PUBLISHED
November 23, 2025
For poets and listeners, the voice is not just sound; it marks the shift from silence to meaning. Writing can preserve words, but the voice brings them alive in the moment. When poetry moves from the page into the air, it turns into something more than language—it becomes performance, resonance, and revelation. The real force of poetry lies right at this crossing of sound and sense.
The Indo-Muslim tradition recognised this duality. Urdu, Persian, and Arabic poetry were first recited, then written. In Sufi gatherings, majalis, markets, and courts, poetry was shared orally. The mushāʿira—Urdu’s poetic assembly—was more than a literary event: a theatre, ritual, dialogue, and sometimes a metaphysical experiment.
Here, the poet meets the audience through words—but also through voice. And voice is never neutral. It carries timbre, inflexion, memory, and an ethical charge. How a poem is voiced determines how it is received, what it means, and what it awakens.
The point is clear: Urdu poetry’s aesthetics are inseparable from vocal performance. Performance is not an optional embellishment; it is the means by which poetry becomes vital, open to interpretation, and emotionally deep.
Teht-ul-lafz and tarannum
From this performance culture come two central modalities: teht-ul-lafz (plain recitation) and tarannum (chanting). These are more than stylistic choices—teht-ul-lafz values meaning and clarity, while tarannum privileges melody and emotion.
Teht-ul-lafz emphasises loyalty to the text—semantic clarity, structure, diction. Here, the reciter fades back, letting the poem itself be the focus. The voice stays steady and unembellished, inviting contemplation, in contrast to tarannum’s emotional and musical style.
In contrast, tarannum wraps the poem in melody, prioritising emotional resonance and rhythmic flow. It creates a space between speech and song, intensifying emotion and musicality, separate from teht-ul-lafz’s reflective approach.
This division is more than technique. It vividly encapsulates an ongoing tension in the tradition: the pull between meaning and music, thought and sensation, clarity and feeling.
Critics of tarannum often feared that melody could obscure meaning. Poet Majid ul-Baqri once complained:
Is tarannum meñ to mafhūm nahīñ hai ko’ī
Sheʿr kahte ho to paṛh ḍālo, magar gāo nahīñ!
[This chanting has no meaning whatsoever.
If you compose poetry, just read it—please don’t sing!]
This frustration is not with beauty itself, but with the danger of reducing poetry to sound. If the audience remembers the tune but not the verse, has poetry lost its essence?
And yet, the opposite danger lurks within teht-ul-lafz. When delivered too dryly, without modulation or feeling, a poem may lose its vitality. Faiz Ahmed Faiz, master of the written word, was often criticised for his monotonous recitation. Once told he wrote beautifully but read poorly, he replied with characteristic wit:
Sab kām ham hī kareñ? Acchā likheñ bhī ham, acchā paṛheñ bhī ham. Kuch āp bhī to kareñ!
(Should we do everything? Write well and also read well? Why don’t you contribute too?)
Here, Faiz reminds us that even plain recitation is not “neutral.” It also makes a choice: the choice of austerity, of refusing to ornament the poem with voice. In doing so, it asserts that the power of words is sufficient.
The tension between recitation and chanting is not one of superiority but of emphasis. Teht-ul-lafz centres intellect and reflection; tarannum appeals to the senses and collective rhythm. Each serves distinct values in performance.
The mushāʿira thrives on this tension. It is neither a seminar nor a concert. It oscillates between cognition and sensation, between intellect and affect. And in this oscillation lies its vitality.
A “third voice”
If teht-ul-lafz and tarannum are two established poles of Urdu poetic performance, the reality of mushāʿiras is more complex. Many poets neither sang nor restricted themselves to flat recitation. Instead, they found a middle path. Their performance style infused recitation with drama, rhythm, and presence, but did not evolve into melody. This “third voice” is perhaps the most defining feature of modern Urdu mushāʿira performance.
Ahmad Faraz’s readings exemplify this subtle recitative power. His style was understated, even austere, yet it carried a quiet magnetism. He did not dramatise with gestures, nor did he ornament with melody. Instead, he trusted the cadence of language itself. His pauses, his calm delivery, and his elegant diction gave his recitation an authority that required no theatrics.
Listeners often remarked that Faraz’s voice embodied the dignity of his verse. Without raising it into song, he could still evoke rhythm and gravitas. His teht-ul-lafz was therefore not “dry,” but quietly charged. It invited the audience into contemplation, rather than sweeping them into frenzy.
If Faraz embodied restraint, Jaun Elia was its antithesis: existential theatre. Jaun never chanted. His recitation was never neutral. His performances hinged on pauses, shifts, and irony. Sometimes, he would cry, clutch his head, or tug his hair. He might break lines mid-verse. He swung between laughing at grief and smirking at despair.
