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Book Review
Persian poetry
ALI ASGHAR
MUGHAL POETRY — Its Cultural and Historical Value: Hadi Hasan; Aakar Books, 28 E Pkt IV, Mayur Vihar Phase I Delhi-110091. Rs. 450.
Like Mughal architecture, painting, jewellery and music, Mughal poetry also has an element of elegance about it. Persian poetry in India was composed by Indian poets as well as by those who arrived here from Persia and worked their way into the royal courts of the Great Mughals. Poets like Jami, Urfi Shirazi and Faydi wrote excellent verse in Persian which was eagerly devoured by a vast majority of Indians and Turks.
The Indian writers of Persian poetry never captured the native Iranians’ poetic fancy since these poets were mostly inspired by Indian thought and Indian ideals. Similarly, the poetry of the migrant Persian poets was born and nurtured in the Indian environment and reflected the influence of Hindi.
With the emergence of such poets, there was a visible change in the poetic idiom with the result that “pan-juice” displaced “lipstick”; “dhobie”, “saqi”; “Pathan-girl and Rajput maiden”, “fair ones of Khutan (Cathay)”; “Champa and Mawlsari”, “Jessamine and anemone”; “Gurhal and Nim”, “Arghawan and Chanar”. How could the Persian reader breathe easy under such oppressive Indian air?
Likewise, Mughal poetry failed to appeal to the Europeans as well but more on account of its inept English translation rather than the inadequacy of the original composition.
Though puns, chronograms, satires, original similes and concepts constituted the salient features of Mughal poetry, the court poets generally wrote attractive verse which had both style and substance; it was interesting even if it was not profound. To borrow a phrase from Samuel Johnson, the Mughal poets often worked diligently to clothe their notions with elegance of dress.
Royal patronage
By recording important events associated with the royalty, chronograms played a vital historical role. While odes were written with a view to enhancing the poet’s own reputation, satire was sometimes used as a vehicle of innocent amusement and at times as an instrument of reprisal targeting one’s political or vocational rivals at court. “The poetry of kings is the king of poetry”— this statement, though complimentary, is nevertheless true of the royal poetry of Mughal India, for Babur and several of his descendants down to the fifth generation wrote and spoke poetry better than the poets they patronised. The repartees in verse of Jahangir and Nur Jahan, Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal and Zaibun-Nisa and Aqil Khan and the mystical quatrains of Dara Shukuh may be cited as examples.
In his preface to this new edition Mushirul Hasan has fittingly commended this volume “as an introduction to the vibrant Persian poetry under the Mughals.”
Turning over the leaves of this book containing excellent Persian couplets in the Arabic-Persian script interspersed with proper English translation is as exhilarating as taking a stroll in a rose-garden. Here is a literary document of great historical and cultural significance.
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