BENGALURU: “Baad marneke mere, iske charche honge, log sun sunke meri daastan, rothe huve,’’ is one of the thousands of shayaris (Urdu poetry) recited by Dharam Singh. He would recite shayaris when he was happy, sad, travelling or just relaxing.
A true shayari lover, his speeches were incomplete without them. “Singh would sit the entire night listening to shayaris. In fact, he used to organise all India Mushaira meets (social gathering in which Urdu poetry is read) in Bidar and Kalaburagi. Shayars from across the country would attend and he was a wonderful host. He organised three such events,’’ C B Patil, one of Singh’s close associate recalls.
Patil says he knew Dharam Singh from the days when he was in school in the mid sixties.
“Dharam Singh was my brother’s friend. Many people from Kalaburagi go to Hyderabad for higher education. Singh too went to Osmania University, where his love for Urdu poetry increased. He would love to listen and recite them,’’ he says.
Recalling one such moment, Patil said in one of the frequent travels between Kalaburagi and Bidar, they both were in the same car.
“I recited one such shayari - Bina libas aye is jahan, sirph ek kaphan ke khatir itna safar pada, which means ‘We come into this world without clothes, we do so much and at the end we get the burial shroud.’ Soon after I recited this, he asked the driver to stop the car and started crying. I can never forget this incident,” he says.
One of his famous shayaris is the one he told reporters immediately after JD(S) withdrew support to his coalition government in 2006.
“‘Na jaane kin kin ki duaon me rahte hain hum/ Dushman dubana chahata hai, lekin samundar uchhal deta hai’ (One does not know who is praying for me/The enemy wants to drown me, the ocean waves throw me back on the shore),” Singh had said.
“Singh would express everything in the form of shayaris — happy or sad — and would take everything in the same manner. His knowledge of Urdu poety was amazing,’’ recalls another friend.
Another close associate Allamaprabhu Patil said Singh loved Shayars and Shayaris so much that whenever any Urdu poet came to his house, inspite of his busy schedule, he would sit with them for an hour and listen to their shayaris.
Dharam Singh attended several mushairas held in Kalaburagi, Bidar or even Hyderabad. He would sit for hours, reciting and listening to the shayars.
“He studied in Urdu medium. Now, his son Ajay Singh has inherited the habbit of reciting shayaris,’’ he said.