he developed a style of recitation that impressed Mushaira audiences. Many leading ghazal singers sang his ghazals. He passed away in his hometown in 2020.
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Kunwar Mohinder Singh Bedi 'Saher" was born in 1909 in Sahiwal. After the partition, his family moved to Fazilka. His poetry was stylistically similar to the works of Allama Iqbal and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The Haryana Urdu Akademi instituted an award in his honor that has been presented yearly since 1990. Bedi was also associated with the film industry, producing three films and acting in one. His published works include ‘Tulu-e-Sahar’ ( a poetry collection) and ‘Yaadon Ka Jashn’ (a memoir). Jagjit Singh produced an album titled ‘Forget Me Not’ in 2002, singing eight of Bedi’s ghazals in his melodious voice. Bedi passed away in 1992.
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Saghar Siddiqui was born in 1928 in Ambala. He started writing poetry at a young age. In 1947, when he was 19, he migrated to Pakistan during the partition and settled in Lahore. In his later life, he fell into depression, became addicted to drugs, and turned into a homeless beggar. He would often hold mushairas on the footpaths in candlelight. He continued to write ghazals, though most were lost and remained unpublished. In 1974, Siddiqui, who was 46 at that time, was found dead on a street corner in Lahore. It is a very tragic life story of a highly accomplished poet!
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Obaidullah Aleem was born in Bhopal in 1939. His family moved to Pakistan at the time of partition. He received higher education at the University of Karachi while pursuing several creative interests. He made an impressive debut as a radio and TV artist. Still, due to the discrimination he faced as an Ahmedia, everything came to a halt in 1978 when he was made to resign because of his religious beliefs. He moved to England in 1991 but soon returned to Pakistan. He passed away in 1998. His first book, ‘Chand Chehra Sitara Aankhen,’ published in 1974, gained great popularity. He was awarded the Adamji Prize, the highest literary award in Pakistan.
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Khaleel-ur Rehman Azmi, a leading Urdu poet and literary critic, was born in 1927. He received his higher education at the Aligarh Muslim University, where he taught Urdu. He was posthumously elevated to the rank of a Professor. He wrote extensively on the progressive writers’ movement and is considered a pioneer of Modernism in Urdu. He mentored the leading British Urdu scholar Ralph Russell and poet Shahryar. He authored nearly a dozen collections of poetry and literary criticism. He passed away in 1978.
His famous couplets include:
Hazaar tarah ki mai pi hazaar tarah ke zahr
Na pyaas hi bujhi apni na hausla nikla
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Hastimal Hasti (1946-2024) came from a humble background in Rajasthan but gained fame while working for the film industry in Mumbai. His poetry found a common ground between Urdu and Hindi, and as such, he endeared himself to a diverse audience. His ghazal, ‘Pyaar ka pehla khat likhne mein vaqt to lagta hai,’ was sung by Jagjit Singh, and it became an instant hit. He is also the author of a famous couplet:
Har gaaon mein mumtaaz janam kyon nahin leti
Har mod pe ik taj mahal kyon nahin hota
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Shahid Kabir was born in May 1932 in Nagpur. He started writing short stories and ghazals early and earned fame and name recognition after he began writing for films. In 1957, he authored a play about the life of Mirza Ghalib that was staged at Rastrapati Bhawan. His books include Kachchi Deewaarein (Novel, 1958) and ghazal collections such as Charon-or (1968) and Mitti Ka Makan (1979). He was honored by the Maharashtra State Urdu Academy. He passed away in May 2001.
Jagjit and Chitra Singh have sung Shahid Kabir’s ghazals, including the more famous one:
Niind se aankh khuli hai abhi dekha kya hai
Dekh lena abhi kuchh der mein duniya kya hai
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Andleeb Shadani was born in Moradabad district, UP, in 1904. He studied Persian at the Punjab University and earned a doctoral degree in England in 1934. He taught at the Hindu College in Delhi before moving to Dacca University. His poetry collection is called Nishaat-e-Rafta. He died in July 1969 in Dacca in what was still East Pakistan. Many singers, including Jagjit Singh, have sung his ghazals. His most famous ghazal is der lagi aane mein tum ko, shukr hai phir bhi aaye to.
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On August 18, 2024, we celebrate the 90th Birthday of Gulzar Sahib. Some people say age is nothing more than a number, yet we can’t deny that it is an important milestone. Gulzar’s creative spark is as bright as it has been over the years. He leads a busy life, reading, staying in touch with his friends, and writing new stuff, maybe poetry or something difficult to put in a box. As a long-time admirer of Gulzar’s work, I wish him, along with millions of his fans, many more years of creative living, producing words that continue to help us stay connected with our spirit and our humanity and be the best carriers of his universal message of love, empathy, and the pursuit of peace in our communities and beyond.
