Ameer Imam
One of the rising voices of the new-generation Indian Urdu ghazal — a poet from Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh whose verse marries a modern, image-led imagination to classical craft. Son of the poet Kaifi Sanbhali, his debut collection won the Sahitya Akademi's young-writer award, and he is now a familiar and admired presence on the mushaira stage in India and the Gulf.
Naqsh-e-Pa Hawaon Ke · Subh-Ba-Khair Zindagi · Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar
Ameer Imam was born on 30 June 1984 in Sambhal, in western Uttar Pradesh, into a house where poetry was already the family trade — his father, Kaifi Sanbhali, was a poet before him. He took a master's degree in English and went into teaching, and belongs to the generation whose name is made as much in the mushaira hall and on the screen as on the printed page.
His debut collection, Naqsh-e-Pa Hawaon Ke — 'footprints upon the winds' — won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, the academy's award for a young writer, and was followed by a second, Subh-Ba-Khair Zindagi ('good morning, life'). Rekhta files him among the promising poets of the early twenty-first century, a rising star of the new Indian Urdu ghazal, and the couplets bear the description out: inventive similes, an unexpected angle onto an old feeling, and a modern idiom that never quite loses the classical discipline underneath.
What the two ghazals here show is that signature. The first reaches for the sky's far limits only to worry, in the same breath, about drifting away from the earth — a very contemporary anxiety set in the oldest of forms. The second is a homecoming poem whose closing couplet turns, as a ghazal's maqta so often does, to name the poet himself and marvel that his own verses have come back to him in their old swagger. It is the vocation looking at itself — the reason his ash'aar travel so easily from the stage into memory.
wo aasmaan ki hadon ka shu'ur ho jaana
magar ye kya ki zamiinon se duur ho jaana
मगर ये क्या कि ज़मीनों से दूर हो जाना
aur andarun mein har samt nur ho jaana
और अंदरून में हर सम्त नूर हो जाना
phir us junun ka badh kar surur ho jaana
फिर उस जुनून का बढ़ कर सुरूर हो जाना
to mere qatl mein shaamil zarur ho jaana
तो मेरे क़त्ल में शामिल ज़रूर हो जाना
tamaam shisha-e-dil chur chur ho jaana
तमाम शीशा-ए-दिल चूर चूर हो जाना
wo be-kanaar samundar ubur ho jaana
वो बे-कनार समुंदर 'उबूर हो जाना
wahi sharaab sharaab-e-tuhur ho jaana
वही शराब शराब-ए-तुहूर हो जाना
To awaken to the far limits of the sky — and yet, what is this, that it should mean drifting away from the earth? For a single tear to run down toward the low ground of the soul, and the whole inward self to turn, on every side, to light. For a small ache first to soften into madness, and then for that very madness to swell into rapture. Should I fling my own sword down the moment I see you — then be sure to take your share in my killing. For an image to rise so scorching that the entire glass of the heart is shattered to pieces. To accept, the very instant you know that crossing it is impossible, that shoreless sea — and to cross it. And the wine your separation once gave me — for that same wine to become the pure wine of paradise.
Ameer Imam's, from his catalogued ghazals on Rekhta — the matla sets the whole poem's tension: to know the sky's limits and yet not lose the earth. It is a ghazal of ascent that keeps one honest eye on the ground, the wound turning first to madness and then to a strange rapture, and separation's bitter wine becoming, in the last couplet, the pure wine of paradise. The complete text, in Urdu, Roman and Devanagari, is archived at Rekhta.
magar ye kya ki zamiinon se duur ho jaana
“To awaken to the very limits of the sky — but what use is that, if it means drifting away from the earth?”
to mere qatl mein shaamil zarur ho jaana
“If, the moment I see you, I fling my own sword away — then be sure to take your part in my killing.”
tumhaare sher usi baankpan mein laut aae
“Ameer Imam, tell me — what is this wonder? Your couplets have come home in the very same swagger as before.”
