Shāʽir aur Barsāt
Nazīr Aḥmad Dahqānī
Introduced & translated by
Maria Casadei
DOI https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13292391
Abstract: Dakhni Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Deccan region of India, especially in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala. This variety of Urdu, which developed in the Deccan from the 14th century, is the result of the language contact between Urdu and Dravidian languages spoken in South India. It flourished as a literary vehicle during the 14th and 15th century and, following the conquest of Deccan by Mughals in 1687, it saw a rapid decline that constrained it to the oral form. Nazīr Aḥmad Dahqānī (1908-1949) is one of the most prominent writers in modern Dakhni. Despite being considered the “father” of an entire generation of poets who wrote during the 20th century, his works have been highly neglected by scholars. The translation of the poem titled Shāʽir aur barsāt (“The poet and the rain”) offers a glimpse of Dahqānī’s style and themes.
Keywords. Deccan, Dakhni, Urdu poetry, Indian literature
Works Cited:
Akhtar, Nazia. Bibi’s Room: Hyderabadi Women and Twentieth-Century Urdu Prose. Orient Blackswan & The New India Foundation, 2022.
Arora, Harbir and Subbarao, K. V. “Contrastive Analysis and Syntactic Change.” Papers and studies in contrastive linguistics, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza, 1993.
Bailey, Thomas G. A History of Urdu Literature. Oxford University Press, 1932.
Eaton, Richard. “Sufi Folk Literature and the Expansion of Indian Islam.” History of Religions 14, no. 2, 1974, pp. 117–127.
Faruqi, Rahman Shamsur. Early Urdu Literary Culture and History. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Mustafa, Khateeb S. “Dakkhni.” Encyclopaedia of the Linguistic Sciences: Issues and Theories, edited by Prakāśaṃ, Allied Publishers, 2008, pp. 185–186.
Pray, Bruce R. “Evidence of grammatical convergence in Dakhni Urdu and Telugu.” Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 1980, pp. 90-94.
Sayed, Mohamed. The Value of Dakhni Language and Literature. University of Mysore, 1968.
Shakib, Rashid. Dakanī Adab ke Chār Mīnār [Four pillars of Deccan Urdu]. Mehfil ʽIlm-o-Adab, 1994.
Maria Casadei is a PhD candidate at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow (Poland), with a specialization in Urdu and Telugu language. During her academic experience obtained in Italy and France, she has been deeply involved in studying Indian languages and literature, philosophy, and religion. Her interests involve sociolinguistics, language and technology, media, and cultural studies. Since October 2021, Maria has been working on the linguistic landscape of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and the preservation of Dakhni Urdu literary and oral traditions.
https://orcid.org/0009-0004-1942-7140
maria.ca.95.casadei@doctoral.uj.edu.pl
Shāʽir aur Barsāt by Maria Casadei is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 
