| Home | Family Tree | email: oudh@rediffmail.com |
|
Meerza Kaukub Qadr, grandson of Meerza Birjis Qadr, the last ruler of Oudh, graduated with honours in economics from St. Xavier`s College, Calcutta, in the same batch as that of now famous Amartya Kumar Sen. He pursued his studies in political science at the Post Graduate College, then 3-year law course at Law College, then Urdu with a Cal. Univ. Silver Medal in that subject in 1962 which also enabled him to earn the UGC Junior Fellowship for research on the "Literary & Cultural Contributions of Wajid Ali Shah" in the department of Urdu at Aligarh Muslim University. He joined the department as lecturer in 1967 and got his doctorate in 1971 for the thesis which has been published as a text book by the Bureau for Promotion of Urdu, getting highest academy cash awards of UP and Bihar for the publication in 1995. He was research consultant to Satyajit Ray for the film Shatranj ke Khilari, gratefully acknowledged by Ray in his subsequent writings. Instead of contributing articles on hackneyed subjects, he concentrates on trend-setting monographs all related in some way with "Wajid Ali Shah & His Age" - a topic approved for his D.Litt. at AMU. His three significant monographs assert with incontrovertible evidence that: (a) Qutub Shahi dynasty of Golconda and the Rulers of Oudh had a common progenitor - a fact hitherto untouched by historians and scholars, past or present; (b) Mir Anees, the famous Urdu poet, was patronized by Alam Ara Begum, the queen consort of WAS - a fact bypassed by renowned writers on the subject for lack of understanding the poet's own statements; (c) Ishq Nama , the poetical controversial autobiography of WAS exists in his own writing - a fact again bypassed by reputed scholars who were unable to identify WAS's writing, or rebut wild allegations that some court poet wrote it for him. The NCERT commissioned him to write on Hazrat Mahal for its school text book Urdu ki Nai Kitab while the Urdu Academy of UP engaged him to compile a selection of WAS's writings with an introduction, a landmark publication highlighting WAS's adolescent years when, born in penury, he indulged in creative pursuits which became a passion for him in years to come. "Awadh ka Akhri Tajdar" written on Publication Division's assignment to substantiate Birjis Qadr's claim to the throne for Naya Daur's Special Awadh Number elicited kudos from veteran scholars all over. Retiring as reader in 1993 from AMU, he is now busy in giving finishing touches to his two over-due compilations Tarikh-e Muzahhab (letters of WAS to Shaida Begum) and Iqleem-e Sukhan ke Tajdar, both sponsored by AMU, and a collection of his journalistic essays "Hum aur Wajid Ali Shah". |
| The Literary And Cultural Contributions of Wajid Ali Shah | ||
| The Last King of Oudh | ||
| Dar - i - Daulat |
| Home | Family Tree | email: oudh@rediffmail.com |