The Urdu Ghazal Podcast

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.

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 Aahangwas heralded by Sajad Zahir, as the opening of a new rosebud in the garden of progressives. His poem Railsubtly 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. 

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 Pyasaand 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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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 Leopard is 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 Chessplayersas 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 bookThe 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 afsanaand 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.