Read Book Online : http://www.archive.org/stream/malzalkalimt00wajiuoft#page/688/mode/2up

Download pdf Book : http://ia700302.us.archive.org/6/items/malzalkalimt00wajiuoft/malzalkalimt00wajiuoft.pdf

Masterpieces of patriotic Urdu poetry: text, translation, and transliteration. By K. C. Kanda http://books.google.co.in/books?id=v6eA4vjTOXsC&pg=PA61&dq=Wajid+Ali+Shah&hl=en&ei=fQ9cTYnMJYuIvgOxyPnPDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Wajid%20Ali%20Shah&f=false

Subbiah: The book "Malaaz-ul-Kalmat" (above) by Nawab Wajid Ali Shah is in Farsi - not Urdu. The other book by Mr K.C. Kanda seems most interesting. Nawab Wajid Ali Shah has been presented by British historians as a buffoon - a useless, ineffective King who cared nothing about Oudh. The first few poems selected by Mr Kanda show that the truth was just the opposite. He was deeply affected by his forced removal from Lucknow and was very patriotic. This is an eye-opener for me. I will have to read more. Thank you for bringing out the truth.

Thank you Asad Ahmed. The book was mentioned as Persian...but I presumed it was an error and corrected it to Urdu. : )

Of course the script is the same, so such mistakes can occur easily.

The demeanour of King Wajid Ali Shah in the court angarkha popularised by him in his times was shocking to the sensibilities of Victorian England. There was an incidence of a British lady fainting upon seeing the exposed left nipple of the king ! Actually the tightened corsets and whalebone gowns which were the fashion of the day (the middle petticoat was called a rascal !!) were so frightfully tight to show the waist as narrow as possible that a frail woman could actually faint if she took a really deep breath !

Most interesting. I too was struck by his bare left chest. In this picture, I must admit, he looks like a buffoon.

This style of angarkha which originated in Lucknow later became hugely popular across North India's royalty and nobility and is being worn in cotton to this day, although with a singlet underneat !I have scores of pictures from the late 19th to the middle of the 20th century in which the personages are wearing this angarkha. The kurta with the buttons on the wearer's left hand side instead of in the middle also came from Lucknow. The left side chest being exposed for beating and flogging oneself on the day of ashura. The grandest processions of muharram till date in India are taken out on the day of Ashura in Lucknow.(restored again by Atal Bihari Bajpeyi after a long hiatus ,suspended on account of the earlier annual Shia-Sunni rioting) Until recently a white horse symbolic of the 'Dul Dul' which used to lead the procession was sent specifically from Firoz Khan the Bollywood actor to Lucknow.The sombre procession is a spectacle par excellence and the subcontinent's unique Islamic heritage.

Digvijay Singh and Amita Roy should join forces to write something on North Indian traditions. Their knowledge is impressive.