So is Javed Akhtar - Indian, atheist, social critic, he has also been a screenwriter for Bollywood films watched by Urdu speakers everywhere. The two contemporary poets we will be considering in the translation workshop are examples: Zehra Nigah grew up in India, has lived in Pakistan since Partition, spends time each year in the UK, and is highly regarded by Urdu speakers in all three countries. Ghalib, by common consent one of the greatest Urdu poets, belongs to everyone - and it’s not just the classical greats to whom this applies. Urdu speakers on both sides of the border love the same poetry, venerate the same poets. The Partition that divided India and Pakistan so bitterly in 1947 has left political tensions that still cannot be resolved, but it is irrelevant in poetry. They straddle boundaries, political, religious, social. Major poets are honoured as no political leader would be, and their influence has been at times more powerful. Everyone is familiar with the traditional imagery of Urdu poetry, for many of the popular tunes that blare out from radios have words which derive from - and sometimes are - classical poetry. In towns and cities thousands of people attend events where poetry is recited or sung. In a village where few are literate there may be one person who can recite long extracts of classical narrative poetry, and others will gather round to listen.

Verses from famous poets are painted on the sides of buses. From childhood they will have heard fragments quoted by their elders.

Millions of Urdu speakers in India and Pakistan cannot read but they get to know poetry in other ways. There is nothing elite about a taste for poetry, and the awareness that it contributes something of value to one’s life is universal. Urdu poetry flourishes in a totally different context. To find an example of English verse which is part of everyone’s culture, regardless of class or educational level, you would be driven to nursery rhymes or ritual-occasion songs like Auld Lang Syne. Poetry is thought of by many as an activity confined to a rarified elite, rather than something that ordinary people do or love. Most English speakers know a little poetry because they have been introduced to it at school but only a minority regularly read it for pleasure once their formal education is over. For people with English as a mother tongue this fact is not easy to absorb because our own culture’s attitude to poetry is so different. Poetry is the form of expression Urdu speakers love most. The love of poetry Urdu and its poetic culture

Poetry on sindhi culture in urdu