The Taste of Words: An Introduction to Urdu Poetry Read Online Free PDF Page A

seventeenth–eighteenth centuries has been under-represented, and is difficult to find. To the extent that I have not made extra efforts to find it, I acknowledge my intellectual laziness, and promise to redress this in future offerings. I had heard of the poet Saeedunnisa Hirma, who wrote in the nineteenth century, but her work has been tough to locate. Also, as a Hyderabadi, I had heard of the eighteenth-century courtesan poet Mahlaqa Bai ‘Chanda’ (1767–1824), who not only wrote poetry (her Persian
deevan
was published in 1797 and a posthumous Urdu collection appeared in the mid-nineteenth century), but was a patron of the arts, and sustained several poets
.
Zahida Khatoon Shervani, another Dakkani poet, wrote
Aaeena-e Haram
, a collection of poems, in 1927. I am also acquainted with
Baharistan-e Naz
, a collection of Urdu poetry by women, and plan to do some justice to this aspect and fill the gaping hole in my own understanding as well as the representation of women poets in classical Urdu poetry in future work. I will settle now for an apology and a promise to correct the gender imbalance in my account of Urdu poetry. 8 Happily, I have been able to include a variety of twentieth-century Urdu women poets in this collection, many of whom write bravely and eloquently not just about love and romance but also about patriarchy, oppression and political engagement in a way that enhances our understanding of current social and political challenges and represents the best that Urdu poetry has to offer today.
    Urdu continues to be a vibrant and lively language. With the advent of the Internet, we see a proliferation of Urdu websites, of video recordings of mushairas and songs, and of the dissemination of scholarly work. The web continues to build bridges connecting the archipelago that constituted scholarly work in Urdu. Also, researchers have now begun to compile and catalogue its impressive corpus of literature and research; for instance, recently, Anwar Moazzam and Ashhar Farhan of Hyderabad have compiled a bibliography of social science research in Urdu 9 . Every day new books are published on Urdu poetry, including criticism, anthologies and collections. The language continues to struggle with religious orthodoxy, and many current debates underscore its conflicted relationship with the mosque and its affinity for the street. Urdu remains the language of the present, and by way of showcasing its cosmopolitan and its contemporary ethos, I’d like to offer a poem by Lata Haya, a poet of remarkable performative ability I encountered only through the Internet, and whose poem here congratulates Urdu on the advent of the new millennium:
    Subh ka pehla payaam, Urdu
    Dhalti hui se jaise sham, Urdu
    Utrey jo taare wahi baam, Urdu
    Badi kamsin gulfaam, Urdu
    Jaise naye saal ka ye din ho naya
    Aur beetey saal ki ho aakhri dua
    Naya saal, nayi Ram Ram, Urdu
    Tujhe nayi sadi ka salaam Urdu
    The first message of the dawn, Urdu
    Like the slowly setting sun, Urdu
    Where the stars descend, that roof, Urdu
    A youthful beauty you are, Urdu
    Like the new day of the New Year
    And the last blessing of the old one
    Happy New Year, and a new hello, Urdu
    The new century salutes you, Urdu.
    To some, the twenty-first century represents the dying gasps of Urdu poetry. But to those pessimists, may I say that the rumours of Urdu’s demise have been exaggerated for well over 150 years. Urdu was on the verge of death in 1857 (post ‘mutiny’), 1901 (post ‘Nagri resolution’), 1947 (post-Partition), 1951 (when the Uttar Pradesh Official Language Act derecognized Urdu), and 2001 (post–9/11, for reasons not very clear, beyond the fact that everyone wants to associate that date with everything). However, as long as a chill runs up your spine when you hear a verse by Ghalib, as long as marchers on the street shout ‘
Inquilab Zindabad
’, and as long as film lyricists like Gulzar compose lines like ‘
Woh yaar hai jo khushboo ki tarah
/
Jis ki