MY son is doing his PhD on Tabish Dehlvi, a noted literary luminary. He had sufficient material about the man’s literary and personal life, but had been desperately looking for his books, Deed Baaz Deed and Taqdees, for a long time, which are not available in the market or even in libraries. I somehow managed to get the phone number of Tabish Sahib’s son, and called him as soon as I could. It was Sept 23.

He was busy at the time, but was nice enough to call me later. As it turned out, he had been busy recording for some private television channel in connection with the 18th anniversary of the death of his father. I suddenly realised how time flies. It has been 18 years since the man left us for the afterworld. Time flies, and people forget. What a pity.

Tabish Sahib was one of the famous personalities of the country, but I had never met him or heard him until the voice that I came across while listening to Radio Pakistan sometime in 1962. “The news is being read by Masood Tabish”.

After almost a year, I went to attend a big mushaira with my father at the KGA Ground, where I heard the announcement that “Tabish Dehlvi will now recite his ghazal”. After the gathering, I went to Tabish Sahib and asked him for an autograph.

He wrote one of his couplets and signed my autograph book. I asked him if he also read news on Radio Pakistan, and his reply in the affirmative confirmed that he was the same person.

Syed Masoodul Hasan Tabish Dehlvi was a true connoisseur of Urdu literature. When I heard his poetry in literary gatherings and went through his first collection of poetry, Neem Roze in 1963, I realised he was a mature and competent poet who had an individualistic style in thought and diction.

Prominent literary figure Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi had written about him: “Tabish Dehlvi earned honour for himself as a ghazal poet at a time when the entire subcontinent echoed with the great ghazal poets like Fani, Faraq, Yegana, Ashghar, Jigar and Hasrat. It was a difficult task to gain fame in their beloved genre of poetry, but the ghazal of Tabish did it for him.” We may well rate Tabish Dehlvi as the leading ghazal poet at his peak.

He was also widely admired as a broadcaster and Urdu newsreader. He had a full-fledged broadcasting career (1941-72) which had started from the All-India Radio and then he moved to Radio Pakistan after 1947.

He introduced many classical and ghazal singers, announcers, newsreaders, and drama artists to Radio Pakistan.

He arranged and conducted mushairas, literary talk shows, live commentaries and musical and religious programmes.

Tabish Sahib has left behind a good volume of impressive literary work and his broadcasting recordings behind him. He will be remembered for long by the lovers of Urdu, especially of Urdu poetry.

Asmat Zehra
Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2022