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Bashir Badr has passed away, this news may well be the headline of the day; yet for lovers of poetry, his own words, spoken in the language of the ghazal, remain the final, definitive truth:

“When I am gone, the very culture of the ghazal shall vanish too.”

“When I am gone, the very culture of the ghazal shall vanish too.”

And this ‘culture of the ghazal’ – whether we term it refinement, grace, the sweetness of tone, or view it as an embodiment of cultural beauty and splendour – is a legacy uniquely associated with Bashir Badr in our times whose fragrance still lingers, deeply woven into countless breaths.

Indeed, the heritage of poetry illuminated by the light of Bashir Badr’s lamp reassures us that he will long remain with us as a towering figure – a hallmark – of the modern ghazal tradition. 

For a reader like me, the demise of this Goldsmith of Urdu poetry would only occur if the language of our daily conversations were to vanish or if we were to be stripped of the ‘consciousness of the new human being.’

Here, the ‘consciousness of the new human being’ must be interpreted through the lens of the ‘city with a new temperament’ and the philosophy of the ‘distances’ emerging within it; for the reader, this serves as the primary intellectual key to the emotional currents flowing through Bashir Badr’s work.

Although it is true that Bashir Badr’s alter ego – Syed Mohammad Bashir (1935–2026) – has left us, Bashir Badr himself remains, much like his timeless poetry. Speaking from my own experience of reading his work and watching him recite it for nearly three decades, I find that he has shaped the Urdu ghazal into the vernacular of our interactions, becoming, in many ways, a part of our habits.

A pierrot butterfly perches on a flower in the Aravalli mountain range, in Gurugram, Haryana on June 6, 2026. Photo: PTI.

One might say that within his poetry reside the language of our love, the metaphor of a butterfly that symbolises our innocence, our moments of happiness and grief, and even the vivid portrait of our political landscape. How, then, could a poet of such stature truly depart from us?

Manto once said about himself, “It is possible that Saadat Hasan might die, but Manto will not…” 

Today, I echo those very words for Bashir Badr. Indeed, death often falls short before us, and we persist in extracting the hues of our existence from the eternal works of figures like Manto and Bashir Badr.

Bashir Badr had been battling dementia for a long time; his memories were fading, so there was little chance of new verses emerging. Yet, even during this period, his poetry remained an integral part of our lives and interactions – much like a daily necessity – and it is destined to remain so for ages to come.

In fact, it often feels that if one were to characterise the ghazal of our times in terms of proverbs, folk sayings, and idioms, Bashir Badr’s poetry would be the finest example.

The specific aspect of his poetry I wish to highlight here is not merely verse composed of commonplace words, but rather a form of ‘conversation.’ It is ‘conversational’ to such an extent that when a critic like Shamsur Rahman Faruqi pointed out that in Bashir Badr’s work the letter ا) Alif – a letter of the Urdu alphabet) gets dropped and the letter ے (Yay – another Urdu alphabet) vanishes, Badr – instead of accepting this as a flaw or lack of polish – replied: “My past is linked to Ayodhya; I hail from Basti, where fully elongating the ے and pronouncing the Urdu ا with full force would turn the Awadhi dialect into Punjabi…”

How, then, could death truly claim a man like Bashir Badr, who had so deeply embraced our everyday speech infusing it with the very fragrance of the soil? The body that departed was merely that of Syed Mohammad Bashir – the Bashir who was gradually fading away amidst the crumbling fragments of his memory, yet who, even within his failing frame, often strove to hold fast to the words of Bashir Badr.

A poetry of conversation

The soul, let me then add, that permeates his poetry which resonates with the vernacular of the common people is attributed to Bashir Badr – a voice that continues to converse with our present world.

It is true that this poet, who enriched Urdu with the hues of Awadhi and Hindi, also crafted verses within the ornate styles deeply influenced by the Persian ghazal tradition.

However, when it came to his own creative expression, there were instances when he chose to write ‘chand’ (moon) as ‘chand’, effectively eliminating the need for words rooted in Arabic-Persian conventions.

As for Persian tarakeeb (compound phrases) and izafat (genitive constructions), he began to distance himself from them as well, opting instead to craft the simple language of everyday speech into the rhythmic cadence of the ghazal.

While many others before and after him had adapted colloquial speech into the ghazal form, where else has a poetic voice arisen – that possesses a fresh grammar and contemporary sensibility touching the common human experience while simultaneously upholding the dignity of the ghazal – as effectively as Bashir Badr’s?

Some compulsions were there, no doubt, One is not unfaithful just like that; My heart aches to speak the........

© The Wire