An Urdu couplet

Main gunahgar aur anginat paarsa chaar janib se yalghaar karte hue
Jaise shabkhoon mein uthein log ekdam se 'talwar talwar' karte hue

This is senior poet Muzaffar Hanafi's couplet. When I first got a SMS from a friend who had sent me this couplet, I was left wondering who was the creator of these lines.

The couplet makes fun of the self-styled 'devout'. The poet is scare of narrow-minded religious bigots and wants to keep away from them and their attacks on his free thought and his life.

Apart from the experiment with the long 'bahar', the variety of ideas in this ghazal also impresses you. Muzaffar Hanafi, hails from Haswa (UP) and spent most of his early life in Khandwa, Sehore and Bhopal.

You can read the whole ghazal in Urdu script at this link.