Musharraf Ali Farooqi

COLUMN: CUSTODIANS OF THE WORD – PART 2

In my previous column, I had mentioned that the dozen or so Urdu poets we remember today as the masters of the language, through Updated 24 Mar, 2024 09:42am

COLUMN: CUSTODIANS OF THE WORD — PART 1

When I began translating Urdu dastaan classics in the late 1990s, I learned very soon that popular dictionaries like Firoz-ul Published 18 Feb, 2024 08:32am

COLUMN: THE SCHOLAR REBEL

It is difficult to reckon the breadth of scholarship once commonplace in the knowledge centres of pre-colonial India. Published 21 Jan, 2024 09:21am

Column: WEBS OF CENSORSHIP

In my last column, I had suggested that, as evidenced from the events in Palestine, a permanent shift is taking ... Updated 18 Dec, 2023 10:47pm

COLUMN: A TEMPLATE OF VIOLENCE

With Palestine, we are in a unique time in history. Savagery is the domain of power, and history is replete with examples of human Published 19 Nov, 2023 07:37am

COLUMN: A HISTORY OF URDU MYSTERY

In order to flourish and have existential permanence, a language needs both chroniclers and ambassadors, in addition... Published 17 Sep, 2023 06:02am

COLUMN: WRITERS' UNIVERSES

A novel is a thematic world controlled by the author. Sometimes a writer realises that his many thematic worlds fit... Published 13 Aug, 2023 08:24am

COLUMN: VOTIVE AND PROTECTIVE TALES

If someone forgets to listen to the votive tale after a prayer has been answered, something can likely go wrong. However, if... Published 14 May, 2023 08:17am

INTERVIEW: ‘YOU HAVE TO BE WILLING TO LET GO OF THE ORIGINAL TEXT AT A CERTAIN POINT’ — DAISY ROCKWELL

American artist, writer and translator Daisy Rockwell has translated several works of modern classical Urdu and Hindi lite... Updated 05 Mar, 2023 10:13am

COLUMN: LOVERS' UNION IN DEATH

The repetition of the theme over centuries reveals it to be a major preoccupation of our literature. Published 08 Jan, 2023 07:42am

COLUMN: CURE BY QISSA

Our society has always known the power of stories, and employed them in various roles from education, to propaganda,... Published 04 Dec, 2022 06:46am

COLUMN: GHOSTS OF HISTORY

This is a qissa of three ghosts, a history they wrote together, and another history or fiction yet to be fully written, which... Published 06 Nov, 2022 07:08am

COLUMN: LOVE’S POISON

In an example of prudishness forcing critical insight, literary critic Farman Fatehpuri makes an interesting point in Urdu Ki... Published 02 Oct, 2022 06:49am

COLUMN: THE KUTNI IN LITERATURE

Among the many curious and fantastic characters encountered in the world of classical Urdu literature, the kutni... Published 04 Sep, 2022 10:54am

COVER: A life in poems and ghazals

An interview with the renowned poet Afzal Ahmed Syed Published 30 Aug, 2015 06:43am

Magic Lantern: The mysteries of the pulse and a doomed love

The evil hakim, who plumbed the mysteries of the heart with the changing pulse, cured her. Updated 13 Apr, 2014 07:45pm

Magic Lantern: Ibn-e Sina and the prince who imagined himself a cow

Ibn-e Sina could never quite recover from what he had discovered in the prince’s specimen. Updated 30 Mar, 2014 05:26pm

Magic Lantern: The tent between two ends of day

On April 21, 1521, exactly five years before the day he was killed along with his master in the battle of Panipat,... Published 16 Mar, 2014 05:17am

Magic Lantern: Abul Miskeen, the tyrant rabbit-caliph of Baghdad

The harem of the commander of the faithful was abuzz with rumours about the new girl to be inducted into the ranks ... Updated 02 Mar, 2014 11:05am

To read is to write

SOME of the most invaluable learning experiences in any creative activity are the doubting and reflection we undergo... Published 24 Feb, 2014 07:59am