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For love and beauty

Afzal Peshawari set the trend for simple Urdu poetry

PHOTO: SUSHIL KUMAR VERMA

INSPIRATION The Jama Masjid area was the haunt of many a learned poet

Urdu Academy, Delhi has brought out two volumes on 20th Century Urdu poets of Delhi (Beesween Sadi Ke Shora-e-Delhi), edited by noted poet, Azeem Akhtar. This unique collection mentions 213 shairs of Delhi. Joyce Afzal, wife of the late Afzal Peshawari, is on a mission to popularise it, as Urdu publications do not attract the same sort of publicity and readership as those in English and Hindi.

Afzal Peshawari, whose real name was Fazal Ahmed, was the owner of Azad Hind Hotel, which was housed in two buildings in the Macchliwalan area of Jama Masjid and played host to many famous poets.

One of the buildings was the erstwhile Urdu Manzil, on each of whose tiles, was written the message "Ghar Ghar Urdu" and where this scribe stayed for 10 years.

Resisting pressure

Afzal Sahib came to Delhi just before the 1940s and except for a brief Army laundry contractorship in Ranikhet, stayed put in the Capital.

During the Partition years, he resisted pressure from friends and relatives to migrate to Pakistan, though he was unjustly implicated by vested interests in the series of bomb blasts that shook the Jama Masjid area in the following years. His innocence was later established.

Afzal had 28 children from his seven wives, of whom Joyce memsahib was the youngest. Firaq Gorakhpuri said of him that the simple language of Afzal's poems was a trendsetter in Urdu poetry.

Though he had an ustad in Hazrat Haider Dehlvi, Afzal hardly adopted his style. He was more influenced by Akhtar Sheerani and later came to be known as Shair Ruman (romantic poet).

Afzal Peshawari also bought out Asia Weekly, which was later taken over by Mir Mushtaq Ahmed, Mahanama for children and other publications.

He died in 1980, aged 62, leaving behind six volumes of poetry, "Pyaar Ki Baaten", "Tumhe Pyar Karne Ko Ji Chahta Hai", "Tumhe Mujh Se Mohabbat Kyun Nahin Hai", "Mohabbat Ki Tum Mujhe Bheekh De Do" and "Jai, Jai Ho Teri Jawani Ki."

All these titles were based on the headings of his romantic poems, in which womanhood has been exalted to godhood.

Sample these lines: Chupaoon lakh raaz ishq afsha ho hi jata hai/ Meri ankhon se ek toofan paida ho hi jata hai (no matter how much I try, the secret of my love is revealed. A tempest (of romance) somehow manages to spring from my eyes).

The tempest made an agnostic like him a lifelong worshipper of women.

R.V. SMITH

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