Urdu Literary Scene - A brief outline on Indian Pakistani Urdu Heritage

by correspondent

Urdu Literary scene "Urdu Adab Urdu literature has a long and colorful history that is inextricably tied to the development of that verylanguage, Urdu, in which it is written. While it tends to be heavily dominated by poetry, the range ofexpression achieved in the voluminous library of a few major verse forms, especially the ghazal and nazm, hasled to its continued development and expansion into other styles of writing, including that of the short story, orafsana. Being the national language, Urdu literature is mostly popular in India and Pakistan. Additionally, itenjoys substantial popularity in India and is finding interest in foreign countries primarily through SouthAsians. Even though developed in around Delhi and North India Urdu continues to be a National language ofIndia and Pakistan. Urdu literature may be said to find its provenance some time around the 14th century in North India amongstthe sophisticated gentry of Persian courts. The presence of the Muslim gentry in a largely Hindu India, whileclearly acknowledged, did not so nearly dominate the consciousness of the Urdu poet as much as did thecontinuing traditions of Islam and Persia. The very color of the Urdu language, with a vocabulary almostevenly split between Sanskrit-derived Prakrit and Arabo-Persian words, was a reflection of the newness ofcultural amalgamation and yet the insistence on retaining what was best and most beautiful about the lands ofAfghanistan and Persia.A man who exercised great influence on the initial growth of not only Urdu literature, but the language itself(which only truly took shape as distinguished from both Persian and proto-Hindi around the 14th century) wasthe famous Amir Khusro. Credited, indeed, with the very systematization of northern Indian classical music,known as Hindustani, he wrote works in both Persian and Hindavi, frequently engaging in ingenious mixes ofthe two. While the couplets that come down from him in are representative of a latter-Prakrit Hindi bereft ofArabo-Persian vocabulary, his influence on court viziers and writers must have been mighty, for but a centuryafter his passing Quli Qutub Shah was seen to take to a language that may be safely said to beUrdu.DastaanUrdu literature was generally composed more of poetry than of prose. The prose component ofUrdu literature was mainly restricted to the ancient form of long-epic stories called Dastaan often originallywritten in Persian. These long-epic stories would deal with magical and otherwise fantastic creatures andevents in a very complicated plot.Dastan, as a genre, originated in Iran and was disseminated by folkstorytellers. It was assimilated by individual authors. Dastan's plots are based both on folklore andclassical literary subjects. Dastan was particularly popular in *Urdu literature, typologically close to othernarrative genres in Eastern literatures, such as Persian masnawi, Punjabi qissa, Sindhi waqayati bait, etc, andalso reminiscent of the European novel. The oldest known Urdu dastans are Dastan-i-Amir Hamra, recorded inthe early seventeenth century, and the extinct Bustan-iKhayal ('The Garden of Imagination' or'The Garden of Khayal') by Mir Taqi Khayal (d. 1760). Most of the narrative dastans wererecorded in the early nineteenth century, representing contaminations of 'wandering', motifsborrowed from the folklore of the Middle East, central Asia and northern India. These include Bagh-oBahar('The Garden and Spring') by Mir Amman, Mazhab-i-Lshq (The Religion of Love) by NihalchandLahori, Araish-i-Mahfil ('The Adornment of the Assembly') by Hyderbakhsh Hyderi,Gulzar-i-Chin ('The Flower Bed of Chin') by Khalil Ali Khan Ashq, and the smallerdastans.Examples of famous dastans in Urdu include:Nau tarz-i murassa - Husain AtKhn TahsnNau 'n-i hind (Qissa-i Malik Mahmd Gti-Afroz) - Mihr ChandKhatrJazb-i ishq - Shh Husain HaqqatNau tarz-i murassa - Muhammad Hda.k.a. Mirz Mughal Ghfilr'ish-i mahfil (Qissa-i Htim T') - Haidar BakhshHaidarBagh o bahar Qissa e char darvesh AmmanDastan e amir hamza - Khall Al KhnAshUrdu poetryUrdu poetry reached is peak in the 19th century. The most well developed vessel of poetry has turned out tobe the Ghazal which has by far exceeded all other forms of Urdu poetry by its quality and quantity within thecosmos of Urdu.13th century Urdu Poets:Amir Khusro16th century:Muhammad Quli Qutub Shah - wrotepoetry primarily in Persian, but also in Hindavi17th century Urdu Poets:Wali Muhammad Wali DeccaniMirzaMazhar Jan-e-Janaan18th Century Urdu Poets:Faaiz DehlviKhan ArzuMubarak AbruMir Taqi MirKhwaja Mir

