Although the 18th century witnessed the crippling of the mighty Mughal Empire, it was also a wonderful age of poetry and the arts in general. Regional kingdoms gave refuge to poets and artists, leading to the rise of new ways of expression imbued by local colour. Poetry, especially of the ghazal kind, moved from pure Farsi to rekhtah, a mixed idiom developed from an audacious mixing of Indianised Farsi with local and regional languages. The poetics of the rekhtah ghazal remained primarily Persian, although its themes and poetic conceits moved towards the Indic. When Wali Dakhni’s divan – a landmark collection of Urdu ghazals – reached Delhi around 1708, it became popular among the city’s literati for it presented ghazals in simpler, more melodic language, closer to spoken language than the rekhtah. We are told that he was advised by Shah Gulshan, a Sufi and ghazal connoisseur, to add more Farsi to his poetic voice. My point is that, in absence of a significant critical lens for rekhtah, it was considered best to apply the poetics of the classical ghazal to this new poetry. In any case, the standard for judging poetry was what the tazkirah, a kind of biographical compendium of poets with samples of their verse showcased. Tazkirah writers highlighted the best poets and offered cursory comments on their poetry.The hallmarks of great poetry in the rekhtah were ihaam (duality of meaning), istia’rah (metaphor) and the layering of meaning or ma’ni afrini. The great 18th-century poets: Mir Taqi Mir (1723-1810), Mirza Rafi Sauda (1713-81), Shah Hatam (1699-1781), Qalandar Bakhsh Ju’rat (1748-1810), Ghulam Hamadani Musahafi (1748-1824) and Inshallah Khan Insha (1752-1817), were masters of metaphor and layered meaning in their poetry. Depending on where they lived and wrote the bulk of their poetry, they were perceived as belonging to the so-called Delhi or Lucknow Schools of poetry. But their poetry, by and large, conformed to rekhtah poetics. These poets had royal or noble patrons, were attached to courts and wrote mostly for an elite, lettered audience.Nazir Akbarabadi: A poet outside the courtNazir Akbarabadi (1735-1830), also a prolific 18th-century poet who broke new ground in the nazm (poem with a narrative) was not considered worthy of tazkirah writers’ attention. Some even went to the extent of dubbing his poetry as unrefined, even vulgar.Also read: Bashir Badr, the Goldsmith of Urdu Ghazal, Lives On Nazir, the 13th and only surviving child of his parents, was born in Delhi and named Wali Muhammad. We don’t know much about his early life in Delhi; his story begins when the family moved to Agra in 1757, after the punishing incursions of Ahmad Shah Abdalli, and took up residence in Taj Ganj. He was literate in Persian and Arabic and began tutoring children from wealthy families for his livelihood. He was a teacher, a member of the service class who earned his living instead of being attached to a court or a patron.Nazir deployed a variety of forms in his poetry. His favorite was the five–line mukhammas and six-line stanzas known as musaddas. He wrote ghazals that were like nazms (musalsal), in that they followed a theme, mostly about love. He also wrote bold, playful ghazals such as the one titled Izarband (trouser strings):Chota bara na kam na manjhola izarbandHai us pari ka sab se amola izarbandHar ek qadam pe shokh ke zanu ke darmiyanKhata hai kis jhalak se jhakola izarbandSmall, large, not less or middling, trouser-strings;They are priceless, that beauty’s trouser-strings.At every step between that saucy one’s knees,Showing glimpses when swaying, her trouser-strings.In nazms, Nazir covered an unusual range of subjects: from baby pythons to bear cubs, from weaver bird to pigeons, fruits like watermelons, oranges, cucumbers to serious subjects that can be broadly categorised as musings on life and death. In between are poems on festivals, deities and so on. The language of the bazaarOur folk literature, wedding songs especially, have plenty of playful jabs at samdhans (mothers of brides and grooms). Nazir’s take on samdhan had me marvelling at his grasp of the folk tradition:Kamar nazuk matakti chaal ankhen surkh tan goraNazar Chanchal ada achpal yeh hai pehchan samdhan kiSunehri taash ka lehenga rupahli got ki angiyaChamakta husn joban ka jhamakti aan samdhan kiMalai sa shikam sina musaffa khush numa saqen Safa zanu ka aina mulayam raan samdhan ki […]Delicate waist, swaying gait, eyes red and creamy skin Playful glance, wanton charms, these are the markers of a samdhanIn a skirt made of golden silk and a bodice with silver edgingSparkling beauty of youthfulness, are mischievous pride of a samdhanStomach smooth and creamy, breasts unblemished, appealing legsHer knees are clear as mirrors, soft are thighs of a samdhan […]The poem is at once sensuous and sensual and I would say unusual for Urdu. Its register is an appealing mixture of bol-chal (everyday language) and Perso-Arabic. Notice the juxtaposition of nazuk with matakti chaal and ada with achpal. Then we have shikam, sina, musaffa, khushnuma and saaqen all in a single