Old script, new story

Urdu poetry still inspires people. While finding a sher or shayar is an issue, some platforms are giving a renewed push to a tradition in crisis

- FAIZAL KHAN

The audience cheered and clapped, entreating the poets for an encore. At the 56th edition of Bazm-e-Mushaira in the national capital last month, the energy and the evocation of emotions did well to hide the fact that Urdu poetry was facing challenging times.

Thousands of people were in attendance at Bazm-e-Mushaira, organised every year by the Shankar Lall Murli Dhar Memorial Society. First organised in 1954, the mushaira has drawn legendary Urdu poets, among them Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Kaifi Azmi, Ali Sardar Jafri and Jigar Moradabadi. Delhi's longest-running mushaira, it was attended this year by eminent poets like Javed Akhtar, Waseem Barelvi and Azhar Iqbal. Despite the huge attendance and inspiring presence of acclaimed poets, there was wider acknowledgement that the Urdu language and Urdu poetry were facing hurdles.

"The Bazm-e-Mushaira is a noble effort to promote Urdu poetry," says Delhi-based Urdu poet Gauhar Raza. "But the Urdu language and Urdu poetry in India are in a bad state. There is hardly any support for either mushaira or Urdu poets these days," he laments. Raza, a former scientist at the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research, points to the slump in publishing of Urdu poetry witnessed in the past few decades.

"The government gives funds for promotion of languages like Urdu, but most of the funds go to recycling of old books published decades ago," explains Raza.