Forgotten form of Urdu poetry stages emphatic comeback
Passage of time has only sharpened appetite for satirical, humorous poetry in the UAE
■ it petered out, so it’s heartening to see it make an emphatic comeback,” he said.
Bazm-e-Urdu founder Rehan Khan said they were optimistic about the response but didn’t expect it to be so staggering. “When all 2,000 seats were occupied, people sat on the floor. Hundreds had to be turned away from the door as there was no space left,” he said. Longtime expat Zahoorul Islam Javed, who is a poet himself, said he’s not seen a bigger turnout of Urdu lovers in the UAE in nearly 40 years.
The UAE currently hosts about 20 mushairas annually.
But none of them belong to the genre of humour.
As Farhan Wasti, who has been organising Urdu poetry sessions in Dubai since 2009, puts it, good wit and satire never really go out of fashion.