line. Perhaps this is a nod to the subject’s delicateness. Otherwise, Nazir did not shy from deploying common-speech vocabulary when describing sexually charged subjects. As much as I want to draw attention to the language of these poems, I also want to ask why Nazir chose to write in this bazaar idiom, eschewing the rekhtah? What prompted him to write poetry on subjects like izarband, samdhan, watermelon and mouse pickle?Also read: Urdu Literary Fashion, the Discourse of Decline, and the Myth of the Disappearing ReaderAn answer could be: his audience. Afterall, poets, especially those working in genres that are oral and performative, need live, appreciative audiences. But this is only a partial answer to my question that pertains to the bigger issue of “the language for poetry” which is considered suitable for the canon. Urdu’s complex literary history has been variously interpreted as evolving from “military camp” or “exalted court”. Then there is the vexed issue of “spoken language,” sometimes dubbed as bol-chal, other times as rozmarrah, and in more recent times, Hindustani. Writing poetry in bol-chal is bringing a high art to a low register. Beginning from Quli Qutub Shah, Wali Dakhini and then Mir Taqi Mir are known to have accomplished this; but Mir is accepted as Khuda-e Sukhan (god of poetry) while Nazir is Bazaari (cheap). Urdu’s canon was tentative and restrained by colonial supervision.Nazir and ‘Indian’ UrduFortunately, Nazir survived the opprobrium of tazkirah writers and the cold shoulder given to him by early modern critics such a Muhammad Husain Azad and Hali. Left-oriented critics marvelled at his bazaar poems, eclectic taste and philosophy of life. He was eventually given a place in the history of Urdu poetry. His poems on the subject of sex are generally avoided in literary discussions of his oeuvre. I have yet to find a kulliyat (complete collection) of his poetry where phrases, sometimes entire lines, are not blocked with crosses, for what I presume are reasons of morality. Nazir’s appeal is not simply that he did not shy from sensual subjects. His poetry grabs us because it is refreshing and unpretentious. It reminds us of a time when language was not tied to religious identity. Poems on Holi, Diwali, Basant Kanhaiyyaji ka Janam are an integral part of his divan. Baldevji ka Mela is incomparable in how it presents a sensibility that is earthy, rustic, folksy and Indic. As my sister Baran Farooqi has pointed out, one rarely, if ever, stops to consider that Urdu poetry could also mean ‘Indian’ poetry or that Urdu poetry could portray ‘Indian’ sensibility. Also read: Urdu Adab, Canonisation and Preservation of Literary Memory: The Ideational Role of Anjuman Taraqqi UrduI am aware of the problems inherent in what the word ‘Indian’ may signify today. I also appreciate the fact that the word ‘Indian’ or ‘Hindi’ may not have meant in the 18th century what it means today. In pre-modern times, the Farsi word Hindu or Hindi meant “a native of India,” and not the follower of a specific religion we now know as Hindu. The European powers insisted on defining the “natives” by their religious identity. As Romila Thapar has observed, religion in India was ‘redefined by colonial scholarship so as to make it comprehensible to those who saw it from a Judeo-Christian perspective. Nazir wrote effortlessly on themes of everyday life without regard for the question if his poems reflected ‘Hindoo’ life or ‘Muslim’ life. How self-conscious or unselfconscious was Nazir of his ‘Indian’ identity while he wrote numerous poems with a verve and vigour almost never before seen in Urdu and perhaps even in Indian poetry?Nazir’s landscape is best represented in his most charming poem, Baldevji ka Mela. Here are the opening and closing stanzas:Is he a new, novel Beloved? He is jasmine, bela, and chameli He is from city, district and villageWhat miraculous games he has played He is both a god and a discipleHe is at once a crowd, he is solitaryHe is gold, ashrafi, paisa and dhelaThere are crowds, a press of peopleThere is joy, there is beauty, and mischiefBaldevji’s fair is at its peakHe is Rama, he is Lakhshmana; He can be the Tortoise he can be RavanaHe is Baraha, he is Madan Mohan; He is Baldev, he is Shri KrishnaAll forms are His, He’s everywhere He is Nar Singh, he is NarayanHe sets out for a stroll in forests He calls out from forests There is joy, there is beauty and mischiefBaldevji’s fair is at its peak[…]Such profusion of fun and frolic, Jai Baldev Exchanges of pleasure, Jai BaldevDelightful days and nights, Jai Baldev He is manifest everywhere, Jai BaldevOn every tongue, a thousand times, Jai Baldev every moment memorable, Jai BaldevCome Nazeer, call aloud, Jai Baldev Let us all call as one, Jai BaldevThere is joy, there is beauty and mischiefBaldevji’s fair is at its peakNazir’s poetry proves that Urdu was not simply the language of the military or exalted court but enjoyed much more heterogenous origins and sensibilities.Mehr Afshan Farooqi is associate professor at the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Virginia, US.