Jashn-e-Rekhta shows Urdu is not only alive but rocking

New Delhi: Jashn-e-Rekhta began with much fanfare on Friday, at Major Dhyan Chand Stadium close to India Gate. The fourth edition of Jashn-e-Rekhta festival, a celebration of Urdu in the capital shows that a language that was nearly declared dead has come back from the brink. The fourth edition of Jashn-e-Rekhta saw a bunch of singers, orators and storytellers. They enthralled the audience with Urdu poetry, banter, ghazal and qawwali. There are four bazms, Mahfil-e-Khana, Bazm-e-Khayal, Dayar-e-Izhar and Kunj-e-Sukhan. Urdu lovers attend the bazms according to their taste. Actor Om Bhutkar made the audience to sigh on his ghazal “Us bewafa ka shahr hai aur waqt e shaam hai… aise main zinda rehna himmat ka kaam hai…. As reported by TOI, there is Urdu prog rock band Parvaaz, a western take on the ghazal by English songwriter Tanya Wells, dastangoi and a dramatic tribute based on a letter to the legendary writer Jaun Elliya. Kathak dancer and storyteller Neelesh Misra come together in The Courtesan Project to tell the story of Ghalib and his lover Nawab Jaan with a melange of Urdu poetry, history and dance. Sanjiv Saraf an IITian who was struggling to further his own interest in the language, founded Rekhta in 2013. His aim was to make the riches of Urdu literature freely available online, especially to those who didn’t have a grip on the script. The Rekhta foundation has loaded online 30,000 ghazals and nazms of around 2,500 Urdu writers with meanings of complex words available in Hindi and English at a click. Saraf has also launched a three-week online Urdu learning course. As reported by TOI 90% of the applicants are not Muslims.