Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor who presided over a depleted empire, would have been a happy man if he were to visit Kollam on Thursday.
At the ghazal competitions for the higher secondary category as part of the 62nd Kerala State School Arts Festival, ‘Baat Karni Mujhe Mushkil’, one of the memorable ghazals written by him, was popular with the competitors, with more than one of them singing it, each in their own style.
Not just his ghazals, but that of Urdu poets Momin Khan Momin, Mirza Ghalib and Daagh Dehlvi, all of whom were part of Zafar’s cultural court, were heard at the competition which had 17 contestants. In the tenth year after ghazal competitions were introduced at the festival, the quality of the performances have certainly gone up, with a couple of them turning out to be exceptional performances, evident in how the crowd unanimously broke into applause for them. Seven of the contestants secured A grades.
