The traditional culture of old Lakhnau rested on five pillars: religion, social graces and good manners, poetry and language, infinite variety of art and handicrafts, and music
WITH the movement of its poets, the glory of Delhi — particularly cultural and literary — also began shifting to Lakhnau. With the appointment of Burhanul Mulk, a migrant from Persia, as the governor of Oudh, and very shortly thereafter on his death the succession by his nephew and son-in-law, Safdar Jung, a second and even more influential element entered into the process of the ‘shaping’ of Lakhnau culture. A piece of Iran was thus transplanted in the subcontinent and on the soil of Oudh.
The poets of Delhi came to Faizabad or Lakhnau where the ruler of Oudh, Safdar Jung or his son and successor, Shujaud Dawlah, chose to reside. The first to come was Mirza Rafi Sauda and then Mir Ghulam Husain Zahik. They were followed by Mushafi. Then came Mir Zahik’s son, Mir Hasan. The last to arrive was the greatest of them all, a poets’ poet, Mir Taqi Mir. For Mir, Delhi was the city of cities.
These poets brought Delhi with them. Many of their successors shared their feelings for Delhi, but did not follow in their footsteps in migrating. Hyderabad Deccan presented an alternative, but many like Zauq stayed on in Delhi and wrote:
The fascination of the lanes of Delhi was something that Zauq shared with Mir, who wrote:
And then there was Ghalib whose individualistic approach raised the basic question:
But he did not move to Lakhnau. In any case, Lakhnau exercised stronger attraction than Hyderabad. And it came to be said:
The reference to Persian influence needs elaboration. It could be seen in the religious beliefs and practices, and then in the refinement of manners, social graces and the dialect in which the language was spoken. It was not a matter merely of the expressions used or the words, phrases and idioms chosen. The Lakhnavi dialect was quite distinct from that heard in the rest of the subcontinent, and could not be mistaken. This distinction is not always appreciated. For example, in Satyajit Rai’s Shatranj ke Khiladi, a good film otherwise, the dialogues are spoken in a very un-Lakhnavi dialect and bear no trace of the way Persian in Iran, and consequentially Urdu in Lakhnau, is spoken.
Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s novel, Umrao Jan Ada, is also full of instances, not exaggerated, of the tameezdari and saliqa of the people of Lakhnau, another ‘legacy’ of Iran.
The culture of Lakhnau in the days depicted in the novel could be compared to an edifice which rested on five pillars: religion; social graces and good manners; poetry and language (particularly the way it was spoken); infinite variety of arts and handicrafts; and music. Religion — beliefs and practices — was not the theme of Ruswa’s fiction, but its pervasive influence can be felt in the background. Here, by Ruswa’s fiction, I mean excluding his mystery thrillers such as Bahram ki Rihai.
Azadari had become an inseparable part of everyday life. The Imam (A.S.) was everybody’s Imam — Muslims and Hindus, prince and pauper, sublime and base, high and low, saint and sinner, the pious and the profane, the erudite and the unlettered. They all tried to excel each other in expressing their devotion to the Imam. Azadari played a definitive part in shaping the psyche of the people of Lakhnau, so much so that even a fusion of music with azadari was attempted. It took the form of soz khwani.
The soz khwaan had to know the basics of classical music and variations in the ragas quite well, if not fully. He was, thus, required to, able to and did, drop one note so as to avoid identification with and sound different from a classical raag, of course without disturbing the continuity of the recital. Maybe the basically sad and melancholy character of the subcontinent’s classical music lent itself naturally to soz khwani. The reason for the avoidance of identification was the religious disapproval of music to the extent that the ulema absented themselves from the Farsh-i-Aza while soz was being recited. Soz was Lakhnau’s contribution to the forms of azadari.
During the Nawab/Shahi period, Lakhnau progressed from glory to glory. The British takeover dealt a fatal blow to the heart of the city’s life, but could not extinguish the glow of cultural activity. Much of the latter continued to flourish, as Mir Anis said:
(In this article, the phonetic spelling ‘Lakhnau’ has been preferred)
The traditional culture of old Lakhnau rested on five pillars: religion, social graces and good manners, poetry and language, infinite variety of art and handicrafts, and music 
