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Monday, December 13, 2010

Yeh jo takta haé aasmaan ko tü / Koee rahtaa haé aasmaan meñ kyaa?

Is shayr say müjhay hamesha voh shakhs yaad aata haé jis ka naam John Elia (جون ایلیا) thaa or jo aésaa mazaydaar shaaér thaa keh küchh kahna hee baykaar lagtaa haé.

His style of Urdu poetry writing had a unique quality … and, despite being a brilliant Urdu poet, he was also a scholar in Arabic, English, Persian, Sanskrit, and Hebrew! Plus, he was an amazing philosopher.

John is remembered for being 'an unabashed open anarchist and nihilist in a conservative and religious society.'

It is his birthday tomorrow, December 14th, and I thought I'd share some of his poetry and prose with you.

To begin with, there's this marvellous qat'aa followed by this gorgeous ghazal. His views on everything were wonderful and were always fun to listen to … so have fun with this conversation.

Here is his final Mushaaerah reading.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Musab said...

I miss Elia saheb, my favorite verse was
'Haasil-e-'Kun' hai yeh jahaan-e-kharaab/Yeh hi mumkin tha aisi ujlat main'

14 December, 2010 08:56

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello Sir,
Is there anyway i could get my hands on some more conversations of the like you put here? I skipped youtube since it would most likely be filled with his poetry and not what i intend to find.

22 December, 2010 00:11

 

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