Suroor Jahanabadi

The founding voice of the modern Urdu nazm — a patriot's pen, a mourner's heart, and sher that turned dust into philosophy. Suroor Jahanabadi (December 1873 – 3 December 1910), born Munshi Durga Sahai in Jahanabad, a town of the Pilibhit district (then the North-Western Provinces), was one of the chief architects of the modern Urdu nazm. Studious from childhood, he learned Arabic and Persian and taught himself elementary English; he signed his early verse "Wahshat" before settling on the takhallus "Suroor". He worked in the editorial department of *Zamana*, the Kanpur literary magazine, and his ghazals and nazms found their way into prestigious journals — *Adeeb*, *Makhzan*, *Ismat*, *Urdu-e-Mualla*. While he wrote ghazals, he chose the nazm as his favourite form, and critics credit him with authenticating the new Urdu nazm through his thematic concern and stylistic innovations. His poetry uses Hindi and indigenous words freely and draws imagery from Hindu mythology; much of it is written in six-line musaddas stanzas. He wrote patriotic poems — *Khak-e-Watan*, *Madar-e-Hind*, *Hasrat-e-Watan* — and historical ones — *Padmani*, *Sitaji-ki-Giria-o-Zari*, *Nur Jahan ka Mazar*. The deaths of his wife and his only son broke him; he drank heavily and died at thirty-seven. His collections — *Khumkhana-e-Suroor* and *Jam-e-Suroor* (1911), *Khumkada-e-Suroor* (1931, posthumous) — keep his work alive.