Beloved Delhi

by Saif Mahmood

English 380 pages 1 edition

‘Read this book as soon as you can. If you are an aficionado of Urdu poetry, you will learn many things you didn’t know… If you aren’t, you will become one.’— Scroll.in ‘Dil-o-Dilli donon agar hain kharaab / P’a kuchh lutf is ujde ghar mein bhi hain (My heart and my Delhi may both be in ruins; / There are still some delights in a ravaged home.)’—Mir Taqi Mir Urdu poetry rules the cultural and emotional landscape of India—especially northern India and much of the Deccan—and of Pakistan. And it was in the great, ancient city of Delhi that Urdu grew to become one of the world’s most beautiful and supple languages. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, while the Mughal Empire was in spectacular decline, Delhi became the capital of a parallel kingdom—the kingdom of Urdu poetry—producing some of the greatest, most popular poets of all time. They wrote about the pleasure and pain of love, about the splendour of God and the villainy of preachers, about the seductions of wine, and about Delhi, their beloved home. This treasure of a book documents the life and work of the finest classical Urdu poets: Sauda, Dard, Mir, Ghalib, Momin, Zafar, Zauq and Daagh. Through their biographies and poetry—including their best-known ghazals— it also paints a compelling portrait of Mughal Delhi. This is a book for anyone who has ever been touched by Urdu or Delhi, by poetry or romance.