Uncensored autobiography of 18th century Urdu poet Meer Taqi Meer unveiled

Tribune News Service

Aksheev Thakur

New Delhi, February 15

Leading personalities from varied walks of life gathered at the India International Centre on Thursday to take part in a four-day event to celebrate the life and times of 18th century Urdu poet Meer Taqi Meer on his 300th birth anniversary.

Hosted by Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind), known mostly as Urdu Ghar, the oldest Urdu literary institution in the country founded by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan in 1882, the celebrations have been titled “Meer ki Dilli Shahjahanabad: The Evolving City.”

The inaugural session, which was presided over by former Jammu and Kashmir Governor NN Vohra, on Thursday saw the unveiling of an uncensored version of Meer’s autobiography almost a century after the censored version was released in 1928.

Speaking on the occasion, Athar Farouqui, general secretary of the Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind), said: “The first publication in Farsi was censored, and then subsequent Urdu translations published in 1957 and 1996 were also from the censored text. With the launch of the uncensored version of Meer Taqi Meer's autobiography today, we have removed the black spot.”

Congratulating Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu (Hind) for coming out with the uncensored version of the autobiography, Vohra said, “They have the intellectual and academic integrity to publish the entire original text of Meer Taqi Meer. My mind goes back to Lahore, the place where I was born, the place where I studied. Somewhere I feel that we have not been able to recreate in Shahjahanabad the culture of Urdu language that was prevalent in Lahore, though this is the heartland of Urdu and some of the greatest Urdu poets were either born here or lived around here, such as Ghalib and Meer. Lahore has its own culture which is difficult to describe.”

Vohra, lauding historian Narayani Gupta for offering the gathering a kaleidoscopic relook at the history of Shahjahanabad earlier during the inaugural session, said, “Foreign invaders left their stamp behind in Lahore.”

President of IIC Shyam Saran said that the Urdu language was a living heritage which must be preserved. “I see Urdu as a living example of the confluence of cultures. It is wrong to identify language with religion,” Saran said.

The welcome address at the event was delivered by Saif Mahmood, honorary director, Anjuman. Also present were former Union Minister Salman Khurshid and Anjuman president Sadiq Ur-Rahman Kidwai.

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