Farhatullah Baig imagines a mushaira as it might have been in the last glory days of Delhi during the mid-nineteenth century lit by the glowing embers of the dying Mughal empire.
The Last Light of Delhi is the story of a last grand mushaira held in the city of Delhi circa 1845. Though the mushaira is fictional, the book is a cultural document of the age, taking the reader on a journey in time to a past when poetry flowed through the streets of the city. It paints a portrait of a lost world, of the life and living styles of the upper classes of Delhi in the decade before the fateful year of 1857.
Baig takes the reader into the sitting rooms of some of the most iconic people of the time, from Mirza Ghalib to Bahadur Shah Zafar, giving us a glimpse into their private lives, describing their homes, their manners, their ways of dressing and talking, filling his portraits with colour and detail so that the poets appear vividly before us-and when they begin to recite their poems in the mushaira, it seems as if each poet is speaking out from the pages of the book.
MIRZA FARHATULLAH BAIG (1885-1947) was a prolific writer of the early twentieth century, particularly renowned for his witty and evocative portraits of Delhi and its people. His works include classics of Urdu prose such as Dilli ki Aakhri Shama, Phool Waalon ki Sair and Maulvi Nazeer Ahmad ki Kahaani.
TRANSLATORS SULAIMAN AHMAD is an ex-banking executive who decided, post-retirement, to indulge in his passion-Urdu poetry and prose. He has adapted the story of Tilism-e-Hoshruba for children in Amar Aiyyar: King of Tricksters and combined a re-telling of two satirical works by Krishan Chander in A Tree on Its Head. His own anthology of Urdu verse is titled Khama-e-Mani.
PARVATI SHARMA is a Delhi-based author, Her debut was a collection of short stories called The Dead Camel and Other Stories of Love. She has also written a novel, Close to Home; a historical biography, Jahangir: An Intimate Portrait of a Great Mughal and two books for children, The Story of Babur and Ratty & Poorie's Adventures in History: 1857.
So laments Altaf Husain Hali, one of the greatest stalwarts of Urdu literature-a poet, critic, biographer, essayist and reformer. He was bemoaning the condition of Delhi after 1857.
His was not a new lament. Much like the Mughal empire, which had long made the city its capital, Delhi had been in a state of decline for decades, and mournful melodies about the gradual decay in the splendour and sophistication of the city had been composed by many bards. Mir Taqi Mir, who died a half-century before the final nail in the coffin of the Mughal empire was struck in 1857, wrote in his melancholic and wistful style:
Kooche jo thei Dilli ke auraaq e musauwir thei
Jo shakl nazar aye tasweer nazar ayce
The lanes of Delhi were sketches by artists,
the faces you looked at, the faces were portraits
It was Mir, too, who composed a famous response to jibes during his visit to Lucknow, where fashionable Luckhnowis made fun of his old-fashioned Delhi style, not knowing that it was the venerable Mir they were mocking.
Kya bood-o-bash poocho ho purab ke sakino
Hum ko ghareeb jaan ke hans-hans pukar ke
Dilli jo ek shahr tha alam mein intekhab Rahte thie muntakhab hi jahan rozgaar ke
Us ko falak ne loot ke barbaad kar diya
Hum rahne wale hain usi ujre dayaar ke
What do you ask of me,' people of the east, taking me to be poor, hurling laughter at me? Delhi once was the world's chosen city, where only the chosen of their times would reside That the stars have looted and destroyed, and I am one from that ruined land.
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