Urdu Ashaar

I find Urdu to be a very beautiful language. It sounds very sweet and what attracts me is that it seems to be "compactly" poweful- that is, people can convey a lot of strong emotions and feelings just through one or two very sweet words, or appending one word to another with the use of "e" or "o" (like "shab-e-gham" or "dil-e-naadan") to make the combination of two unrelated words seem like one beautiful word. I imagine writing in urdu will also be an equally rewarding experience. Quite a steep challenge for someone whose mothertounge is not urdu, but I propose to chase after it :)

A sher that resulted from today's obsession with urdu (albeit the written script here is Hindi, I dont see myself learning the urdu script in the near future :):

कयों रखें कदम इस आसतां के बाहर
उस बज़्म में हम नहीं है मुश्ताक

इस वीरानी की भी करो ज़रा कदर
शोला-ए-जश्न में जलके बन जाओगे राख

आसतां : abode, threshold; मुश्ताक: interested, eager, keen;
वीरानी: Emptiness, Desolation, Loneliness; शोला-ए-जश्न: flames/blaze of celebration

ghalib ke chahne wale...

Some good news for those ghalib fans whose grasp of urdu is not that strong. Check out http://www.smriti.com/urdu/ghalib/ . It has almost 50 of his ghazals including most of his very best with the meanings of all the harder urdu words there. If your appreciation of his ashaar was limited by your urdu, this will take care of that problem!

Also, youtube has several episodes of the late 80's doordarshan serial "Mirza Ghalib" which was a confluence of artistic class never seen before- the life and shayari of mirza ghalib, directed by gulzar, featuring naseeruddin shah and jagjit singh's silken voice!