Here is a poem which I have written to mark this historic occasion:
They say the poet has gone missing,
vanished without a trace
from the familiar haunts he once graced.
Whispers drift like fog,
of his presence among the clouds,
dancing with rainbows cloaked in mist.
Nine decades of seasons have passed,
years coming and disappearing
like straws in the wind,
as he roams in uncharted landscapes,
a free spirit untethered by earthly bounds.
Some claim to have seen him
in hidden gardens, conversing
with ancient trees, sharing wisdom
with wide-eyed children. He teaches
the gentle art of surrender,
of being a wave in the ocean
while always returning
to the sacred center, the heart
from which all life flows.
Many long for his return,
yet others understand his chosen path,
finding comfort in his dwelling
within millions of hearts — of those
who cherish his words.
For what better home exists
than the embrace of unreserved love?
Perhaps he never truly left,
but discovered his real home,
not in a physical place but within
the essence of connection,
the eternal sanctuary of belonging.
Surinder Deol
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Sudarshan Faakir, an exceptional nazm and ghazal poet, was born in 1934 in Jalandhar. He studied at the DAV College and earned a master's degree in Political Science. His first job was at the local radio station, but other opportunities attracted him, and he got into directing stage plays and movies. Although he started writing at a young age, his talent surfaced once he became a lyricist for Bollywood movies and even won the coveted Filmfare award. The lyricism of his compositions was so appealing that he became the favorite poet of great ghazal singers like Begum Akhtar, Jagjit, and Chitra Singh. Who hasn’t heard his nazm Ye Kaaghaz Ki Kashti in the melodious voice of Jagjit Singh?
ye daulat bhi le lo ye shohrat bhi le lo
bhale chhiin lo mujh se meri javaani
magar mujh ko lota do vo bachpan ka saavan
vo kaaghaz ki kashti vo baarish ka paani
ye daulat bhi le lo ye shohrat bhi le lo
Take this wealth, take this fame
You may even snatch away my youth
But return to me that rainy season of my childhood
That paper boat, that rainwater
Take this wealth, take this fame
Sudarshan Faakir died in the city of his birth in 2008.
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Naresh Kumar Shaad was born in a village near Hoshiarpur in 1927. He earned great admiration as a poet, prose writer, translator, and editor of several literary journals. Drinking became his weakness and caused him much grief. His father, Dard Nikodari, was also a poet and one of the distinguished disciples of master poet Josh Malsiyani. Therefore, it was natural that Shaad acquired the skill of composing a ghazal at an early age. He was often in and out of government jobs as he pursued his literary passion, but the lack of stability in life eluded him.
His poetry collections include Butkada, Faryaad, Dastak, Lalkaarr, and others. He wrote several works of prose, including books for children.
Shaad was found dead on the banks of river Jamuna in May 1969, an unfortunate end to a literary life that was filled with so much promise.
He is remembered for many couplets, but the one below is a classic on the theme of separation:
zindagi naam hai judaaii ka
aap aaye to mujh ko yaad aaya
Life is but another name for separation
I remembered it on seeing you
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Abbas Tabish, a famous Mushaira poet, was born in 1961. His ghazal poetry is known for amalgamating contemporary sociopolitical themes with the intoxicating flavor of the classical ghazal of the late 19th century. He teaches at the Government College University in Lahore. One of his famous couplets goes like this:
chaand chehre mujhe achhe to bahut lagte hain
i’shq main us se karunga jise Urdu aaye
I like moon-like beauties
but I will fall in love with someone
who knows Urdu
Abbas Tabish has won several awards for his poetic achievements. His published works include Aasmaan (1991), I’shq Aabaad (2011), and Agar Main She’r Na Kehta (2022).
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Amjad Islam Amjad was a multi-talented poet, lyricist, and TV serial creator who significantly contributed to Urdu literature. He was born in Lahore in 1944. He held several high positions in institutions connected with arts, entertainment, and education and received several honors from the government and other national and international organizations. He thoroughly mastered the art of ghazal writing, highly appealing nazms in free verse, and plays for TV and the stage. He published nearly a dozen books of poetry and lyrics besides travelogues and translations. He passed away in 2023 due to cardiac arrest.
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Kaif Bhopali was born in 1917 in Bhopal to a family of Kashmiri origin. He gained great fame as a literary poet and film lyricist. Who has not heard and appreciated Mohd Rafi’s classic hit song, ‘Chalo Dildaar Chalo,’ from Kamal Amrohi’s 1972 film ‘Pakeezah?’ Kaif Bhopali wrote that song. Jagjit Singh also popularized several ghazals by Kaif in his melodious voice. The following couplet, one of the most remarkable in Urdu ghazal poetry, was penned by Kaif as well.
zindagi shaayad isi ka naam hai
duuriyaan majbuuriyaan tanhaaiiyaan
Kaif Bhopali’s published works include Kue Butaan (1963), Aahang-e Kaif (1993), and Chaand Ke Paar(2002), as well as several volumes of Quranic studies. He passed away in 1991.
