The Last Musha’irah of Delhi

Mirza Farhatullah Baig and Akhtar Qamber
ISBN 978 81 250 3967 9; Binding: Paperback; Pages: 192 ; Price: Rs.295; Rights: World

The twilight Delhi of the later Mughals, decadent in statesmanship, devastated by marauders, declining in history, still managed to leave behind something more durable than marble and sandstone: a magnificent body of Urdu poetry and prose.

It is this facet of the city that Mirza Farhatullah Baig Dehalvi captures in this unique literary work. Drawing upon living memory, manuscripts and other documents, he wrote Dehli ki Akhri Shama’, a fictional account of what purports to be the last great musha’irah held in Delhi under the patronage of Bahadur Shah ‘Zafar’, the last Mughal emperor. The narrative recreates for the reader the various stages of organizing such an occasion, introduces one to unforgettable people and now-forgotten places, and builds up to the climax—the musha’irah itself—at which all the important Urdu poets of the time are present.

The present volume is the first-ever English translation of Farhatullah Baig’s classic, accompanied by a long introduction, textual and other annotations, and extensive glossary. Much more than a work of translation, the book is a labour of love and scholarship.
Mirza Farhatullah Baig was born of Mughal stock in Delhi. Educated at the Dehli Madrassah, Hindu College and St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, he was Director of Education in the State of Hyderabad. Later, he became the Registrar of the high court of Hyderabad. A distinguished writer and humourist, Baig’s essays are marked by their richness of imagination and informality of style. His pen-portraits are lively and sharp in characterisation. His language represents one of the best of Urdu as spoken in Delhi.

Akhtar Qamber obtained graduate degrees in English literature from the universities of Lucknow and Columbia. She taught at Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow, and at Miranda House, Delhi, and visited the International Christian University at Tokyo and Western College for Women at Oxford, Ohio, on teaching assignments. After retiring from the academic life, Qamber devoted her time to translating from Urdu and Persian into English. Her earlier publications include a collection of poems written originally in English, and a book on the relationship between the work of W. B. Yeats and the Noh drama of Japan.