Afreen, Afreen! A Celebration of Urdu

By Raza Elahi

Urdu hai mera naam main Khusro ki paheli

Main Meer ki humraaz hoon Ghalib ki saheli

When young Arman Ali Reza Dehlvi started singing this nazm of Iqbal Ashar at a programme to celebrate the Urdu language in New Delhi last Saturday, the audience enjoyed each and every word of this beautiful composition. Arman (in pix below) and his Trippy Sama band really set a sama (stage) for the celebration by singing melodiously Afreen, Afreen… and Ghalib’s har ek baat pe kahte ho tum ki tū kyā hai; tumhīñ kaho ki ye andāz-e-guftugū kyā hai ….”

Arman’s performance was the part of the day-long programme -- Afreen, Afreen — which also saw literary reading and poetry recitation on the themes of wit, humour and satire, dissent, erotica, piety and modernism

In an effort to keep Urdu vibrant among the public, Rakhshanda Jalil, the founder of Hindustani Awaaz, organized the event at the Oxford Bookstore in the Capital. The programme included readings from the works of humourist Dilawar Figar; novelist Mushtaq Yusufi, short-story writer Naiyar Masud; poets Majaz, Faiz, Ahmad Faraz, Jaun Eliya, Parveen Shakir, Fahmida Reyaz, Ibne Insha and revolutionary poet Mir Jafar Zatalli among others.

Salima Raza, Sohail Hashmi, Danish Iqbal, Saif Mahmood and Pervaiz Alam read the acclaimed fiction and poetry.

Eminent poet Gauhar Raza (in pix left)recited his poems in the segment, “poetry of dissent”, which also saw Chinna Dua singing Faiz’s “Bol ke lab azaad hain tere…” and “ham dekheñge …lāzim hai ki ham bhī dekheñge, vo din ki jis kā va.ada hai, jo lauh-e-azal meñ likhkhā hai ;jab zulm-o-sitam ke koh-e-girāñ; ruuī kī tarah uḌ jā.eñge..”

In the segment Aqeedat ke Rang, Sana Rashid beautifully sang a hamd and a naat, while Rashmi Agarwal recited Allama Iqbal's famous prayer Ya rab! dil-e-Muslim ko woh zinda tamana de jo qalb ko garma de, Jo rooh ko tarpa de (Lord, fill the Muslim’s heart with a desire so fervent. That it will set his heart aflame and stir his soul.).

The event also saw a mini mushaira, dastangoi and qawwali by Dhruv Sangari. Prominent among those who attended the function were lyricist Javed Akhtar, writer and columnist Sadia Dehlvi, senior TV journalist Vinod Dua and former DD news reader Salma Sultan.

(elahi.raza82@gmail.com)