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Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi, a leading figure in modern Urdu literature, was born in 1916 near Sargodha. After earning his master's degree, he worked in the Reform Commissioner’s office in Lahore in 1936. During the 1940s, his friendship with Manto inspired him to write scripts for films, but none of those films came to fruition. Following the Partition, he worked briefly as a scriptwriter for Radio Pakistan in Peshawar. Soon after, he joined the editorial board of the reputed journal ‘Savera’ and was elected Secretary General of the Progressive Writers Association, Pakistan. Because of his anti-establishment attitude, he was arrested and imprisoned for seven months. In 1963, he launched his journal, ‘Funoon,’ which remained one of the most prestigious literary journals until the end. Qasmi achieved great success as a poet and a short story writer. He published nearly 50 books of short fiction, poetry, and literary criticism. The government of Pakistan conferred on him the highest civilian honors. Qasmi passed away in July 2006.
Gulzar had a close personal relationship with Qasmi and affectionately called him ‘Baba.’ He dedicated a short opening poem to ‘Baba’ in his poetry collection ‘Raat Pashmiine Ki.’
jis tarah tan jhulasti garmi mein
thande dariya mein dubkiyaan le kar
dil ko raahat naseeb hoti hai
aisa hi itminaan hota hai
ek achhi si nazm ko padh kar!
lagta hai zindagi ke dariya mein
ek taari laga ke nikle hain
ruuh kaisi nihaal hoti hai!!
Just as the body finds comfort
from the scorching heat,
by plunging into a cold river,
so does the heart find solace
in reading a well-crafted poem!
It feels as though we have come out
after the absorption in the river of life.
How joyful the soul becomes!!
[Trans. by Surinder Deol]
Khumar Barabankvi (1919 – 1999) was named Mohammed Haidar Khan by his parents. His uncle ‘Qaraar Barabankvi’ was a well-known poet of Barabanki who guided Khumar at a young age. His brother Qazim Haider ‘Nigar’, who died at an early age, was also a poet. It was, therefore, natural for the young lad in the family to follow in the footsteps of his elders. He selected ‘Khumar’ as his pen name and started writing ghazal poetry. He became friends with Jigar Moradabadi, one of the greatest poets of his time. In 1945, Khumar came to Bombay with Jigar and Majrooh Sultanpuri to participate in a Mushaira. When AR Kardar heard his ghazals, he asked him to write a song for his film ‘Shah Jahan,’ which Khumar accepted. Naushad composed the music and Kundan Lal Sehgal sang the ghazal चाह बर्बाद करेगी हमें मालूम न था. Khumar stayed in Mumbai for a short time, but within that period, his work was adored by many great music directors, and his lyrics gained great popularity. Who has not heard तस्वीर बनाता हूँ तस्वीर नहीं बनती in the soft silken voice of Talat Mehmood? Five collections of his poetry were published during his lifetime.
Sahir Hoshiarpuri (1913-1994) is less well-known than Sahir Ludhianvi, but they share some commonalities. They were born in places (Ludhiana and Hoshiarpur) that are geographically close. Their ghazal poetry is heart-touching and drowns the reader in the emotional fervor of evocative words. Sahir Hoshiarpuri, originally named Ram Parkash Sharma, studied Persian at the prestigious Government College in Lahore. His friendship with Mehr Lal Soni Zia Fatehabadi, a student at the FC College, impacted Sahir’s development as a poet. Seven collections of his poetry were published, but they failed to get their deserved attention. The Ghalib Institute in Delhi awarded him the Ghalib Award. Sahir’s poetry got renewed attention when Jagjit Singh sang one of his ghazals.
Qateel Shifai, originally named Mohammad Aurangzeb, was born in Haripur in Hazara District in 1919. His father's sudden demise disrupted his higher education. He tried his luck in business but failed. He moved to Lahore in 1946, which was the start of his literary life. He earned great fame as a film lyricist and a literary poet. He published nearly 20 books of ghazals and poems and wrote over 2000 film lyrics. He won many awards, including the Government of Pakistan’s Pride of Performance Award in 1994. He passed away in 2001. His autobiography, ‘Ghungroo Tuut Gaye,’ was published by his son in 2006.
