Nida Fazli: The Poet Who Insisted That Simple Words Are Enough

An argument for plain speech

Nida Fazli (1938–2016) grew up in Gwalior, lived in Mumbai and wrote with a deliberate plainness. He once suggested that poetry should sound like conversation overheard in a train compartment: no ornament that does not earn its place. That stance made him a favourite of readers who find ornate Persianised Urdu intimidating, and it earned him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999 for the collection Khoya Hua Sa Kuch and a Padma Shri in 2013.

The couplet everyone remembers

"Ghar se masjid hai bahut door, chalo yun kar lein,
Kisi rote hue bachche ko hansaya jaye."
— Nida Fazli

This is a gentle theological provocation. The mosque is far, so — the poet says — let us do something more immediate: make a crying child laugh. The couplet does not mock worship; it suggests that kindness is itself a form of it. That balance — moral seriousness delivered with a half-smile — is the core of his appeal.

Travel, imperfection and the unfinished world

Another widely quoted verse reflects his belief in the incompleteness of life:

"Kabhi kisi ko mukammal jahaan nahin milta,
Kahin zameen kahin aasmaan nahin milta."
— Nida Fazli

Nobody gets a perfect world: someone finds the ground and misses the sky, someone else has the sky and no ground. For a reader in a hurry to "have it all", this is a quietly consoling idea. It works as a counterweight to the optimisation culture of social media.

Why his dohas matter

The doha is a two-line Hindi form with a fixed metre, associated with Kabir and Rahim. Nida revived it for modern life, using it for subjects such as ageing, migration and the sudden loneliness of cities. If you enjoy aphoristic poetry, his dohas are small, memorable and easy to carry around.

Songs and screens

Film audiences know him for lyrics such as "Tu Is Tarah Se Meri Zindagi Mein Shamil Hai" (Aap To Aise Na The) and for the ghazal "Hosh Walon Ko Khabar Kya" popularised in Sarfarosh. In every case you can hear the same economy: a few words, chosen carefully, doing the work of many.

Try this

Choose a day, and instead of looking for a grand subject, write a doha about something you noticed on your way to work. Nida would say the subject was never the problem — attention was.