Brij Narayan Chakbast (19 January 1882 12 February 1926), also spelled as Brij Narain Chakbast, was an Indian
Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
poet.
Life
Chakbast (1882–1926) was an
Urdu
Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...
poet. He was born on 19 January 1882 in a
Kashmiri Pandit family settled in North
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
in the 15th century A.D. Chakbast was born in
Faizabad (near
Lucknow
Lucknow () is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and the largest city of the List of state and union territory capitals in India, Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and it is the administrative headquarters of the epon ...
) in 1882. His father Pandit Udit Narayan Chakbast, was born at Lucknow in, circa 1843, and he was also a poet. Pandit Udit Narayan was deputy collector, the highest post that any Indian could have at that time. After the death of his father in 1887, the family moved to Lucknow and they started living in Kashmiri Mohalla of Lucknow. Chakbast was educated in Lucknow, and he became a successful lawyer. Chakbast married in 1905, but lost his wife and first child in 1906. He married again in 1907, and settled down as a practising lawyer at Lucknow. On 12 February 1926, he collapsed at the railway station in
Rae Bareli and died a few hours later at the age of 44.
Chakbast made a thorough study of Urdu poetry. He defended
Daya Shankar Kaul Nasim when it was suggested that he was not the author of the epic ''Gul Bakawali''.
He was actively involved in social and political affairs, and was a strong proponent of the
Home Rule
Home rule is the government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governan ...
and actively participated in the
Home Rule Movement.
Education
Chakbast's early education took place in Faizabad. Following his father's death, his family relocated to Lucknow, where he completed the rest of his education. He earned his
B.A. degree in 1905 and his
L.L.B. in 1907 from
Canning College, Lucknow,which was affiliated with
Allahabad University at the time. This institution later became part of
Lucknow University. After completing his studies, Chakbast went on to establish a successful career as a lawyer.
Works
Chakbast was primarily a poet but his prose is also considered at par with his poetry.
Chakbast's premature death was a great loss for Urdu but whatever he left is exemplary and is considered among the gems of Urdu literature. He was strongly influenced by
Ghalib,
Mir Anis and
Aatish. Chakbast was primarily a
nazm poet. He began his poetic career with a nazm in 1894. He wrote
nazms,
mathnawi
Mathnawi ( ), also spelled masnavi, mesnevi or masnawi, is a kind of poem written in rhyming couplets, or more specifically "a poem based on independent, internally rhyming lines". Most mathnawi poems follow a Meter (poetry), meter of eleven, or o ...
, a play, and about 50
ghazals. His Ramayan ka ek Scene is strongly reminiscent of
Marsiya of Mir Anis. His verses from his ghazal
:''Zindagi kya hai anasir mein zahur-e tarteeb,''
:''Maut kya hai ini ajza ka pareshan hona''
:''Zarra Zarra hai mere Kashmir ka mehmaan nawaaz,''
:''raah mein pathar ke tukdoon ne diya pani mujhe''
''Subh-e Watan'' is collected works of Chakbast as its title and many of its poems reflect about his intense patriotism, predominantly a central theme of his poetry.
''Khak-e-Hind''
''Gulzar-e-Naseem'' a mathnawi,
''Ramayan ka ek scene''
musaddas
''Nala-e-Dard''
''Nala-e-Yaas'', and a play named
''Kamla''
''Kulliyate-Chakbast'' and ''Maqalaat-e-Chakbast'' is the complete collection of Chakbast's works in poetry and prose that was published posthumously on the birth centenary of the poet, compiled by Kalidas Gupta 'Raza' around 1983.
Legacy
The 2015 film
Masaan starts with and contains various examples of
Urdu poetry
Urdu poetry ( ) is a tradition of poetry and has many different forms. Today, it is an important part of the culture of India and Pakistan. According to Naseer Turabi, there are five major poets of Urdu: Mir Taqi Mir (d. 1810), Mirza Ghalib (d. ...
by Chakbast along with the works of
Basheer Badr,
Akbar Allahabadi
Syed Akbar Hussain, popularly known as Akbar Allahabadi (16 November 1846 – 9 September 1921) was an Indian poet, regarded as one of the greatest satirist in Urdu literature. The most popular of Akbar's verse poked fun at the cultural dilemma ...
,
Mirza Ghalib and
Dushyant Kumar. Explaining this as a conscious tribute, the film's lyrics writer
Varun Grover explained that he wanted to show
Shaalu (portrayed by Shweta Tripathi) as a person whose hobby is to read Hindi poetry and
shaayari, as this is a common hobby of millennial and generation x youngsters in Northern India, especially when in love, but this aspect is rarely shown in Hindi films.
See also
*
Marsia
*
Musaddas
*
Mir Anis
References
External links
Brij Narayan Chakbastat
Rekhta
''Rekhta'' ( ; ''Rekhtā'') was an early form of the Hindustani language. This style evolved in both the Perso-Arabic and Nagari scripts and is considered an early form of Standard Urdu and Modern Standard Hindi. According to the Pakistan ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chakbast, Brij Narayan
1882 births
1926 deaths
Kashmiri writers
People from Faizabad
20th-century Indian poets
Indian male poets
20th-century Indian male writers
Poets from British India