Zehra Nigah

1) Her Biography and Main Works:

Zehra Nigah is a Pakistani Urdu poet and scriptwriter. She was one of two female poets who rose to prominence in the 1950s, when men dominated the scene. She has written a number of television drama series. She has also received numerous awards, including the Pride of Performance Award in 2006 for her literary works. She wrote the screenplay for the television series Umrao Jan Ada, which was inspired by Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s Umrao Jaan Ada. Her other published works are, Shaam Ka Pehla Tara and Waraq.

Zehra was born in the British Indian city of Hyderabad. She was ten years old when she and her family moved to Pakistan following India’s partition in 1947. Her father was a civil servant who enjoyed poetry. Fatima Surayya Bajia, Zehra’s elder sister, was also a writer. Anwar Maqsood, one of her brothers, is a writer, satirist, and television host, and another brother, Ahmad Maqsood, was the Secretary to the Government of Sindh. Zehra married Majid Ali, a civil servant with a passion for Sufi poetry.

Zehra Nigah began writing when she was a child. She memorized the poetry of famous poets when she was 14 years old. She is influenced by the classical Urdu poetry tradition. Around 1922, the living room in Zehra’s family home served as the focal point for historic gatherings of poets such as Iqbal, Firaq, Makhdoom, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, and Majaz. “Academics, poetry, and music, completed my home” she says, adding further that “My mother used to learn music from her ustaad [teacher] from behind a purdah. My maternal grandfather used to encourage us children to revise tough poets like Haali and Iqbal with correct meanings, pronunciations and reading style. He would tempt us by saying, ‘If you memorize Iqbal’s Jawab-e-Shikwa or Musaddas-e-Hali, you will get five rupees.’ And we would wield all our energies to memorize them. Such was my training that at four I had learnt the correct recitation style and pronunciation and by the time I was 14, I had learnt the masterpieces of most big poets by heart.”

2) Main Themes in her Works:

Zehra Nigah, who first entertained the audience at mushairas, soon matured and moved on to more serious themes and more innovative forms, producing powerful poems on topics such as terrorism, globalization, street children, and drug abuse. She also wrote long poems about death, imbuing them with a softness that her earlier lyrics lacked. She is a poet who is feminine without being feminist, with gender issues finding a place in her vast canvas of concerns.

3) Some verses:

“Whither love and romance, whither separation and union

Still now people long for life”

–Law of Joy-Zehra Nigah

I would play beneath its shade,

Sheltered afternoons long from the sun,

Swing on the boughs, meeting them as they swayed,

Touch the flowers and run.

Into its trunk had been sunk

Scores of nails.

Many a time had I been warned

Not to touch those nails.