LOVE and beloved are one of the central themes in classical Urdu poetry. Classical poets express their extreme love for the sweetheart. But there is a remote yet distinct possibility that a poet may turn against the beloved: sick and tired of beloved’s real or assumed disloyalty and cold behaviour, a poet can renounce his love and in his poetry may turn foul-mouthed against the very same beloved for whom he was once willing to do anything, even lay down his life. This strange genre of poetry that denounces a beloved is called vasokht — and is variably spelt as wasokht and wasukht.

The poet, while bemoaning his emotional hurt caused by unrequited love or infidelity, vents his anger against the beloved, denouncing and ridiculing her in his verses for certain traits of hers. Sometimes in a vasokht a poet, while cursing the former beloved, admires some other beauties, pretending to be in love with them, but the real intention is to invoke jealousy in the beloved, win favours again and reunite with her.

Vasokht is a Persian word. ‘Va’ in Persian means again or back, as the prefix ‘re’ means in English. Sokhtan means to burn. Vasokht is derived from the infinitive ‘va sokhtan’, which also means to turn from, to repudiate, to renounce, says F. Steingass in his famous Persian-English Dictionary. Va sokhtan also means be burnt with extreme emotions. So vasokht is a strange and unique genre since it is contradictory to traditional ways in which emotions and feelings are shown for the lover in Urdu and Persian poetry.

Vahshi Yazdi (1532-1583) is said to be the originator of vasokht in Persian literature, a point of view shared by Shibli No’mani in the fifth volume of his Shear-ul-‘Ajam (p.65). Vahshi was born in Bafq and is called Vahshi Bafqi, but is also known as Vahshi Yazdi since he lived in Yazd. Like many other poetic genres, vasokht in Urdu owes its inception to Persian. Some literary histories have described vasokht, for example, Shear-ul-Hind by Abdus Salaam Nadvi, but it is sketchy. Unlike many other genres that have received ample attention, such as ghazal, and a great many theses have been written on them, vasokht did not attract much attention from the researchers and critics of Urdu till quite late into the 20th century. Qazi Abdul Wadood was the first to have discussed vasokht in a research paper, establishing the fact that Mubarak Aabroo was Urdu’s first poet who penned a vasokht, contrary to Muhammad Husain Azad who said that Mir Taqi Mir was the first to have written vasokht in Urdu. Qazi inspired some others, for instance, Masood Hasan Rizvi Adeeb, to express their views on the genre and its origin in Urdu. Later on, Dr Muhammad Hasan, Gian Chand Jain and Naadim Sitapuri wrote articles on the genre, providing the readers with some vital information on it.

Syed Zainul Abideen’s doctoral dissertation, titled Urdu Mein Vasokht Nigari (Patna, 1989) was the first detailed academic work that offered an in-depth analysis of the origin and the history of vasokht in Urdu. The book also critically evaluated some vasokht poets and quoted representative pieces of Urdu vasokht written by some 40 poets. According to Zainul Abideen, aside from some brief selections published earlier, Sh’ola-i-Javvala, published in two volumes in 1870, was the first veritable anthology of Urdu vasokht, showcasing Urdu vasokht by some 50 poets as well as some Persian poets.

Vasokht was usually composed in musaddas form (having six-line stanzas), but some poets have used other forms, too, such as five-line stanzas and longer stanzas or tarjee’ band (stanzas with refrain, that is, a line or two lines repeated at the end of every stanza).

After Aabroo, Shakir Naaji, Shah Hatim, Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Sauda, Maumin Khan Maumin and some other Mughal poets continued to uphold the practice of vasokht-writing in Urdu. But Vahshi’s Persian vasokht had more of heart-burning than sarcasm, while Urdu poets, especially the ones from Delhi School, had enhanced sarcastic tone with rancour and resentment. But poets form Lucknow School, says Zainul Abideen, showed more lively and playful attitude in their vasokht as at that time the entire Lucknow society was drenched in gaiety and the general approach towards life was full of merrymaking and festivities. Strangely enough, we could not trace any vasokht written in the Deccan era of Urdu literature and — unlike some other genres that originated and flourished in the South, for instance marsia — vasokht-writing began in North India.

Another critical work, titled Urdu vasokht, was penned by Shamim Sabai Mithravi and published from Karachi in 1993.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2025