3 Review(s)

Just a few months before the legendary Urdu poet and lyricist Majrooh Sultanpuri passed away, one of his fellow lyricists Javed Akthar had met him and enquired as to what he was doing. Majrooh Sahab, as he was known to all, replied in Hindi, ‘Andhon ke shahar mein aaine bech raha hoon’. (I am selling mirrors in the city of the blind). With his acerbic wit, he pithily summed up the status and sentiments of poets in the modern era, a time when mindless entertainment is available in infinite supply and attention spans are getting shorter by the day. This book is not and does not make any pretence of being great literature. It is what it states to be: a tribute straight from the heart by the author to all those verse-makers whose works lay forgotten in dusty book shelves or never saw the light of the day, remaining as scribbling in their diary or thoughts in the recesses of their mind. A feeble attempt to revive a great but unfortunately dying art-form.