Rahi Masoom Raza

Dr. Rahi Masoom Raza was a famous author, play writer and novelist of Independent India. Rahi Masoom Raza was born in Ghazipur district of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. He completed his early education in and around Ghazipur from where he went to Aligarh Muslim University to complete his higher studies. Masoom Raza did his doctorate in Hindustani Literature and persuaded his career in literature. In his career spanning 35 years, Rahi Masoom Raza has written lyrics, dialogues and stories for various movies and television series. His high came with the telecast of TV series Mahabharata that was based on the Hindu epic Mahabharata. Masoom Raza, a Muslim, wrote the screenplay and dialogue of the TV series that went on to become the most watched TV series in India. At one time, its TRP was staggering 86 %. This was a triumph for Raza as some Hindu zealots had criticized his inclusion in the team. To know more about Raza, continue to read to this insightful biography on him.

Major Work
From most of his work it seems that Raza used to write to express his anguish and distress over the ill repercussions of the partitions. It used to upset him to see what violence it has brought to the Hindu-Muslim relationship in the Indian subcontinent. He also used to write on the lives of ordinary people, their hopes and dreams, their fears, their struggles, their pains, etc. The stories that had such a simple idea were mostly narrated in his voice.

Adha Gao
His famous novel Adha Gao is a story based on the feudalism and religion. In this story there are two landlord Muslim families of the village Ganguali. The story is about their rivalry, their lifestyle, their conditions during the time of independence, their reactions to it, etc. It was story written by Raza to depict the communal harmony between Hindu-Muslim before the partition. It depicts how Hindu-Muslim used to depend on each other for everything whether it was water, food, land or anything else. And rightly so, they did not have any problems with it. But as the partition took place, everything changed. The emotions of people changed and it filled the ordinary people with hatred towards each other. The main focus of the novel is to show how politics separated people from each other.

Katra Bi Arzoo
Katra Bi Arzoo is another great story by Raza and it is based in the geographical and cultural setting of Allahabad. It represents the 1970's India, the time of the emergency and how the lives of general public got affected with the on-going brutality of that time. Its main focus was to show how politically people with vested interests took full advantage of the chaotic situation in India and everywhere there was only violence and hatred. It also shows how emergency ruined the lives of many people who never got their normalcy back. It is a very emotional novel, based on true events and leaves you wondering about the barbarity in human beings and selfishness of the political system that supports it.

Neem Ka Ped
Neem Ka Ped is a story set in the pre-independent India going through the transition of being slowly turning into the post-independent India. It shows the tyrannies of both the feudalism and democracy. It presents the political system of India in the darker light and shows how people who want to corrupt and unfair can find a way to do it in any political system. If any political system is not rooted in humanitarianism then even a system as liberal as democracy can have its evils. This story revolves around the aspirations of a landless laborer to educate his son. He works very hard under a landlord to collect means to provide his family and make his son a proud man. The landlord is one day arrested for the charges of murdering a political leader. Then the story is set in the post-independent India where laborer's son becomes the member of the Parliament and the son of the landlord becomes his trusted advisor. But the power corrupts the son of the laborer and he forgets all about his father's hard work and honesty and ends up destroying himself in corruption. There was a very popular television series that was based on this novel. It was called Neem Ka Ped and Pankaj Kapoor played the lead role in.

Razi's Poetry In Urdu: Ajnabee shahar ajnabee raste

Ajnabee shahar ajnabee raste
Meri tanhai par muskurate rahe,

Main bahut der tak yuhi chalta raha
Tum bahut der tak yaar aate rahe,

Zeher milta raha zeher peete rahe
Roz marte rahe roz jeete rahe,

Zindagi bhi hume aazmati rahi
Aur hum bhi use aazmate rahe,

Zakhm jab bhi koi Zehan-o-dil par laga
Zindagi ki taraf ek dareecha khu;la,

Hum bhi goya kisi saaz ki taar hain
Chot khaate rahe gun-gunate rahe,

Kkal kuch aise tha ke mein bahut thak gaya
Isliye suni ki bhi unsuni kar gaya,

Kitni yaadon ke bhatke hue karvaan
Dil ke zakhmon ke dark hat-khatate rahe.