Going down memory lane with Majaz Lakhnawi in Lucknow

An open mic event titled 'Misre Majaz Ke,

Andaaz

Aapke!' was recently organised at a café in Hazratganj. The event tuned out to be a great hit where a total of 11 participants recited and sang nazms and poems of the famous Urdu poet, Asrar ul Haq Majaz, aka Majaz Lakhnawi, and later their own creations inspired by Majaz.

Vineet Sharma (L) and Kanak Rekha Chauhan (BCCL/ Vishnu Jaiswal)

The event kick-started on a musical note with Vineet Sharma, from Banaras, playing

Bollywood

hits like 'Moh-Moh Ke Dhaage', 'Main Tenu Samjhawan Ki', among others, on a flute, which won many hearts. Anand Verma, along with Vineet, did a live painting show of Shiv Tandav on canvas. Later, Bahaar Khan, Layba and Vedansh recited Majaz’s shayari which earned them a lot of wows.

Anurag Mishra (L) and Inderpal Singh and Dimple Trivedi (BCCL/ Vishnu Jaiswal)

Kartik Mishra (L) and Jyotsna Tripathi (BCCL/ Vishnu Jaiswal)

Aisha Ayub (L) and Sumna Rizvi (BCCL/ Vishnu Jaiswal)

A ten-minute slot given to each participant seemed short as the sher and nazms recited and narrated by the youngsters were endless. It was for the first time that Harsh Chaturvedi, a BTech student, read Majaz’s poems and was overwhelmed by their meaning. “When I started reading 'Husn Ko Behijaab Hona Tha' by Majaz, I got connected with it instantly. He had a different sort of depth in his writing which makes a reader feel the same emotion which he is narrating through words,” said Harsh.

Aditya Pratap and Mini Bajpai (L) and Aparna Mishra (BCCL/ Vishnu Jaiswal)

Parul (L) and Deepti (BCCL/ Vishnu Jaiswal)

For Jalaj Mishra, a mass communication student, it was his debut open-mic performance, which turned out to be a great hit when he performed 'Kaala Chashma', a poem on love. “I started reading Majaz Lakhnawi’s poems recently and the moment I got to know about the opportunity to perform his piece of writing, without giving a second thought, I filled up the registration form and fortunately got selected to perform also. It was a nervous moment for me initially, but people’s appreciation made it easy to perform,” said Jalaj. Satakshi Saxena, who performed '

Kuch Toh Log Kahenge

', got a lot of praises post her performance. She said, “Majaz Lakhnawi is a subject in himself which we can study. The current world situation and incidents which we come across in the 21st century have been written about by Majaaz in 19th-century itself.”
— Adnaan Rizvi