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Kashmiri Pandit who is an Urdu and Persian litterateur (SPECIAL)
By Firoz Bakht Ahmed

He is a Hindu Kashmiri Pandit but is counted among the best-known faces in Urdu and Persian poetry. Pandit Anand Mohan Zutshi Gulzar Nizami Dehlvi has just turned 80, and is still going strong.

"Just to seek light and serve the nation through pen and Urdu poetry" is the philosophy of life for Dehlvi, whose forefathers taught the Mughal princes and in the process won the title Rai Raiyan. 

Gulzar's father Qadir-ul-Kalam Allama (Pandit) Tribhuvan Nath Zar Dehlvi imparted education in Urdu and Persian in Delhi University for 39 long years. 

"Mehboob-e-Zari Zarbakhsh, Khwaja-e-Rasteen, Mehboob-e-Khuda, Abul Wafa, Akkas-e-Sunnat-o-Fitrat, Aqrab-e-Khaleeq, Fana Fillah Baqibullah - these are some of the 101 titles given to Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia by Dehlvi.

Mohammed Atiq Siddiqui, convenor of Jashn-e-Gulzar Committee and editor of Al-Yaum Urdu newspaper, says Dehlvi has no match when it comes to Urdu Qasidagoi and Masnavi, both genres of appreciating people and ideas. 

Gopi Chand Narang, president of the Sahitya Akademi, says Dehlvi is the national poet of India besides being an orator extraordinary owing to his qualities as a secular nationalist championing the cause of Urdu. He fasts during every Ramzan.

He hobnobbed with politics from 1937 to 1947. But politics was not his cup of tea. 

Nevertheless, he rubbed shoulders with the likes of Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Humayun Kabir, Aruna Asif Ali, Saifuddin Kitchlew, Maulana Hifz-ur-Rehman, Maulana Hussain Ahmed Madani, Lala Sham Nath and Indira Gandhi. 

Also popularly known in the Urdu circles as Bulbul-e-Hind, Imam-e-Urdu, Gulzar-e-Khusro, Shair-e-Qaum, Mujahid-e-Urdu and Tooti-e-Nizami, Dehlvi is credited with having arranged and attended about 40,000 mushairas around the world.

Since 1936, he has been on the panel of the Ramlila committee started by Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last of the Mughal emperors. 

The emperor had earlier granted the place for the Ramlila at the Bela Road ground. Ramlila later shifted to the Tis Hazari and Boulevard areas before finally settling at the present Ramlila Ground in 1936. 

A highly qualified individual with postgraduate degrees in law and business administration and a doctorate in Urdu, Dehlvi edited "Science ki Duniya", the first Urdu magazine devoted totally to science.

Dehlvi has been conferred the World Peace Poetry Award (Berlin), and honoured in places like Cleveland, Ohio, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Chicago, Columbus and Toronto, Lahore and Karachi. 

At present Dehlvi is busy compiling his own Ghazal, Nazm, Rubayee and Qata, all forms of Urdu poetry portraying romance, mysticism, spiritualism, humanism and rebellious poetry into an autobiographical book. 

(Firoz Bakht Ahmed is a commentator on social, cultural and educational issues. He can be reached at firozbakht@rediffmail.com)