Shakeel Badayuni was born in Badaun in 1916 and received higher education at the Aligarh Muslim University. He became interested in poetry and wanted to be a romantic poet, which was unusual because, at that time, the progressive writer’s movement was at its peak. But Shakeel decided to be an interpreter of his heart. After working in Delhi for a few years, he moved to Bombay in 1944. His association with music director Naushad gave us unforgettable lyrics from films like Baiju Bawra, Mother India, Mughl-e Azam, Chaudvin Ka Chand, and many others. Begum Akhtar sang some of his compositions; these ghazals sung in her melodious voice are considered classics in the ghazal singing genre. He won the Filmfare award for the best lyricist in 1961. Shakeel died at a relatively young age of 53. In one of his popular lyrics, he said farewell in an emotionally vibrant language.
ये ज़िंदगी के मेले
दुनियाँ में कम ना होंगे
अफ़सोस, हम ना होंगे
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.
Your feedback is most welcome. surindeol@gmail.com
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.
Your feedback is most welcome. surindeol@gmail.com
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.
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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.
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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.
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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, thelyrical 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.
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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.
In this Season finale, I present a short story by Intizar Husain, the eminent short story writer, and novelist of the Indian subcontinent. He was born in a small town in the district of Bulandshahr, UP, and his family migrated to Pakistan in 1947. But it seems that he left his heart behind because not only pre-partition India but the dominant themes in the Indian culture, including folk tales and ancient epics, stayed in his consciousness. He repeatedly used these themes in his stories and novels. His 1979 novel Basti, translated into English by Francis Pritchett, was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize. In addition, he received several other honors and awards, including Premchand Fellowship by the Sahitya Akademi in 2007. Intizar Husain was a close friend and admirer of my mentor, Professor Gopi Chand Narang. I recall several conversations with Narang Sahib about Husain's literary contributions. He died in 2016 after a brief illness.
Intizar Husain was born in a small town in the district of Bulandshahr, UP, and his family migrated to Pakistan in 1947. But it seems that he left his heart behind because not only pre-partition India but the dominant themes in the Indian culture, including folk tales and ancient epics, stayed in his consciousness. He repeatedly used these themes in his stories and novels. His 1979 novel Basti, translated into English by Francis Pritchett, was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize. In addition, he received several other honors and awards, including Premchand Fellowship by the Sahitya Akademi in 2007. Intizar Husain was a close friend and admirer of my mentor, Professor Gopi Chand Narang. I recall several conversations with Narang Sahib about Husain's literary contributions. He died in 2016 after a brief illness.
This is a short story by Fahmida Riaz, a poet, distinguished author, and tireless fighter for women’s rights. She was born in Meerut in 1946, and after the partition, her family settled in Hyderabad, Sindh. During the dictatorial regime of Zia Ul Haq, she was charged with several crimes, and she sought refuge in India and spent seven years in exile. On Women’s Rights, she once said, and I quote, “Feminism has so many interpretations. What it means for me is simply that women, like men, are complete human beings with limitless possibilities. They must achieve social equality, like the Dalits or the Black Americans. In the case of women, it is so much more complex. I mean, there is the right to walk on the road without being harassed. Or to be able to swim or write a love poem, like a man, without being considered immoral. The discrimination is obvious, subtle, cruel, and always inhuman.” Unquote The story Aurat aur Cheetah, meaning The Woman and the Leopardis about a woman’s primordial fears of subjugation. Fahmida uses Leopard as a metaphor for the power of the patriarchy to oppress women. This repression is the cause of endless suffering and psychological complications for women.
Saadat Hasan Manto’s name should be familiar to listeners of this Podcast because his short story Toba Tek Singh was the first story to be featured in this Podcast. Manto gained great fame as a playwright and a short story writer in pre-partition India, but his greatest achievement was how he captured the brutality unleashed by India’s partition and how women suffered the most in this carnage. Khol Do or Open! is truly a very short story consisting of 3 ½ print pages but it encapsulates more than anything written about the animality and brutality of partition.
In this episode, I present a short story written by Yashpal, an eminent Hindi writer whose work has been compared with that of Munshi Prem Chand. Yashpal was born in Kangra Hills in 1903. He was an early follower of Gandhi Ji's non-violent approach, but after meeting Bhagat Singh and Sukhdev at the National College in Lahore, he became a full-fledged revolutionary, turning himself to be a fugitive in 1929 when he tried to blow up a train carrying Viceroy Lord Irwin. On release from prison, he dedicated himself to writing fiction and propagating the communist ideology. He was awarded Padma Bhushan in 1970. He died in 1976 at the age of 73. He left behind a rich literary legacy consisting of a dozen novels, five collections of short stories, and a travelogue.
