Mehr Afshan Farooqi is an Associate Professor in the department of Middle Eastern And South Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Virginia.
She is currently in India on a Fellowship to work on her book on the great Urdu poet, Asadullah Khan Ghalib.
On an unseasonably cold November night in 2022, a pain, a dull burn, gripped my chest in what felt like a constriction, an uneasy
Published26 Apr, 202612:18pm
I grew up with Urdu poetry, learning to recite verses from ghazals as soon as I could talk. Words held only visual meanings for me
Published22 Feb, 202606:45am
Poets-writers do not function in a vacuum, they belong to a milieu, have a circle of friends and rivals and an audience of...
Published17 Aug, 202508:51am
It is perplexing that Muhammad Husain Azad (1830-1910), author of the scintillating, so-called ‘first history of Urdu poetry’,
Updated05 Aug, 202405:14pm
This past year I designed an undergraduate course that I called ‘The Poetry of Love’. One of the challenges of the course was how
Published28 Jan, 202409:15am
The great 19th century Urdu and Farsi poet Ghalib was a master in creating neologisms. He excelled in pushing language to its...
Published26 Nov, 202308:26am
Kunwar Muhammad Jamilur Rahman Khan Jamil was born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan. He served as Joint Secretary Halqa-i-Takhleeq
Published23 Jul, 202305:25am
The hospital twinkles with lights, like a beacon dispelling the darkness of the winter morning. The lobby sparkles. A steady...
Published21 May, 202307:58am
‘Constriction’ is a multivalent word. It holds in its depths a slew of emotions. It is like a tight knot of feelings inside your
Published19 Mar, 202308:02am
