Rules of Poetry

(It is not necessary to know the rules of poetry to understand or enjoy it, a good and right poetry always enters in the heart, as a good music always enters in the heart even listener doesn't know the number of surs. I am giving the rules very briefly for those who want to know more about it.)

The urdu shairy is most of the times expressed in the format of ghazals, and ghazal are more popular than other types, So, here I am explaining the rules taking a ghazal as standard format.

Ghazal is an Arabic word it means 'to say something to or about your beloved one', so it is always dedicated to women or beauty. But now a days this concept is changed, ghazal covers all the areas of feelings, emotions and, good and bad experiences of life.

To better understand the finer nuances of Urdu Ghazal, it is imperative to understand the structure around which ghazal is woven!

To understand ghazal, we take a very famous filmy ghazal as an example,

Hosh walo ko khabar kya bekhudi kya chiz hai,
Ishq kiji'ye aour samajh'ye , ashiqui kya chiz hai,

Hum labo se kah na paaye haale dil unko kabhi,
Aour who samjhe nahin, khamoshi kya chiz hai,

Udti zulfo ne sikha'ii mosamo ko shairy,
Aaj jana pyar ki, jadoogari kya chiz hai,

WHAT IS SHER:

A sher (pl. ash'aar) is a two lined couplet or stanza of the ghazal. Here I wrote 3 shers of the ghazal. Each sher has two line, each line is called 'mis'raa'. A sher is complete in itself and it needed nothing around it. It expresses a single idea or theme in two lines. In a ghazal no. of shers should be 7-12, but in singing only 4-5 are sung at a time (due to time). It is not essential that in a ghazal all shers should express the same idea or theme. Each sher could have different idea, like one could express the beauty of life, the second about nature, the third sorrow of life, fourth loyalty or beauty of beloved etc and so on. But the of the mood of all shers should be same in one ghazal, to bring consistency in feelings. A piece of 2 sher is called kat'aa.

WHAT IS RADIF:

The reaping common words at the end of sher is called 'radif'. In that given example of ghazal '….kya chiz hai' is the redif of ghazal. A radif could be too short as 'the' in

'shazar se TuT ke jo fasle gul pe roye the,
wo koi aur na tha, chand khusq patte the,

or a radif could be long as "……ki baat karte ho" in

'aashiyane ki baat karte ho,
dil jalane ki baat karte ho,

WHAT IS KAAFIYA:

The word that comes just before the radif is called kaafiya. kaaiya is a single word. In a ghazal all the kaafiya should produce a same rhyming sound, as in our example words in the 1, 2,4,6 line ' bekhudi, ashiqui, zindagi, jadoogari are the kaafiya of the ghazal. The other kaafiya of the same sound are "bandagi, awargi, tishnagi, berukhi etc.. The kaafiya of same sound used in same ghazal are called "ham-kaafiya". Other group of same kaafiya " nazar, khabar, guzar, lahar, udhar, kidhar" and other group is " azmat, rahmat, gurbat, nafrat, etc.

In a ghazal, Ist sher should have kaafiya+radif (=manzil) in both line, and then in other shers only second line will have radif+kafiya and not the Ist line.

WHAT IS MAT'LA:

First sher of a ghazal having radif, kafiya in both line is called mat'la.

WHAT IS MAQ'TA:

The last sher of ghazal in which the poet indroduce his alias name is called maqta as in my. It could be real or false name of the poet e.g. in my ghazal "yaden wisal aai aa ke kidhar gai" the maqta is

"ab aour zindagi mein 'Feroz' gham na kar
kuchh hi bachi hai aour baki ghuzar gaii"

WHAT IS BEHER:

Beher (also called meter, or weight or wazan) is the length and tuning pattern of the ghazal. It decides how a ghazal can be composed musically. The rules of beher are followed in all types of musical poetry any thing not according to beher can not be composed in Indian music. It is a common observation that in some songs, we can sing words of one song on the tune of other and vice-versa, but not for all. It happens only if the songs are in the same beher. For example mukhda of two latest song "apni shaadi ke din ab nahin dur hai, laazmi hai ke tum mujhse parda karo. And "aa bhi ja, aa bhi ja, ae subah aa bhi ja, raat ko kar wida, dilruba, aa bhi ja".
In ghazal all the sher and each line should be in the same beher. But for filmy songs the mukhda and antre(stanza) could be in different beher but all stanzas should be in the same beher (If the composing is according to Indian music, but not in western music). The beher is more difficult to understand so, it is explained somewhat more elaborately in the next paragraph.

