From India to Iran, via Bombay and its Parsis, Rabindranath Tagore and a forgotten book

Elements of Indian culture and pre-Islamic Persia that survive in India shape modern Iranian culture, even today.

Adhiraj Parthasarathy

 & 

Mohammad Dawood

· Jan 15, 2023 · 07:30 am

Clean chit, taluka, zilla: How Persian lingers on in India’s legal and revenue language

Persian ceased to be the language of the East India Company by 1837, but its vocabulary persists despite several attempts to purge these terms.

Adhiraj Parthasarathy

 & 

Mohammad Dawood

· Dec 31, 2022 · 08:30 am

How an unusual Persian ghazal links the music of Kundan Lal Saigal, Iqbal Bano and Coke Studio

Straddling generations, all three have adapted and performed ‘Ma ra Ba Ghamza Kusht’, attributed to a little-remembered poet Mirza ‘Qateel’ Lahori.

Adhiraj Parthasarathy

 & 

Mohammad Dawood

· Dec 25, 2022 · 08:30 am

Jigar Moradabadi and the unmatched lyrical brilliance of his unfinished sarapa

While steeped in the Indian and Persian Classical tradition, the images he conjures up, of dancing peacocks, prancing gazelles, bend convention.

Adhiraj Parthasarathy

 & 

Mohammad Dawood

· Dec 18, 2022 · 12:30 pm

How the modern Persian qawwali canon emerged from an Uttarakhand shrine 90 years ago

Inspired by a 13th-century Sufi saint, the anthology Naghmat-us-Sama’ by Syed Noorul Hasan has contributed to the persistence of Persian in modern-day music.

Adhiraj Parthasarathy

 & 

Mohammad Dawood

· Dec 11, 2022 · 08:30 am

How Indo-Persian, the language of cosmopolitan India for six centuries, fell into decline

The first of the six-part ‘Dancing Peacock’ series charts the literary tradition and indigenous roots of Indo-Persian as well as its enduring legacy today.

Adhiraj Parthasarathy

 & 

Mohammad Dawood

· Dec 04, 2022 · 08:30 am