In dinon garche dakhan mein hai badi qadr-e-sukhan, Kaun jaaye ‘Zauq’ par Dilli ki galliyan chhor kar (These days poetry commands great respect in the Deccan. But who, O Zauq, can leave the streets of Delhi),” wrote Zauq, the 19th-century Urdu poet of the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar’s court, while refusing a job in the south to stay in Delhi. Zauq’s words have become emblematic of the love for Delhi. The 2009 film Delhi 6 also quoted the same couplet. Urdu couplets and the poetry of the Delhi poets heavily influence the Hindi we speak today. Singer Vidya Shah’s concert, ‘Mehfil: Love, Loss and Longing – The Delhi Poets’, traces this journey of language and poetry through music to pay tribute to the poets of yore.
“I have a very special relationship with this city; I grew up here. Delhi is one of those cities where you cross a monument when moving from one place to another. Here, history travels with you,” says Shah. “And to talk about Delhi’s history without Urdu poetry is just not possible,” adds Chandrasekhar Tampi, a senior partner with a legal firm, a history enthusiast, conducting heritage walks for over 15 years in Delhi, and the scriptwriter and narrator of the concert.
Music contexts
Shah and Tampi, who have known each other for over three years, share a passion for history and Urdu poetry and have often talked about collaborating. However, their busy schedules did not allow this idea to be cemented, until now.
Trained in Carnatic and Hindustani classical music, Shah, who dislikes pigeonholing music into categories, brings historical context into her singing. In 2009, Shah directed a two-day exhibition and concert, ‘Women on Record’, to celebrate women performers in the gramophone era. Through her performance, she brought out the stories of the forgotten performers.
Shah’s relationship with music has been through poetry. She learned her music by listening to Pandit Kumar Gandharva’s rendition of bhajans by Kabir and other Nirgun saints, Jafar Hussain Badayuni singing Mir Taqi Mir’s couplets, and Begum Akhtar singing Amir Khusro’s “Bohot kathin hai dagar panghat ki. (The way to the banks of the stream is much too difficult)”. In this concert too, Shah aims to explore the relationship between music and poetry, telling the stories behind the verses, and then weaving those verses into songs.
Delhi’s poets
“Delhi poetry is a composite, influenced by Khadi Boli, Braj dialects and Deccan influences. It is not isolated,” says Tampi. Beyond well-known Delhi poets such as Amir Khusro, Ghalib and Mir Taqi Mir, the concert will also delve into the lives of Mughal emperors interested in poetry. For instance, Muhammad Shah Rangeela, the 13th Mughal emperor, who was known for his poetry. It was under his reign that the musicians returned to the Mughal court after being expelled by Aurangzeb in 1668.
Due to his vibrant personality and love for music, poetry and pleasure, he earned his title ‘Rangeela’— the colourful. He also patronised two chief musicians, Naimat Khan or Sadarang, and his nephew Feroze Khan or Adarang, who later became the key contributor to Urdu poetry and Hindustani khayal. Tampi, in his This Day’s Dead Poet Society heritage walk through Nizamuddin basti, makes it a point to stop by Rangeela’s grave along with the grave of the Sufi saint and poet Amir Khusro to discuss their contribution to music through poetry.
Through anecdotes like these, the concert will uncover the lives of poets, featuring their poetry in songs and exploring their contribution to the language we speak, the songs we listen to and the movies we watch. Shah and Tampi are both first-generation Hindi speakers in their families. (Shah, raised in Delhi, belongs to a Tamil family and Tampi is a Malayali from Maharashtra.) Shah learned Hindi because of her training in Hindustani classical music, whereas Tampi’s exposure to Urdu was in 1991 when he came to Delhi for his college and was captivated by its poetry. With this concert they aim to “take some pages out of the book of Urdu poetry that Delhi is and bring it to the people”.
‘Mehfil: Love, Loss and Longing – The Delhi Poets’ is at CD Deshmukh Auditorium, IIC, from 6.30 pm today