It is a romantic story written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, who is remembered as a novelist, story writer, film director, and distinguished journalist. Although I did not fully subscribe to the communist worldview, when I picked up a copy of BLITZ weekly magazine as a student, I immediately jumped to what was called the Last Page. This place was reserved for a column by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. He was born in Panipat, a town in Haryana that we often associate with Maulana Hali. Abbas’s grandfather Khwaja Ghulam Abbas was, in fact, a chief rebel in the 1857 Rebellion. We also remember Abbas for his films like Dharti Ke Lal, Pardesi, and especially Raj Kapoor films such as Awara, Shree 420, Jagte Raho, Mera Naam Joker, and Bobby. Abbas got a bachelor’s degree in English literature and a law degree from Aligarh Muslim University. He authored dozens of books that were published in Urdu, Hindi, English, and numerous foreign languages. He died in 1987.
Bhisham Sahni, the younger brother of famous Bollywood actor Balraj Sahni, was born in Rawalpindi in 1915. Throughout his life, Bhisham Sahni’s name was associated with progressive causes and movements. He is most remembered for his epic novel Tamas in which he soulfully narrated the 1947 riots he witnessed in the city of his birth. Sahni also wrote plays, and two of his creations, Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein and Madhvi, earned critical acclaim. About his literary contributions, Kamleshwar wrote: “Bhisham Sahni’s name is etched into the 20th century of Hindi literature that it cannot be erased.” Some critics have compared his short stories to that of Munshi Premchand. He passed away in 2003.
Welcome to IndiStories Episode 22. Qurratulain Hyder, Aini Aapa to her friends, was an outstanding literary personality who wrote both in Urdu and English. Her novel Aag Ka Dariya (the River of Fire), her magnum opus, bears a comparison to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. In this episode, I present her Urdu short story Nazzara Darmiyaan Hai, which is one of the best Urdu short stories ever written. Aini Aapa won several literary awards, including Jnanpith Award in 1989. She passed away in 2007.
When we look at the landscape of modern Hindi fiction, there are a few names like Munshi Prem Chand that take the top spot, but there are a few others who made lasting contributions to the art of storytelling. One such name that comes to my mind is Agyeya. He was born in Kasia, a small town in Uttar Pradesh, in 1911 in a Punjabi Brahmin family and he adopted an unusual pen name, Agyeya, meaning the unknowable. Agyeya wrote poetry, published novels and short stories, plays, travelogues, and several works of literary criticism. As an academic and journalist, Agyeya was the voice of modernism and experimentalism in Hindi literature. He was awarded many honors including Sahitya Akademi Award in 1964, Jnanpith Award in 1979, and the Golden Wreath Award in 1983. He passed away in 1987. I present ROZ a short story written by Agyeya. Let us hear the story.
In this episode, I present FALLS, a short story by Geeetha Nair G. It is about a romance that happened many years ago. Still, a chance encounter brought back memories of what looked real at one time, but underneath, it was a show rather than a commitment. We calculate how our future will play out, but the arc of life is unpredictable. All our plans and schemes can unravel as time marches forward. The story is drawn from the Punch Magazine Anthology of New Writing by the Woman Writers and is presented here with the permission of Shireen Quadri, Anthology’s editor. Geetha Nair G is a retired professor of English from Kerala. She has authored numerous short stories and poems and won the Rabindranath Tagore Poetry competition in 2019.
If you love good Urdu prose, we have a real gift for you. A. Hameed was a Pakistani novelist and story writer who wrote fiction with a poetic flair. Using metaphors, mainly drawn from the beauty of nature, he weaved a net of words that enveloped the reader in its fold. He was born in Amritsar in 1928 and wrote about 200 novels and nearly 100 books for children. He was awarded the Pride of Performance Award by the government in 1997. He passed away in 2011. The story ‘Aur Pull Tuut Gaya’ selected for this Podcast is a romantic tale that breaks the reader’s heart with its slow-moving march towards the shattering of a romantic alliance.
The story “Kashmir Valley’s Soofiya Bano” was written by Humra Quraishi. Set against the backdrop of the devastating floods in the valley in 2014, we learn from the story about the painful search of a mother for her missing son. The son was arrested and then he fell into the black hole of the security apparatus. The story starts with the description of the flooded Srinagar home of academic Agha Ashraf Ali, father of Agha Shahid Ali, the well-known poet, and his wife from Awadh, with a nostalgic touch. This part is real and not fiction. One family’s tragic end, which is actual history, is then mingled with the fictional account of the destruction of another family, a family of an imagined mother and her son. The real is thus combined with the magical, or as the author calls it, we are all ‘flowing along with our destiny.’
The story titled "Pinjara" was written by Upendranath Ashk, a famous novelist, story writer, and playwright. He was born in Jalandhar, in 1910. He worked for All India Radio for many years and invented what came to be known as naturalistic Hindi theater. Upenderanath Ashk had complete mastery over Hindi and Urdu and his books were published in both these languages. In 1940 he moved to Allahabad where he spent the rest of his life. He passed away in 1996.
