Bashir Badr’s greatest achievement? He survived the algorithm

Bashir Badr managed to do that.

When news of his death trickled in on May 28, there was no national mourning, but a few people felt a lump in their throats, and others put up their favourite sher of the Urdu poet on their social media walls.

In an always-online world, this was the highest form of tribute one could offer, broadcasting their grief over the passing of a poet .

In his death, Badr sahab offered us a chance to cancel out the noise and invited us to rummage through his works again. In a world steeped in distraction, some of it self-inflicted to numb ourselves, people were actively choosing to feel.

Mohabbat ek khushboo hay, hamesha sath chalti hay
Koi insaan tanhayi me bhi, tanha nahi rehta

Love is a fragrance that always walks with you. No human is truly alone even in solitude, he had written comfortingly, years before loneliness became the defining anxiety of our lives.

In fact, my first introduction to Bashir Badr’s shayari was through Jagjit Singh’s ghazals nearly two decades ago.

A young boy who had not yet known what loss or separation meant would lose his evenings listening to ‘Mujhse bichad ke khush rehte ho, meri tarah tum bhi jhoothe ho’. (You live your days in happiness away from me, you lie just like me)

The evenings tell me what you are wearing, and the bright flowers remind me of your laugh, Badr continued, before dismissing the facade of bravery and the childish naivety of the other:

Tum tanha, duniya se ladoge,
Bachchon si baaaten karte ho

(You claim you will fight the world alone; you talk like a child)

The simplicity was a hallmark of Badr’s work, a feature repeated over and over again.

The first sher that I heard in his own voice was the most potent and political.

Log toot jate hain, ik ghar banane main,
Tum taras nahin khate, bastiyan jalane main

(Some people crumble under the weight of building one home,
(yet) you don’t feel pity tearing down entire communities)

There was something deeply personal here.

Born in Ayodhya, Badr had spent years in the Urdu department of Aligarh Muslim University and then Meerut University. But the rioters of 1987 didn’t spare his home, first looting it and then consigning it to flames along with reams of his unpublished work.

The cruelty he described was universal, not bolted to any single place or time. The experience of losing home, belonging, and trust remained painfully familiar. This was the anxiety of feeling alone in a crowd.

Badr moved cities and spent the latter half of his life in Bhopal, but never allowed hate to take over his identity.

He wrote: “Dushmani jam kar karo lekin ye gunjaish rahe,
jab kabhi ham dost ho jaaen, to sharminda na hon”

Engage in enmity all you want but maintain some space for engagement, so we are not ashamed when we become friends again.

Here was a romantic with a cause, who could speak as fluently about love and its associated emotions as the human condition. That’s why people reached for his words to find a home for their emotions, even when they knew little about the man.

That, I believe, is why Bashir Badr’s loss feels personal. The social media posts reflect what this lean man born in 1935 did for the people, offering them comfort, regaling them with tales of love, and even telling them to loosen up and get over themselves. It was his way of telling us that avoidance isn’t the answer and acceptance the only way forward.

Maan mausam ka kaha, chhayi ghata, jaam utha
Aag se aag bujha, phool khila, jaam utha

(Listen to the weather, the dark clouds, raise the cup of wine; fight fire with fire, let the flowers bloom, raise the cup of wine).

I think we grieve Bashir Badr today because he made us feel that our anxieties and vulnerabilities were worthy of attention. In an age of endless content, which ends up feeling vacuous and disposable, his words store an unmistakable human experience. A man who was unwell and not seen in public for several years managed to stay relevant in the age of self-deleting selfies and sped up Instagram videos.

Badr reminds us of the value of permanence in the age of the fleeting. That is why long after he exited the stage, he continues to find new readers, new listeners and new timelines.