His poetry, saturated with existential ache, was destabilised by this delivery. The audience never knew whether to weep or laugh, often shifting from tears to nervous laughter within moments. Sometimes, his ironic gestures made tragedy a paradox, intertwining sorrow and wit so fluidly that responses blurred. This ambiguity defined his poetic identity. He needed no tarannum. His body, face, and tone became his theatre.
Rahat Indori’s recitation resembled oratory: fierce, declamatory, confrontational. With a stentorian voice, he commanded the mushāʿira stage. His vocal range let him soar into thunderous declarations. He could then descend into almost inaudible whispers. This dramatic modulation created tension and release, gripping audiences in suspense.
Indori’s delivery was both physical—encompassing gestures, expressions, and pacing—and rhetorical. Each couplet struck like a political slogan. Each pause was a strategic silence. His poetry often explored themes of dissent and satire. His performance style amplified these themes. The audience became co-participant, their applause and gasps fusing with the poem itself.
Faraz, Elia, and Indori show that Urdu performance extends beyond both recitation and chanting. Between teht-ul-lafz and tarannum lies theatrical recitation—presenting poetry with drama, silence, and vocal variation, but without turning it into song.
This “third voice” is crucial to the mushāʿira’s vitality. It mediates between plain reading, which risks dryness, and chanting, which risks sentimentality. Theatrical recitation strikes a necessary balance, making the performance both intellectually and emotionally engaging. In many ways, this middle path has come to shape how contemporary mushāʿiras sound and feel.
Women poets and the politics of vocal presence
The story of voice in Urdu poetry cannot be told without attending to gender. The performance of poetry is shaped not only by individual style but also by cultural expectations around the female voice.
In many traditions, the female voice has been coded as ornamental, melodious, and decorative. In mushāʿira culture, this association complicated women’s relationship with tarannum. Melody was admired, yet when women used it, it risked trivialisation. A woman chanting could be dismissed as “singerly,” ornamental, or unserious.
For this reason, many women poets chose teht-ul-lafz. Plain recitation asserted authority. Their words mattered—not as song or charm, but as thought.
Zehra Nigah represents a luminous exception. She moves gracefully between teht-ul-lafz and tarannum, embodying a balance rare in mushāʿira history. Her chanting is never florid, never excessive. It is restrained, dignified, deeply evocative. She invokes a shared memory of musical tradition while retaining the dignity of poetic seriousness.
When reciting her own verses, she often uses silence and pacing as tools. Consider these lines from Matāʿ-e-Alfāẓ (“The Precious Possession of Words”):
Ye jo tum mujh se gurēzāñ ho, merī bāt suno
Ham isī choṭī sī duniyā ke kisī raste par
Ittifāqan kabhī bhūle se kahīñ mil jāʾeñ
Kyā hī acchā ho ke ham dūsre logoñ kī tarah
Kuch takalluf se sahī, ṭhahar ke kuch bāt kareñ
[This way that you are evasive with me—listen to what I say.
Perhaps on some small path of this little world,
By chance, perhaps by mistake, we might meet somewhere.
How lovely it would be if, like other people,
We might pause—even with a touch of formality—and talk a little]
Her delivery here is not a song but a presentation. Each pause provides space for the listener. The performance allows for reflection.
By prioritising substance over melody, women poets demonstrated that poetry should be valued for its imagery, argument, and emotional impact. In doing so, they expanded the concept of teht-ul-lafz as a mode of authority.
Audience reception also differs by gender. Male poets who chanted were often applauded for musicality. Female poets risked dismissal for the same. This double standard shaped performance choices. Many women, therefore, embraced restraint and found empowerment in plain delivery. Others, like Zehra Nigah, used both modes, showing that if handled with dignity, melody does not undermine seriousness.
Understanding Urdu poetic performance requires examining the politics of vocal presence, especially for women. For them, choosing to recite or chant poetry isn’t just about art—it’s also a cultural and political act.
Voice in the digital age
Poetic performance now extends beyond the stage. Platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok function as new mushāʿiras, where a ghazal may never see print yet reach millions. This global reach offers opportunity but also risk: when performance dominates, poetry can become spectacle, remembered for its tune rather than its thought.
The task is balance—letting the voice amplify meaning without drowning it. In this sense, digital circulation echoes older oral traditions, from marsiya gatherings to mushāʿiras. The medium changes, but the ethical responsibility of the voice endures.
The voice as a presence
What, then, is poetry when spoken? Is its essence in script or in breath, in permanence or in performance? Each recitation reopens the poem, making it encounter rather than an artefact.
Voice is never neutral; it can revive or wither. No mode—plain, melodic, or theatrical—is superior in itself. What matters is intent and effect: whether the voice clarifies, trivialises, or deepens.
At its best, voiced poetry creates presence: poet and audience meeting through breath and sound. The mushāʿira survives because it holds literature and performance together, offering poetry as both text and living event. Its highest measure is simple—if the voice awakens something within the listener, it has fulfilled its calling.
Aftab Husain is an Urdu and English poet. He teaches South Asian literature and culture at Vienna University
All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the writer