"Puure Chaand Ki Raat" is a story written by Krishan Chander, the eminent Urdu fiction writer, who weaved poetry into his prose writing. This love story is set in Kashmir and even if you have never visited this place you can smell the purified and fragrant air of the Valley in Krishan Chander’s writing. Love can take many forms, but if you have loved someone deeply your love for that person will never die. Krishan Chander’s description of nature is realistic as well as mysterious. He creates colorful images, one after the other, with the power of his pen.
We start the second season with a fascinating story titled "Static A.D." written by Ameta Bal. The story is drawn from the "Anthology of New Writing by Women Writers" produced by the Punch literary magazine and edited by Shireen Quadri. This anthology is a beautiful collection. Get a copy of this book, and you can spend hours reading these fascinating tales.
"Static A.D." selected for this program is about what looks like the end of the world, or the world as we know it. There are riots, and people walk on the roads like ghosts searching for food and shelter. The writer uses short sentences with a poetic flair, and she takes us to an apocalyptic scenario that we all dread. Still, it is a place that is probably our journey's end as human species, given the damage we have done to the environment and continue to do.
Ameta Bal is a postgraduate in Fashion and English Literature. She has worked with Indian Express, Hindustan Times, Marie Claire, and Elle. She is currently learning Korean and spends her time gaming, watching, and reading all things apocalyptic while trying vainly to shun social media.
The Chessplayers as a piece of historical fiction is a class by itself. At the surface level, it is the story of two petty Nawabs who were obsessed with the game of chess, but at the deeper level, it is the story of the fall of Oudh, and even the fall of independent India. Once the British took hold of Oudh, very little could come in their way to grasp the remnants of the Mughal Empire in Delhi and the rest of India. For the city of Lucknow itself, it was the best of times and the worst of times. People were engaged in all kinds of artistic pursuits and in all kinds of pleasure-inducing activities while the foundation of the state was shaking and the British were eagerly waiting for an opportunity to steal the kingdom. Nawab Wajid Ali Shah had his faults, but he was a legendary ruler in many ways. A patron of arts, a poet and musician, a playwright, and an actor, but unfortunately, he had lost touch with the intricacies of statecraft. The game of chess became deadly that not only brought the friendship between the two players to an end, but at a higher level, it was the failure of a dream, a world, despite its shortcomings that had several positive aspects which survived the colonial takeover and are considered great gifts to the tradition of the Indian dance and music.
Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore is a writer who needs no introduction to the listeners. He not only rejuvenated Bengali literature, but there is not an Indian genre or subgenre of fiction, poetry, playwriting, philosophy, art, and education that he did not profoundly influence. He was born in Calcutta in 1861 in a distinguished family at the forefront of the Indian renaissance. While on a trip to England, he showed his translation of Gitanjali to poets William Butler Yeats and Ezra Pound, who helped him get the book published by Asia Society. That is how he won the Noble Prize in Literature in 1913; the first non-European to win this honor. He was also awarded a knighthood in 1915, which he renounced after the Jallianwala massacre of 1919. Tagore started writing short stories when he was sixteen. He was a gifted composer and composed more than 2000 songs. His songs are also national anthems of two countries – India and Bangladesh. Tagore traveled extensively and conversed with leading literary, political, and scientific personalities of his time, people like Einstein. He influenced literature and arts, not only in India but globally. The story “The Tale of a Muslim Woman” was composed by Tagore a few months before his death, but it was not published until 1955.
IndiStories presents a piece written by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, and the most loved Indian political leader. Because of his education at Harrow School, Trinity College, Cambridge, and the one who was trained in law at the Inner Temple, he acquired deep thinking skills that he used to probe India’s history and culture. Who doesn’t remember his Tryst With Destiny speech that he delivered as the clock struck midnight to usher India into an era of freedom? Nehru called himself an agnostic and a scientific humanist. IndiStories is a podcast for short fiction, while what we are presenting here may be called an essay or a page from a book on philosophy and culture. That may be true. But it is also true that the journey of Hinduism during the ages is also a story. It is not a piece of fiction, but a fascinating story nevertheless. It is a story that is highly relevant to the times we live in. The word Hinduism is being redefined and new meanings are being assigned to it. In this context, it is important for us to know what Pandit Nehru with his critical scientific inquiring mind thought about Hinduism. This story is excerpted from Nehru’s book The Discovery of India which he wrote in Ahmadnagar Fort Prison for a period of five months, April through September 1944.
