Students of history are often warned of the pitfalls of ‘big person’ history, or the tendency to see history simply as a series of biographies of extraordinary individuals, ignoring larger socioeconomic forces.
Faced with the loss of Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, however, and tasked with remembering his work, I am forced to throw all caution to the wind and look up in awe to this single individual. The amount, range and depth of all his work is hard to describe in a few lines.
Perhaps his single most important achievement was saving the classical Urdu ghazal, and embracing and elaborating its native poetics once and for all. Although Faruqi worked towards this across multiple works, the single most forceful and consolidated expression of this is his magnum opus, Sher-i-Shor Angez [The Tumult-Raising Verse], a four-volume work on the classical Urdu poet Mir Taqi Mir (1725-1810).
جامعہ کراچی، ایک دن میں دو صدمے، شکیل فاروقی اورمتین مرتضیٰ کا انتقال
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پروفیسر شکیل فاروقی کا انتقال، جامعہ کراچی میں سپرد خاک
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Shamsur Rahman Faruqi: The Ustad Who Could Catch the Bustle in A Flowerâs Scent
The acclaimed Urdu critic, poet and prose master changed the face of Urdu but also what it meant to engage with the literary in all its shapes, glorious or unsightly. Life after him means living with a slew of unfinished conversations, writes Geeta Patel.Â
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi (September 30, 1935 â December 25, 2020) Photo: Aashima
The language of flowers (in homage to Ghalib and Faruqi)
You happen upon them
Lotus midnight hands over your soul
Petalled rose harkens loveâs slow fall
Tulip stillness as the heartâs quarry