The Captured Gazelle (The Poems of Ghani Kashmiri)

The captured Gazelle is an elegant and lucent translation of the poems of the seventeenth century Persian poet Mulla Tahir Ghani, better known s Gani Kashmiri. Eulogized by poets such as Mir and iqbal. Ghani is an outstanding representative of sabk-e Hindi of the Indian style in Persian poetry which became a hallmark of the Mughal sofavid literary culture.

The introduction situates Ghani Against his unique background in which Iranian and Indian poetic culture came together to create a glorious literary age in Kashmir while translations capture Ghani in his wide spectrum of moods-satirical, Playful, self-pitying, Pessimistic, mystically resigned bringing alive his wit and ingenuity in a modern idiom without losing hold on tone and essence of the original.

Muhammad their Ghani better known as Ghani Kashmiri is arguably the greatest Persian poet of Kashmir and one of its literary and cultural icons. Highly popular in India and the larger Persian speaking world up to the modern times he influenced many generations of Persian and Urdu poets in India. Ghani forte lies in his remarkable use of language to create poems with multiple layers of meaning. This along with his versatility in creating delightful metaphors and images makes him one of the few medieval poets with a striking appeal to the modern reader.

Mufti Mudasir Farooqi was born and raised in Srinagar. He has published on literary theory postmodernism and indo-persian poetry he is senior assistant professor in the department of English university of Kashmir.

Nusrat Bazaz is associate professor in the department of English university of kashmiri where she teaches American poetry and fiction.

Mulla Mauhammad Tahir Ghani, Popularly known as Ghani Kashmiri is one of the foremost poets of the Persian language in the Indian subcontinent and probably the most popular of all the Persian poets of Kashmir. Although many aspects of Ghani life remain obscure and sources differ concerning the year of his birth it may be said that he was born sometime in the early seventeenth century probably in the first decade in the old city of Srinagar and lived mostly as a recluse never attending any royal court in Kashmir or elsewhere. He belonged to a well known ashai nothing else is known of his family. Historians agree that ghani was a pupil of an eminent scholar and poet of his day Mulla Mohsin fani. The epithet Mulla which also goes with Ghani suggests that he must have received traditional religious education in a local school and also achieved distinction as a scholar. How he earned his living is not known although his aversion to making poetry a means for it is well known a trait especially remarkable in an age when it was customary for poets to employ their poetic sills to seek favours from rules and nobles.