'The Death of Mahatma Gandhi’ is a story like no other because it is based on the eyewitness account of someone who saw it all. Nayantara Sahgal, the distinguished novelist, is a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family. Her mother Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Jawaharlal Nehru’s sister, was the 8th president of the UN General Assembly, besides being a governor and a member of parliament. Nayantara is Pandit Nehru’s niece and Indira Gandhi’s cousin. She has published about a dozen novels besides two memoirs and other books. As an outspoken defender of human rights and democracy, she had a falling out with her cousin, Indira Gandhi, and Nayantara penned two books criticizing Indira’s authoritative style of leadership. Indira, on her side, retaliated when she canceled Nayantara’s appointment as India’s ambassador to Italy. Born in 1927, Nayantara leads an active life and lives in the same house in Dehradun, where she has spent the better part of her life. This story is excerpted from her memoir Prison and Chocolate Cake, published in 1954.
Famous Urdu novelist and short story writer Qurratulain Hyder once described Professor Gopi Chand Narang, who passed away on June 15, 2022, as a "renaissance man" of Urdu. Narang called his life a safr-e i'shq (the journey of love) for Urdu language and literature. The story of Ghazal included in this episode has been excerpted from the book The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture. We all love ghazals and that is why we read them and listen to them in the immortal voices of singers like Begum Akhtar, Mahdi Hasan, and Jagjit Singh. But many of us do not know much about its origin, its flowering over the past 300 years. If you listen to this Podcast you will familiarize yourself with the history of Urdu ghazal over hills and valleys, a very dangerous terrain at times, but surviving because of its inner strengths. When significant literary figures depart, they leave behind their work of a lifetime. Professor Narang's contribution will be remembered as long as literary tradition is alive and well in Urdu and scholars are writing about the origins and growth of literary criticism in Indian languages. His legacy is safely protected in between the covers of his books and that is the place where students of language, literature, and criticism will continue to get their inspiration.
Satyajit Ray was a multidimensional genius who showed his talent in many fields and genres besides films. He was an author, lyricist, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. Ray was born in Calcutta in 1921. He was only three when his father passed away, and he was raised by his mother, Suprabha Ray. He was educated at the Presidency College, Calcutta, and Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan. His first job was at a book publishing company where he designed book covers. This work got him interested in films and literature. Ray was greatly influenced by the Italian film Bicycle Thief in 1948 and determined to be a filmmaker. Starting with a low-budget film Pather Panchali, Ray went on to produce such classics as The Apu Trilogy, Devi, Charulata, and his only non-Bengali movie Shatranj Ke Khiladi. Ray won several prestigious national and international awards, including Bharat Ratna and an honorary Academy Award. While most of us know Satyajit Ray as a filmmaker, his work as an author of several novels and short stories is less known. Detective fiction and science fiction were two genres where Ray showed his talent as a writer. Ray's short story, "Big Bill," selected for this episode, combines detective and science fiction elements.
Ismat Chughtai was born in Badaun in 1915 in a large family of six brothers and four sisters. Her elder brother, Mirza Azim Beg Chughtai, a novelist, became her mentor and encouraged her to become a writer. Because she wrote openly about female sexuality, she got into legal trouble with the publication of her s short story Lihaaf, which featured a begum having a lesbian relationship with her maid. She was charged with promoting obscenity, and the case went up to Lahore High Court before she was acquitted. Ismat spent a better part of her working life in the film industry. She published eight novels, including one based on the life of actor and director Guru Dutt. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in the late 1980s, and she died in 1991. At her wish, she was cremated and not buried
This week I present the work of an outstanding Punjabi poet and fiction writer Amrita Pritam. She was born in 1919 in a village in Gujranwala district, now in Pakistan. She moved to Lahore to work for the All-India Radio and married a businessman named Pritam Singh. This is how she acquired her last name. The country’s partition was a traumatic event for millions of people who were uprooted. Amrita Pritam felt the pain of everyone and penned her most famous work, a poem titled ajj aakhaan waris shah nuun. She spent the rest of her life in New Delhi writing poetry, short stories, novels, autobiographies, and travelogues that number dozens. She spent the last forty years of her life with Imroze, her partner, who brought artistic flair to her book covers and pencil sketches in between the pages. She earned many awards including Sahitya Akademi, Padma Vibhushan, and Jnanpith. Amrita died in her sleep in October 2005 at age 86.
This week I bring you the work of an outstanding Indian novelist and short story-writer Qurratulain Hyder or simply “Ainee Aapa” to many of her fans. To her literary admirers, she was the Grande Dame of Urdu literature. She was born in Aligarh in 1927 where her parents were established literary figures. Educated in Delhi and Lucknow, she moved to Pakistan in 1947 where she published her Magnum Opus Aag Ka Dariya or The River of Fire. This work is often compared with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. She soon realized that the religious climate in Pakistan was not suitable for her literary taste and she returned to India in 1960. She was associated with the Illustrated Weekly of India as a member of the editorial staff. She received Sahitya Akademi Award for the collection of stories Patjhar Ki Aawaaz in 1967, the Jnanpith Award for Aakhre Shab Ke Hamsafar in 1989, and the Padma Bhushan in 2005. Ms. Hyder translated most of her works into English. She passed away in 2007.