ki jaise koi musaafir watan mein laut aae
hui jo shaam to phir se thakan mein laut aae
हुई जो शाम तो फिर से थकन में लौट आए
ham apni pyaas ko le kar dahan mein laut aae
हम अपनी प्यास को ले कर दहन में लौट आए
to us ke baad ham apne badan mein laut aae
तो उस के बाद हम अपने बदन में लौट आए
sabhi charaagh usi anjuman mein laut aae
सभी चराग़ उसी अंजुमन में लौट आए
to phir se shor-e-salaasil chalan mein laut aae
तो फिर से शोर-ए-सलासिल चलन में लौट आए
tumhaare sher usi baankpan mein laut aae
तुम्हारे शेर उसी बाँकपन में लौट आए
As a traveller returns at last to his homeland — so, when evening came, we returned once more into our own tiredness. Neither waterfall nor desert could set a price on it; we came back carrying our own thirst inside our mouth. The journey to someone's eyes was a very long one, and after it we returned into our own body. We had gone, once, to stand against the winds; every lamp came back to that same gathering. Let the silence of the open air break somehow — and the clamour of chains is back in fashion again. Ameer Imam, tell me — what is this wonder? Your couplets have come home in the very same swagger as before.
A homecoming ghazal — the radif 'laut aae' ('returned') tolls at the close of every couplet like a door opening again and again. The long journey to a pair of eyes ends in a return to one's own body; the lamps that went out to face the winds all come back to the same gathering; and the maqta names the poet to ask the sweetest question a ghazal can ask — how did these couplets find their way home. The full text is archived at Rekhta.
mere ash'aar sunaana na sunaane dena
jab main duniya se chala jaaun to jaane dena
जब मैं दुनिया से चला जाऊँ तो जाने देना
in hawaaon ko meri khaak udaane dena
इन हवाओं को मेरी ख़ाक उड़ाने देना
nayi naslon ko naye khwaab sajaane dena
नई नस्लों को नए ख़्वाब सजाने देना
kahe deta hun mira naam na aane dena
कहे देता हूँ मिरा नाम न आने देना
aur agar shor machaaun to machaane dena
और अगर शोर मचाऊँ तो मचाने देना
wahaan mat bhejna bachchon ko nahaane dena
वहाँ मत भेजना बच्चों को नहाने देना
gar koi haath chhudaaye to chhudaane dena
गर कोई हाथ छुड़ाए तो छुड़ाने देना
main wahi baat chhupaaunga chhupaane dena
मैं वही बात छुपाऊँगा छुपाने देना
haan miri maut ka maatam na manaane dena
हाँ मिरी मौत का मातम न मनाने देना
Recite my verses, or let no one recite them at all — and when I go from this world, simply let me go. I have raised a great deal of dust in their company; when these winds come, let them scatter my dust too. Do not tell anyone what it costs to fall apart — let the new generations dress their own new dreams. Time itself will tell the world my story; I am saying it plainly — do not let my name come into it. If I stay silent, then keep me silent; and if I raise an uproar, then let me raise it. These days the school stays open even in the rain — don't send them there; let the children go and bathe in it. Know this: when a new hand is calling you, if someone tries to pull your hand loose, let them pull it loose. Yes — that very thing you all already know — I will go on hiding it; let me hide it. If people laugh at how I lived, it is no matter — but do not let them mourn at my death.
A poet's testament about his own afterlife — the radif 'dena' ('let…') turning every couplet into a last instruction, tender and unsentimental at once. The much-loved sixth couplet — the school that stays open even in the rain, and the plea to let the children go and bathe in it instead — Ameer Imam has recited himself, on video, at the Madhyavart Literature Festival. A word on attribution, in the spirit of this shelf: the ghazal is widely recited as his and is published under his name, but it is not held in the Rekhta archive, and it carries no takhallus — no signature couplet — to settle authorship from within. We keep it here as his, honestly flagged: well attested by his own recital and by publication, but not archive-confirmed. The text follows the canonical Devanagari as published on Poetistic.
More of his verse, including ghazals not reproduced here, is archived at Ameer Imam on Rekhta →
Browse every poet on the Other Voices shelf → The heart of this site stays with Iqbal: explore his couplets →