Krishna Bihari 'Noor'
A leading poet of the Lucknow school and, unusually, a Hindu master of the Urdu ghazal — writing of the suffering inherent in existence, the fracturing of the self, and the unbribable honesty of the mirror.
Collections include Dukh-Sukh and Tapasya
Krishna Bihari 'Noor' was born in Lucknow in 1926, graduated from Lucknow University, and spent his working life as a clerk in a government office, retiring as an assistant manager. He was a disciple of the poet Fazl Naqvi, and — being equally at home in the Urdu and Devanagari scripts — wrote verse that could live on both sides of the Urdu-Hindi divide at once.
He embodies the syncretic literary culture of Lucknow: a Hindu poet writing classical Urdu ghazal of real weight, on the suffering built into living, on mortality, and on the honesty of the mirror that will not flatter. His most famous couplet — 'zindagi se badi saza hi nahin' ('there is no punishment greater than life itself') — is so widely quoted that, like so much good verse, it often travels without his name attached.
He is, honestly, among the more thinly documented poets here: the verified spine is Lucknow, the university, the office career, the discipleship under Fazl Naqvi and the body of ghazals. We hold to that rather than embroider what the archives do not record.
aur kya jurm hai pata hi nahin …
“There is no punishment greater than life — and what the crime is, I do not even know. I have been divided into so many parts that nothing is left in my own share.”
aaina is pe hai khamosh ki kya hai mujh mein
“The mirror tells me what I am — but the mirror stays silent on what lies within me.”
aaina jhut bolta hi nahin
“Set it in a frame of gold if you wish — the mirror simply does not lie.”
usi ke haath ka patthar miri talash mein hai
“The very one in whose hand I had placed a flower — the stone in that same hand is now out hunting for me.”
aankhen jo band hon to vo jalva dikhai de
“What a strange condition is set for the vision of Him — only when the eyes are shut does that splendour appear.”
kabhi dariya nahin kafi kabhi qatra hai bahut
“Thirst, too, has so many stations — sometimes a whole river is not enough, sometimes a single drop is plenty.”
sab apne apne chahne walon mein kho gaye
“Having recited my ghazal, I stood there alone — everyone else got lost among the ones who loved them.”
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