This week I bring you the work of another leading storyteller from the Progressive Writers Movement: Krishan Chander, a familiar name to Urdu and Hindi readers. He was born in 1914 in Bharatpur in Rajasthan, where his father practiced medicine. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the F.C. College in Lahore, a reputable institution of higher learning before the partition. Krishan Chander was a prolific writer – he wrote 50 novels and 34 collections of short stories, and his prose was always lyrical, grabbing the reader’s attention, at a deeper level. Besides being a literary icon, Krishan Chander spent several years writing dialogues or screenplays in the Bollywood film industry. He died due to a massive heart attack while he was starting to write a short story in 1977.
Rajinder Singh Bedi, a leading short story writer in the Urdu's progressive writers' movement was born in 1915. He started to write at an early age and achieved fame as an author of path-breaking stories like Woolen Coat and Give Me Your Sorrows. After the partition, he spent the rest of his life in the film industry in Mumbai, or Bombay as it was called then. Starting with a low-budget movie called Bari Behan in 1949, Bedi succeeded as a script or a dialogue writer or a director of top-rated movies like Dev Das, Madhumati, Mirza Ghalib, Dastak, Anupama, Satya Kaam, Baharon Ke Sapne, and Mere Hamdam Mere Dost.
Professor Gopi Chand Narang wrote the first detailed well-argued structuralist analytic article in 1965 on Bedi's art of story writing. Professor Narang established that Bedi's creativity sought inspiration from the mythic roots or archetypal imprints of the Indian culture. His concept of womanhood had footprints of Shakti or Mamta – the one whosuffers yet brimming with the life she nurtures her creation.
A great calamity hit Bedi when his son, Narinder, a successful film director, suddenly passed away in 1982. He himself was afflicted with a stroke in 1979.
The author had many successes; he faced some failures and suffered tragic losses, but he never lost the zest for life, a sense of humor, and love for his family and the people around him. He passed away in 1984.
In this episode, I present his famous story, Woolen Coat.
This episode brings a story written by Mulk Raj Anand, a path-breaking writer. Born in Punjab in 1905, he broke many barriers, earning a doctorate in philosophy from Cambridge University in 1929. He was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, which included many bright minds of the 20th century like E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, and Virginia Woolf. He was also a close friend of T.S. Eliot, Bertrand Russell, George Orwell, and Picasso, and a founder member of the Progressive Writers Association. Anand published thirteen novels and nine collections of short stories. He sharply focused on the lives of the working poor, helpless victims of the caste system, and impoverished and exploited folks, which made him a writer with a mission. After spending many years in England, Anand returned to India in 1947. Anand won many honors, including International Peace Prize, Padma Bhushan, and Sahitya Akademi Award. He died in 2004. The chosen story, The Liar, is about a hunter who his employer and other folks despise as a liar. But the lies he tells are a way of finding his own identity and discovering meaning in his life and are not meant to harm anyone.
Munshi Premchand was a trailblazer storyteller who is remembered for his path-breaking contributions to both Urdu and Hindi languages. He was born in 1880 and was named Dhanpat Rai Srivastava. He started his writing career as an Urdu writer but later moved to Hindi at the advice of a friend. He is truly the father of Urdu afsana and Hindi kahani. In his creative journey, we find evidence of progress from a softer to a more mature persona, a sign of how he moved from describing familiar social situations to a penetrating mind that was comfortable managing more complex facets of reality. This task required courage and excellent mastery over the art of storytelling. Munshi Premchand is also remembered for his presidential address at the first meeting of the Progressive Writers’ Association in Lucknow in 1936. He died a few months later. In this episode, I read his short story Kafan or The Shroud, which is considered one of his masterworks.
Welcome to IndiStories, a new Podcast about creative short fiction. My name is Surinder Deol. In this Podcast, I’m going to present the work of highly gifted South Asian fiction writers. In this first episode, I present a classic of Indian literature titled “Toba Tek Singh” written by Saadat Hasan Manto. It is a story about India's partition. It captures the human tragedy involving the exchange of lunatics between India and Pakistan, and its ending shatters our hearts. Saadat Hasan Manto was born in 1912. He was a prolific writer and produced 22 collections of short stories. He worked at All India Radio in New Delhi and as a screenwriter in the Bollywood film industry, where he wrote many movies, including the famous Sohrab Modi film on Mirza Ghalib. In 1948 he moved to Pakistan, where he was tried for producing obscene literature. He passed away in 1955.