SRINAGAR : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi today released a postal stamp on Shair-e-Kashmir Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad Mahjoor.
Governor N N Vohra, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Union Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) chief Prof Saifuddin Soz and General Secretary In Charge of the State Ambika Soni were also present on the occasion.
A set of stamps were presented to Dr Singh, Ms Gandhi and others on the occasion.
Peerzada Ghulam Ahmad, born on September 3, 1885, was a renowned poet of Kashmir Valley.
He is especially noted for introducing a new style into Kashmiri poetry and for expanding Kashmiri poetry into previously unexplored thematic realms.
In addition to his poems in Kashmiri, Mahjoor is also noted for his poetic compositions in Persian and Urdu.
Mahjoor was born in the village of Metragam, Pulawama, 37 km from the city of Srinagar.
He followed in the academic footsteps of his father, who was a scholar of Persian language.
He received primary education from the Maktab of Aashiq Trali (a renowned poet) in Tral. After passing the middle school examination from Nusrat-ul-Islam School, Srinagar, he went to Punjab where he came in contact with Urdu poets like Bismil Amritsari and Moulana Shibi Nomani.
He returned to Srinagar in 1908 and started writing in Persian and then in Urdu.
Determined to write in his native language, Mahjoor used the simple diction of traditional folk storytellers in his writing.
Mahjoor worked as a patwari (regional administrator) in Kashmir for a brief period.
Along with his official duties, he spent his free time writing poetry, and his first Kashmiri poem ‘Vanta hay vesy’ was published in 1918.
Many themes of his poetry involved freedom and progress in Kashmir, and his poems awakened latent nationalism among Kashmiris.
His popular verses engaged such topics as love, communal harmony, social reform, and the plight of the Kashmiris.
Mahjoor is also recognised as a poet who revolutionised the traditional forms of nazm and ghazal.
In 1972, a bilingual film named Shayar-e-Kashmir Mahjoor was released with the Hindi version starring Balraj Sahni in lead role. A square in Srinagar is also named after him.
He is buried near the poetess Habba Khatoon at a site near Athwajan on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway. (AGENCIES)
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