Send us a textFamous Urdu novelist and short story writer Qurratulain Hyder once described Professor Gopi Chand Narang, who passed away on June 15, 2022, as a "renaissance man" of Urdu. Narang called his life a safr-e i'shq (the journey of love) for Urdu language and literature. The story of Ghazal included in this episode has been excerpted from the book The Urdu Ghazal: A Gift of India’s Composite Culture. We all love ghazals and that is why we read them and listen to them in the immortal voices of singers like Begum Akhtar, Mahdi Hasan, and Jagjit Singh. But many of us do not know much about its origin, its flowering over the past 300 years. If you listen to this Podcast you will familiarize yourself with the history of Urdu ghazal over hills and valleys, a very dangerous terrain at times, but surviving because of its inner strengths. When significant literary figures depart, they leave behind their work of a lifetime. Professor Narang's contribution will be remembered as long as literary tradition is alive and well in Urdu and scholars are writing about the origins and growth of literary criticism in Indian languages. His legacy is safely protected in between the covers of his books and that is the place where students of language, literature, and criticism will continue to get their inspiration.

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