I was pointed to this Willy D's latest essay in Outlook India, which is basically a preview of a soon to be published book on Bhadhur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal.

I had actually come upon a version of it as a word document (thanks to Google) a couple of months ago when I was trying write about poetry jams across Indian languages in the good old days, and for this trying to trace some background information on the final, and perhaps mythical, mushiara (gathering of poets) in Delhi as the flames of the 1857 Mutiny engulfed the city. All I could find then were a review of a performance of Kaifi Azmi's play called Aakhri Shama, and another essay of Willy D that appeared in the Guardian. Also if any kind reader can point me to an online source where I can find more information on this final gathering of the great Delhi poets, I will be much obliged.

In the Willy D's essay, writing about the casual destruction and disappearance of old buildings in Delhi, he comments, "Occasionally there is an outcry as the tomb of the Mughal poet Zauq is discovered to have disappeared under a municipal urinal or the haveli courtyard house of his great rival Ghalib is revealed to have been turned into a coal store; but most of the losses go unrecorded." While this is sad, I think the souls of the poets must take a perverse pleasure in what fate, or more precisely the great Indian Indifference, had in mind regarding their houses, and then, perhaps, would have come up with a suitable ghazal (as I am tempted to) to sum up these matters.

Ghalib's Delhi was a fascinating place, where it appears that everyone from the old emperor to a young wrestler were turning out shers and nazams, as they drank French wine in 24x7 taverns, and visited courtesans. But what of Ghalib's Ballimaran ki Gali and his haveli today?

Google brings up a couple of interesting articles (a, b, c) about visiting the haveli after it had been somewhat prettified by the Government. Flickr also has <a href=flickr.com">few photos of the interiors as they can be seen today. So go take a virtual look, and then read a sher or two of Ghalib. You may also view clips from the movie "Mirza Ghalib" (1954) (scripted by mad Manto!) to get a filmi feel of Ghalib's Delhi.

Way back in 1950s, Saadat Hasan Manto, the mad father of Toba Tek Singh, as he drank himself to death, wrote a bunch of letters to his uncle, who had the name Sam, i.e., Uncle Sam. With lines like the following:

"If a piece of mine appears in a newspaper and I earn twenty to twenty-five rupees at the rate of seven rupees a column, I hire a tonga and go buy locally distilled whiskey. Had this whiskey been distilled in your country, you would have destroyed that distillery with an atom bomb because it is the sort of stuff guaranteed to send its user to kingdom come within one year." ...

How I wish he had been born in your country. He would have been carried to his grave with great fanfare and over his resting place a skyscraper would have been built. Or were his own wish to be granted, his dead body would have been placed in a pool of glass and people would have gone to view it as they go to a zoo."

they make for wonderful reading.

at the Library of Congress is a fantastic resourse for readings in the poets voices ranging across twenty odd Indian languages. These are sound clips of one of my foremost literary masters, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, reciting his very beautiful lines such as these:

aur bhii dukh haiN zamaane meN muhabbat ke sivaa raahateN aur bhii haiN vasl kii raahat ke sivaa mujh se pahlii sii muhabbat merii mahbuub na maaNg

There are other sorrows in this world, comforts other than love. Don't ask me, my love, for that love again.

Poetry, in particular Urdu poetry reaches completion when it lifts off from the page and becomes sound, becomes music. And this recordings project is a gold mine indeed for poetry across all Indian languages.