Nida Fazli (1938-2016) was born in Delhi into a family of Kashmiri descent, but he grew up in Gwalior. During the partition, his parents migrated to Pakistan, but he decided to stay in India. Early in his life, he was influenced by the poetry of saints and bhaktas like Kabir, Surdas, and Mirabai, and this was his inspiration for writing poetry in Hindi, Gujarati, and Urdu. Later in life, he studied Urdu poetry, especially the works of Mir and Ghalib. He moved to Mumbai in 1964, and with time, he became a famous film lyricist. In 1994, he teamed up with Jagjit Singh to produce an album of his ghazals titled Insight. He was a vocal opponent of the country’s partition, and later in his life, he worked to promote communal harmony. He was awarded Padma Shri in 2013. His poems and dohas are as famous as his ghazals. Nida was a secularist in his thoughts and actions, and he stayed above all sorts of petty biases and polemics. His ghazals reflect his child-like innocence, all-embracing love, wonder of being, and a total celebration of life.
For more about the Urdu Ghazal Poetry, please refer to:
Gopi Chand Narang, Translation by Surinder Deol. The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of Composite Culture. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2020.
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