By TwoCircles.net staff reporter Â
Deoband : Concerned Urdu poets have raised their voice against the rising trend of charging exorbitant fee for reciting ghazals by the poets who participate in all India mushairas.
In a report published in Urdu daily Rashtriya Sahara Thursday, renowned poet Abdullah Rahi said the monthly income of ‘professional' poets who participate in all India mushairas might exceed that of Prime Minister as the former charge a lot of money ranging from Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000 for one ghazal only and on this premise their monthly income can easily be imagined.
He further said some people who want to organise a mushaira just with a view to promote Urdu fail to do so due only to the sky-high fee charged by the poets.
"The poets who charge exorbitant fees are in fact putting an obstacle in the promotion and development of the Urdu language and literature," he observed.
Another poet Abdur Rahman Saif said, "Mushairas help promote and propagate Urdu. Therefore it is necessary that mushairas are organised most frequently, and it is possible only when their budget is kept very low."
Yet another poet Naheed Thamar Osmani remarked, "The ever diminishing standard of Urdu literature in mushairas and abundance of poetasters in our midst is only because today mushaira has come to be regarded as a source of earning money and is being treated as an industry. It is so because some greedy poetasters who are unaware of Urdu language and literature have crept into our ranks. They are doing a great disservice to the Urdu language."