To enjoy good poetry and understand the true spirit behind it, it is also necessary to have a brief knowledge of the poet’s life and his other work.

Keeping this in mind, I am starting a series with a brief introduction of some of our greatest poets and then a selected collection of their work.

Our first poet is one of the great legend of Urdu poetry - MEER TAQI MEER.

Mir Taqi Mir (b. 1723 - d. 1810), whose original name was Mohammed Taqi and takhallus was Mir (sometimes also spelt as Meer Taqi Meer), was the leading Urdu poet of the eighteenth century, and one of the pioneers who gave shape to the Urdu language itself.He was born in Agra, India (called “Akbar bad” at the time), which at the time was ruled by the Mughals, in 1723. He left for Delhi, at the age of 11, following his father’s death. When Meer was a little child, his father looking at his face used to say which is this fire burning within your heart that is reflecting on your face.

Living in an atmosphere of Sufism at a very young age had profound effect on Meer. He did not have much desire for worldly things. What Mir was practicing was probably the “Malamati” or “Blameworthy” aspect of the Sufi tradition. Using this technique, a person ascribes to oneself an unconventional aspect of a person or society, and then plays out its results, either in action or in verse. He is a perfect artist of the ghazal, which makes its peculiar appeal through compression, suggestion, imagery and musicality. He builds his poetry on the foundations of his personal experience. His favourite theme is love - love unfulfilled -and his favourite manner is conversational. Mir struck a fine balance between the old and the new, the indigenous and the imported elements. Knowing that Urdu is essentially an Indian language, he retained the best in native Hindi speech and leavened it with a sprinkling of Persian diction and phraseology, so as to create a poetic language at once simple, natural and elegant, acceptable alike to the elite and the common folk. Consequently he has developed a style which has been the envy of all succeeding poets…

Mir was a prolific writer. His complete works, Kulliaat, consist of 6 dewans, containing 13,585 couplets comprising all kinds of poetic forms: ghazal, masnavi, qasida, rubai, mustezaad, satire, etc.

Mir Taqi Mir was often compared with the later day Urdu poet, Mirza Ghalib. Lovers of Urdu poetry often debate Meer’s supremacy over Ghalib or vice versa. It may be noted that Ghalib himself acknowledged, through some of his couplets, that Meer was indeed a genius that deserved respect. Here are two couplets by Mirza Ghalib on this matter.

ریکھتا   کے   تمہی   استاد   نہیں   ہو   غالب

کہتے ہیں اگلے زمانے میں کوءی میر بھی تھا

(You are not the only master of Urdu, Ghalib
They say there used to be a Meer in the past)

Surprisingly, there are very very few Ghazals by Mir which have been sung except perhaps by Mehdi Hasan singing a Ghazal by Mir. Mir is perhaps the greatest of all the Shayars. But his Ghazals are amazingly simple to understand and appreciate. Also, *music* is integral part of Mir’s Shayari. His style was conversationalist, using more of Urdu and Hindi than Farasi. And the fluidity, the rhythm is always present.

About his style, the great Zauk (a contemporary of Ghalib) said …

نہ ہوا، پر نہ ہوا، میر کا انداز نصیب

زوق یاروں نے بہت زور غزل میں مارا

After Nadir Shah’s carnage there was no charm left in Delhi for the poets, many of them moved to Lucknow. Meer came to Lucknow in 1783; Nawab Asafaddaula fixed him Rs. 200 a month stipend. His early experiences in life and shortness of money though had made a permanent change in his nature and even in the peaceful atmosphere of Lucknow he lived a terrible life. Simple things used to make him upset, many times he walked out of the Nawab’s court. In 1810 he died in Lucknow.

After his move to Lucknow, his beloved daughter died, followed by his son, and then his wife. This, together with other earlier setbacks (including his traumatic stages in Delhi) lends a strong pathos to much of his writing - and indeed Mir is noted for his poetry of pathos and melancholy.