The Dakhnī Poetry of the Everyman

dakhni_poetry_madras_courier
Image:7MB
Dakhniī poetry challenges the notion of poetry being for the elite. Scholar Sajjad Shahid curates a selection.

Poetry has for too long, been the abode of the elite. So goes the ethos of poets who composed in Dakhnī – the mish-mash of Urdu and Hindi (and Persian and Sanskrit, or Marathi, Telugu, Kannada or Tamil, depending on where the speaker lived).

Incorporating phrases, slangs, idioms and pronunciations that were used on the street between the 13th and 20th centuries, it was once a court language of the Mughals, before losing its patrnage. Today, the language has since faded, spoken today mainly by scattered Muslim communities across India.

Historian and scholar Sajjad Shahid gives us a rare glimpse into Dakhnī poetry across the ages, with annotations.



To continue reading, please subscribe to the Madras Courier.

Subscribe Now

Or Login


 

Copyright©Madras Courier, All Rights Reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from madrascourier.com and redistribute by email, post to the web, mobile phone or social media.
Please send in your feed back and comments to editor@madrascourier.com

One reply on “The Dakhnī Poetry of the Everyman”