Dard19th Century Urdu Poets:Mirza Salaamat Ali DabeerMir Babar Ali AnisBahadur Shah IIMirzaSaudaMirza GhalibMohammad Ibrahim ZauqDagh Dehlvi20th Century Urdu Poets:Muhammad IqbalJigarMoradabadiFiraq GorakhpuriHafeez JalandhariTanwir PhoolFaiz Ahmad FaizAhmadFarazNovelsMirat-al-Urus (The Bride's Mirror)-18681869-is regarded as the first novel of Urdu.After its release in 1869, within twenty years it was reprinted in editions totalling over 100,000 copies; andwas also translated into Bengali, Braj, Kashmiri, Punjabi, and Gujarati.It has never been out of print in Urdufrom that day of its first publication. In 1903 an English translation was published in London by G. E.Ward.Bina-tul-Nash- (The Daughters of the Bier, a name for the constellation Ursa Major),is another greatNovel by Deputy Nazeer Ahmed. It was his 2nd novel after Mirat-tul-uroos. Like Mira-tul-Uroos, this novel isalso on education of women and their character building.Taubat-un-Nasuh (Repentance of Nasuh)1873-1874-Deputy Nazeer Ahmed earned a good name in writing novels for developing moral values and guidance ofyoung generation. His entire work is full of teachings of moral values.Fasaana-e-Mubtalaa(1885)- anothernovel for developing moral values and guidance of young generationUmrao Jaan AdaKhuda Ki Basti(novel)Dil, Diya, DehleezRaja GidhHaasil Ghaat19th Century Urdu Novelists:Deputy Nazir AhmadMirzaHadi Ruswa20th Century Urdu Novelists:Ibn-e-InshaBano QudsiaAshfaq AhmedShaukat ThanviQurratulainHyderFatima Surayya BajiaShaukat SiddiquiIn respect of themes the Urdu novel initially undertook social lif,followed by widening its scope with rural social life. It also covered the changing times under progressivewriting movement under inspiration by Sajjad Zaheer.However the horror of partition had great impact and thenovel remained under serious grip of questions of identity and migration as can be seen in the major works ofAbdullah Hussain & Quratul Ain Haider. towards the end of the last century the novel took a serious turntowards the contemporary life and realities and the aspiring young generations of India.The most significantnovels of the current generation of Indian novelists in Urdu demonstrating a new confidence in contemporarylife are MAKAAN by Paigham Afaqui, Do Gaz Zameen by Abdus Samad, PANI by Ghazanfer. These Urdunovels, specially Makaan brought the Urdu novel out of the prevailing themes of partition and identity issuesand took it into the realm of modern day realities and issues of life in India. In fact the impact of Makaan wasso much roaring that many writers in English like Vikram Seth turned to novel writing. These Urdu novelsimpacted the writing of Urdu novels in such a way that a large number of novels have been written ever sincesome of which like Andhere Pag by Sarwat Khan, Numberdar Ka Neela by S M Ashraf and Fire Area by IlyasAhmed Gaddi have come to significantly contribute to urdu fiction. MAKAAN translated in English is awidely known novel for pre-eminence of a female character in novel and considered to be the best feministnovel in Urdu and probably the first one.Short Story / AfsanahSome notable Urdu Short Fiction (Afsana)writers of 20th century are:Munshi PremchandDr. Rafiq HussainRajinder Singh BediSaadat Hassan MantoAhmad NadeemQasmiAshfaq AhmedBano QudsiaBhupendra nath Kaushik"fikr"Ghulam AbbasMumtaz MuftiMasaudMuftiSyed Qasim MahmoodMansha YaadRasheed AmjadMusharaf Alam ZauqiKhalid JavedAsifFarrukhiMuhammad IlyasKhakan SajidHamid SarajKhan Shein KunwarBaig EhsasOmer FarooqDogarQudrat Ullah ShahabPatras BokhariKrishan ChanderIsmat ChughtaiIntizar HussainQurratulainHyderIbn-e-InshaIbne SafiShaukat SiddiquiWasif Ali WasifUrdu Literary CriticismAli Sardar JafriAhmadNadeem QasimiAslam FarrukhiMajnun GorakhpuriMuzaffar HanfiLate Makhmoor SaeediShamsur RahmanFaruqiAadil Rasheed Tilhari,First Poet of Hindi&urdu history write Muhawra GhazalAijaz AhmadAzeezBelguami Bibliography Bhatia, Tej. A History of the Hindi Grammatical Tradition; Leiden: Brill. 1987. Faruqi,Shamsur Rahman, Early Urdu Literary Culture and History, Oxford, 2001. Kelkar, A.R. Studies inHindi-Urdu I; Poona: Deccan College, 1968. King, Christopher. One Language, Two Scripts; Delhi: OUP,1994. Russel, Ralph & Khurshidul Islam, Three Mughal Poets, Oxford. Sadiq, Mohammad. A History ofUrdu Literature; Delhi: OUP, 1964. Schmidt, Ruth Laila. Urdu: An Essential Grammar; London: Routledge,1999. Zaidi, Ali Javed, A History of Urdu Literature, New Delhi, Sahitya Akedemy.

Urdu Literary Scene - A brief outline on Indian Pakistani Urdu Heritage by correspondent