Ghazal

Shakeel Badayuni (1916–70) was a successful and prolific Bollywood songwriter as well as a renowned author of Urdu ghazals. Born in Uttar Pradesh, India, his father taught him Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, and Hindi. He attended Aligarh University in the 1930s, then a center of political and poetical ferment. He quickly became a leading figure in Bollywood with the success of the first film he wrote lyrics for, Dard. Shakeel wrote lyrics for eighty-nine films.

Zack Rogow is the author, editor, or translator of more than twenty books and plays. His recent publications include a memoir, Hugging My Father’s Ghost (2024), and Irreverent Litanies (2019), his ninth book of poems. His most recent play, Colette Uncensored, had its first staged reading at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and ran in London, Indonesia, Catalonia, San Francisco, and Portland.

Anshuman Chandra composes and performs his own melodies for ghazals, including a recording of this ghazal by Shakeel Badayuni, which can be heard on the WLT website. He is also a member of the South Asian band sifar1. He studied Urdu under Hamida Banu Chopra and has collaborated on translations of the poets Sahir Ludhyanvi, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Shakeel Badayuni, and Sha’ir Lakhnavi.