WHEN you go to the library, which books will you get? Fiction, non-fiction or resource books. Defiantly not Urdu poetry, right?

Like the ancient civilisations of Mohenjodaro and Harappa faded away, the awareness and interest of Urdu poetry among young readers is slowly fading. Think about it — have you actually ever paid attention to Urdu poetry?

A teacher named Ms Nadia came to our class as a substitute teacher and she told us to take books from our reading corner in the library. While we were reading, she noticed that nobody had taken a book of Urdu poetry. Even though she was the social studies, she decided to take out a whole week and introduced Urdu poetry to us by making us listen to old and renowned Urdu poems. During this week, two extraordinary events took place that made her quiet happy.

On the second day we were listening to Allama Iqbal and two children started crying and it took a whole period to calm them down.

Miss Nadia asked them what was wrong and they replied, “Urdu poetry is so beautiful and it touches the heart, but we don’t acknowledge its beauty.”

The other incident was that a girl’s mother came up to Miss Nadia and told her that her child didn’t like speaking Urdu and the day before the girl came up to her and, in Urdu, requested that she wanted a CD of Urdu poetry and ghazals.

The mother was very pleased with the change in her daughter and was thankful to Ms Nadia for this.

Nowadays, even adults are preoccupied with gadgets and the occasional book they pick up is usually a new bestseller in English. So as adults are not reading Urdu poetry, there is no one to introduce it to their children. Few youngsters know much about our renowned poets, except those they have to study as part of their Urdu course at school. They know the lyrics of countless songs but not a single couplet of Allama Iqbal.

Our grandparents, and sometimes parents, seem like the only ones who know about the poets of our subcontinent. But why? Maybe they did try to teach some of us but, like they say, in from one ear and out from the other as soon as our exams are over. We know that we will not have to study them again so all the information slips away and we don’t remember anything.

People from other countries seem to think that our poetry is poetry at its best. In Germany, Iqbal’s poetry is popular in the academic and literary circles and they make an effort to teach it to those interested. They think that we are so lucky to have such a rich poetic heritage. But where is this precious heritage of ours? In the dusty, untouched corners of our libraries.