Listen to a mushaira on a spring evening

Quintessential Dilli, and yet a Dilli that can slip under the radar of popular interest. The Brunch team discovers a slice of their beloved city that’s not often served to those who do not seek!

One of the singular attractions of Delhi in spring is attending a mushaira when there’s a nip in the air and a couplet on your lips. The city, for long the playground of such extraordinary sukhanwars as Mirza Assadullah Khan Ghalib, Sheikh Mohammed Ibrahim Zauq and Momin Khan Momin, has an enduring legacy of shamas being lit during night-long soirees where the greatest of poets recited their verses. It reached its zenith during the first half of the 19th century, during the heyday of the Indo-Islamic Ganga Jamni syncretic tradition.

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