Urdu patron

He invites you to spend some time with him in his study just to be in the august company of legends like Sahir Ludhianavi,Mirza Ghalib and many other Urdu poets.

He invites you to spend some time with him in his study just to be in the august company of legends like Sahir Ludhianavi,Mirza Ghalib and many other Urdu poets. The time spent here is not only enlightening but also therapeutic. This is how Professor Bhupinder Aziz Parihar,a senior lecturer of English at the SCD Government College greets those who come to meet him. His aim is to introduce people to the language and its poets.

An Urdu poet,who has about 12 books to his credit,Parihar says,I have taught nearly 50 students who were doing correspondence courses from Jamila Milia Islamia or the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language. Unlike other languages such as English,Hindi and Punjabi,Urdu has no mentors. The language is just like a fragrance that spreads on its own,filling people with immense pleasure who come in its contact, says Parihar.

Trained in the Dagh School of Poetry,Parihar was born in Nakodar. I was trained for 15 years in the language and the culture associated with it. My teacher Josh Malsiani belonged to the Dagh School of Poetry. However,English brought me in contact with modern poets like Eliot and soon I realised that I needed the Urdu language to express my thoughts and need not follow any school. So I parted my ways from the school that was feudal in its mindset.

Currently working on a new collection of ghazals and nazms titled Khawabon Ki Kaminghrain (hideouts of dreams),he says People do not pay Urdu language the respect which it deserves. I remember in 1969,the then prime minister Indira Gandhi had organised an event in the memory of legendary Urdu poet Ghalib. On the occasion,Sahir Ludhianvi had famously remarked that there is no point remembering Ghalib when the Urdu language is dying.

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