It was in my mind till very recently but then I forgot. 19th Aug 2006 was the thirteeth death anniversary of Jan Nisar Akhtar, an accomplished lyricist and poet. He was also the father of Javed Akhtar, husband of Safiya Akhtar (and therefore the brother-in-law of Majaz Lucknawi) and an Aligarian. His own father, Muztar Khairabadi was a well known poet and actually composed the Ghazal, ‘na kisii kii aaNkh kaa nuur huuN’ (yes, it was him and NOT Bahadur Shah Zafar). Not many websites remembered Jan Nisar, nor blogs wrote about him. On searching I found this news item at Rediff.com that talks about the release of a book of edited by Jan Nisar and released by his son.
Jan Nisar wrote some beautiful Ghazals and composed some really good couplets:
ab ye bhii nahiiN thiik ke har dard miTaa deN
kuch dard kaleje se lagaane ke liye haiNjaaiye baiThiye hukmraanoN ke biich
aap kyuuN aa gaye ham divaanoN ke biichchand vahmoN pe na rakh fikr-o-amal ki buniyaad
sirf buniyaad se ta’amiir badal jaatii haizindagii ye to nahiiN tujhko saNvaaraa hii na ho
kuch na kuch teraa ehsaan utaaraa hii na hotuu is qadar mujhe apne qariib lagtaa hai
tujhe alag se jo sochuuN, ajiib lagtaa hai
He also some wrote fine poems and the one written on a visit to his wife’s grave is a classic.
I would be posting some Ghazals and Nazms of Jan Nisar Akhtar at Aligarians.com in the days to come. You can read them at this link.
P.S. First blog post written with Windows Live Writer.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Windows Live writer is cool na? I just lav it
the most perfect but it still needs few add-ons
Yes, it still has quite a few bugs. I can’t copy paste the title of the Blog post. It sometimes refuses to publish. I can’t add categories, tags. It adds too many < p> < /p>. Etc etc.
Coming from M$ it is good, it needs more work though.
You can add categories but no tags. BTW i just forgot, there are many from Aligarh this year and even few have come here afer btech
great picture of him .. it’s the most classical style of pictuires at that time .. a cigarette and a muffler
simply superb !!!!!!!!!!! i want his one nazm namely “girls ho ki laury” or “girls college ki laury” in which he beautifully describes about the how girls used to go college in AMU. please post this nazm.
I have a doubt regarding the published date of Jan Nisar Akhtar’s death. I strongly believe that he was still alive in 1989 as I saw him participating in one of the major mushaira held in Hyderabad, which was organized by Ali Siddiqui. In this mushaira, actor Dilip Kumar was the distinguished guest. Along with Jan Nisar Akhtar, all distinguished urdu poets were in attendance. So my recollection is Mr. Akhtar must have died after this event, most likely in the early 1990s. Please let me know if I am wrong.
Inki ek gazhal jo ki Anup Jalota ne gayi hai… kya khoob alfaj istemaal kiye gaye hai… Wah…
Mai unke us Gazhal ke kuch sher batana chahunga…….
“”"”
Dil Aaina Hai Tum……..
Apni Surat Sawanr lo Aur Khud Hi dekho………
Jo Nuks Hoga Dikhai Dega…
Ye Bejubaan Bolta Nahi Hai…
Wo kya Dikhayenge Raah Muzko…
Jinhe Khud Apna pata Nahi Hai…
“”"”