Captured Gazelle

Every moment it seeks to slip from the mind s nook Fresh poetic meaning is a gazelle to be captured The Captured Gazelle is an elegant and lucent translation of the poems of the seventeenth-century Persian poet Mulla Tahir Ghani, better known as Ghani Kashmiri. Eulogized by poets such as Mir and Iqbal, Ghani is an outstanding representative of sabk-e-Hindi or the Indian style in Persian poetry, which became a hallmark of the Mughal Safavid literary culture. The introduction situates Ghani against his unique background in which Iranian and Indian poetic cultures came together to create a glorious literary age in Kashmir, while the translations capture Ghani in his wide spectrum of moods satirical, playful, self-pitying, pessimistic, mystically resigned bringing alive his wit and ingenuity in a modern idiom without losing hold on the tone.