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Christian purveyors of Urdu poetry
THE MASIHI and Adbi mushairas, held recently at Christ Church on Butler Road, were an event of popular interest. Organised by the All India Christian Writers' Association, headed by Tajamul David Lall, director of St. Mary's School, Paschim Vihar, it drew poets from India and Pakistan belonging to different churches. Among them were Sardar Anjum Talib Shahabadi, Naami Nadri Ludhianvi, Shauq Jalandhari, Rev. Deniss Ajmeri and Benjamin Rehmat, though one missed the late D.A. Harrison Qurban of Lucknow and the late Adeline Lall, after whom a memorial trust and literary award have been instituted.
The mushairas marked the silver jubilee of the Christian Writers' Association. There was also a seminar on "Why Christian poets should write Masihi shairi". The theme of the mushairas, held over two days, was the devotion epitomised in religious lyrics.
The event reminded one of the great English and Anglo-Indian poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among them was Benjamin David Montrose "Muztar" of Scottish descent. He was a pupil of Dagh Dehlvi and spent 10 years with his Ustad in Delhi.
According to T.S. Muztar, besides his Urdu dewans, he left behind two volumes of English verse and a pamphlet, "Spiritual and Temporal Poems," which contains a hymn to the Virgin Mary. However at the recent mushaira, the poets being mainly Protestants, did not eulogise the Blessed Virgin, an object of great devotion in the Catholic, Oriental and Orthodox rite churches. To quote T.S. again, the De Sylva family of Indo-Portuguese descent produced several good Urdu poets, among whom were Don Ellis De Sylva Fitrat and Don Augustine de Sylva Maftoon. The Fanthomes, Lajoies and the Burvetts were among the poets of French descent.
In the foreword to his book published in 1943, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru observed, "In my youth I came across several members of the Indian Civil Service who knew Urdu remarkably well. I can recollect Dr. Howard, who afterwards rose to be Judicial Commissioner of Lucknow. Dr. Hoey and Dr. Fisher commanded very graceful and correct Urdu idiom.
There was however one Irishman who in my opinion stood unrivalled 40 years ago (in 1903) and that was Thomas Conlan, with whom I had the honour and privilege of working as a junior. I can still remember a case in which I appeared with him and he addressed in Urdu the subordinate judge in a civil action relating to divorce and dower. I have never heard in court a better Urdu speech... and as he warmed up he quoted Ghalib and Momin on several occasions."
Dr. William Hoey, says T.S., was a scholar of great ability who also composed poems in Urdu. An example of his work: "Hone ko hain is shahr mein mashuq hazaron/Bechara Hoey ek hai kis kis ki khabar le". Robert Page Dewhurst wrote ghazals under the takhalus (pseudonym) of Saqib. Others of note were Alexander Heatherley "Azad," a pupil of Ghalib's nephew Nawab Zain ul Ahdeen Arif, General Joseph Bensley Fana and Sulaiman Shikoh Gardner. Gardner belonged to the famous Gardner family of Gardner's Horse, which produced the largest number of Urdu poets. Ellen Christiana Gardner, his sister used the alias of Razia Sultan Begum and wrote some very pungent love poetry.
Women poets
Other women poets were the Armenian Malika Jan Malika whose daughter was the famous Gohar Jan, Anne Blocher "Malika", Sarah "Peri", Mrs. Orcheston "Jamiat", Miss Blake "Kafi", Miss Farah Sarkes "Shareer", Miss Dear, Miss Tucker and Miss Clyne. Janet took the penname of Jamcat and Irene S. Jacob that of Farhat Zara muskara ke chidak do namk tum /keh muh zakham ka bemaza ho raho hai" - she wrote.
The Indo-German poets were Nawab Zafaryab Khan "Sahab," Francois Gotliet Koine, "Farasoo" and John Smidt "Shaiq" George Puech "Shore" (depicted in the sketch) composed six volumes of Urdu verse, a Persian dewan and an anthology of religious poems. He also composed Horis, thumris, bhajans and dadarahs.
The Italian Filose family boasted of four poets col. Jeane Baptiste "Jan", Major Julian "Talib", Sir Florence "Matlab" and Col. J. de la Fontaine "Jan". Sir Florence's dewan opens with a ghazal in praise of Jesus Christ. George Fanthome "Jargis" even finds mention in the Intikhab-i-Yadgar of Amir Minai. He was a pupil of Nazir Akbarabadi and is believed to have embraced Islam. To come back to the Christian mushairas, T.D. Lall is a shair of no mean calibre. His wife Adeline was the niece of Solomon Jacob, once Urdu teacher at St. Peter's College, Agra, where Josh Malihabadi did his primary schooling.
Sardar Anjum was honoured with the Padam Shri and Deniss Ajmeri graduated to priesthood. The shairs made the Gothic vaults of Christ Church resound to some of the choicest offerings to the Muse of Urdu poesy amid vociferous encores of "Muqarar."
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