Drama written in Urdu literature

Urdu literature is generally composed more of poetry than of prose. This Urdu language has much contribution to the drama, poetry, shayari in the world’s literature. The prose component of Urdu literature was mainly restricted to the ancient form of long epic stories called Dastaan. These long epic stories would deal with magical and otherwise fantastic creatures and events in a very complicated plot. But later these (Dastaan’s) writings were started to be taken and presented on stage in the form of drama.

Urdu Drama as a theme is made up of several elements. It focuses on life and different aspects of it. The thing to be noticed here is that act on stage imitates happenings in life. The real life incidents are presented on stage in the form of drama. Every artist of it enacts as different characters and portrays the real life incidents or the scripted form. The complete act depends on the way the feelings and the words are being presented by the artist on stage and the emotions portrayed by these artists.

Drama is not always depended or made on real life incidents. Some of it is scripted and written by great Urdu poets/writers of times. These poets/writers have written it so richly that it always touches the hearts of the audience. Originally Daastan was being converted to drama by splitting the full novel/epic into many short parts. The artists used to take the theme based on this and enact in its mask on the stage. Dastan as a genre is originated in Iran and was originally written by folk storytellers. It was written by famous authors/writers of the classical times. Its plots were based both on folklore and classical literary subjects, but later those were transformed to different genres to make it into stage.

There are many writers like Prof Hasan, Ghulam jeelani, J.N, Kaushal, Shameem Hanfi, Jameel Shaidayi etc. who belongs to the old generation of writings. The contemporary writers like Danish Iqbal, Sayeed Alam, Shahid Anwar, Iqbal Niyazi and Anwar are few post modern Play writers who contributed much in the field of Urdu Drama. These writers have kept the foundation of the Urdu drama on which the modern times pillars were raised. Writers like Imtiaz Ali Taj, Rafi Peer, Krishan Chander, Manto, Upender Nath Ashk, Ghulam Rabbani, Prof. Mujeeb and many others shaped this tradition in modern times.

You also have Sayeed Alam who is well known for his wit and humor and more particularly for Plays like 'Ghalib in New Delhi','Big B'and many other gems which are regularly staged for massive turn out of theatre lovers. Maulana Azad is his magnum opus both for its content and style. He has written much writing based on imagination by adding extra ordinary charms to its plays. The great works of these people have shapes the drama into today’s cinema.

You can have much more information regarding these poets and their great contributions to the Urdu literature by browsing into the various Urdu websites which have come up to provide all the language lovers a good place to experience the rich poetry, shayari and Daastans. You have much more to look at these websites. http://www.adeelzaidi.com/