BEHER IN SOME MORE DETAIL:


It is most important thing in poem. It is as previously defined size or length of a poem. It is also metering pattern of ghazal on which its rhyming pattern depends. An un-metered or be-beher ghazal can not be sing in musical pattern. Here I would like to explain it in some details.

When a word recite, it is broken into parts, known as syllables. e.g. qayamat, it will be spoken as 'qa-yaa-mat', hence, There are 3 syllables. Syllables are of two types long syllable and short syllable. Here 'qa' is short, 'yaa',and 'mat' are long syllables. A short syllables is designated by '1' and long is by '2'. So, meter (weight) of word qayaamat will be as follow -
Qa-yaa-mat
1- 2 - 3
short-long-long

In poetry, there are some fixed beher when we write a poem (ghazal or song) its word should be fit in that beher. Then, only the poem will be capable to be sung. We take one example by famous song-

Sare sapne kahin kho gaye ,
Haye hum kiya se kiya ho gaye ,
Its beher is

2 1 2, 2 1 2, 2 1 2, 2 1 2
2 1 2, 2 1 2, 2 1 2, 2 1 2

If we break each word ito its syllables we got above written pattern of short and long syllables in whole poem,

2- 1 - 2 - 2- 1 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 2
Sa-re-sap-ne-ka-hin-kho-ga-ye

2- 1 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 2
Ha-ye-hum-kya-se-kya-ho-ga-ye

Suppose, if in that shair the word 'khwab' is used in place of 'sapne' (Both having same meaning) 'khwab' will not fit musically when we sing it, because according to beher patter the allowed weight for the word is 2-2, word 'sapne' has weight 2-2 and word 'khwab' has weight of 2-1. So, It will fit in beher where 2-1 space is allowed. For example in song-

Mere khwabo mein jo aaye,
Aake mujhe ched jaye ,

Here the beher pattern is 2121 2121

2 - 1 - 2 - 1- 2- 1 - 2 -1
Me- re- khwa-bo-mein-jo-aa-ye,
2 - 1 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 1 -2 - 1
aa-ke-mu-jhe-che-d-jaa-ye.

Here the word 'khwab' is on place of 2-1. Now, It is clear, writing a ghazal or song is too hard because size of each word can fitted is fixed. We can not choose words arbitrary and arrange them easily to write a meaningful good poem.

Some rules of assigning weight to a word :

1. one consonant will have the value of '1'. As 'j' in 'aaj', 'r' in 'pyar' 'ba' in 'bahaar'

2. Two consonant if spoken together will have value of '2' as 'hum', 'ab' 'chal' 'yad' in 'shaayad'

3. Vowel 'e', 'o' , 'u', 'I' have value of '1' and with a consonant will have the value '1' e.g. 'mein', 'ae', 'ku' in 'kuch', 'lo' in 'lori', etc.

4. If two consonat joint by above vowel and spoken together have value of 2 as 'tum', 'fir', 'dil' all have value 2

5. 'Aa' will alone or with consonant will always have value of 2 as 'kaa' in 'kaam' , 'yaa' in 'qayaamat' 'haa' in 'bahaar'.

6. vowel 'ee', 'oo', 'ao' will have value of 2 as 'bhi' in 'kabhi', 'hi' in 'nahin', 'ho' in 'kaho'.

7. e, o, u, alone or with a consonant have value of 1 or 2 provided by the stratch of syllable, e.g. 'mere' may have 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, or 1-2 any one, 'tumhare' may be 2-2-1 or 2-2-2.
In ghazal 'chupke chupke raat din aansu bahaana yaad hai' The fisrst 'chupke' is 2-1 andsecond is 2-2 so this syllablesprovide some flexibility.
Some words and there weight :

Raa-t-bhar 2-1-2
Din-bhar 2-2
Mush-kil 2-2
Ba-haa-r 1-2-1
Sa-nam; na-zar 1-2
Ba-dal 2-2
Khush-bu 2-1 or 2-2
(to learn poetry this article is too incomplete for more details write me)