Khwaja Haidar Ali Aatish

Khwaja Haidar Ali Aatish Biography

Khwaja Haidar Ali Aatish was a well-known poet who wrote in Urdu language. He lived in Lucknow during the period 1764 – 1846 which is named as golden era of Urdu poetry in Lucknow, and he owned many disciples too. Pandit Dayashankar Nasim was one among his prime disciples. Aatish is mostly known for his Ghazals. He was quite known for his amazing and different style of poetry. He was a contemporary of famous Urdu poet Baksh Nasikh, and their professional rivalry is quite well known. He was shortly called Aatish.

Khwaja Haider Ali Aatish was born in Lucknow in 1764. His ancestors are believed to be from Delhi, who migrated to Lucknow long before Aatish was born. There is another theory that Aatish was born in Faisabad, and he moved to Lucknow after the death of his father. He was a man of high dignity and self-respect, who preferred to lead an independent way of living.

He had his own thoughts, ideas and way of writing, which made him different from his contemporaries. He had a distinct style of writing, breaking many stereotypes in poetry and ghazals. He didn’t prefer to adopt melancholy or self-pity in his writing style. His writings include - Kulliyat-e-Khwaja Haider Ali Atish and Deewan-e-Aatish, and many critics rank him after Mir and Ghalib.

He had a personal rift with his contemporary writer Baksh Nasikh, and this professional rivalry only positively fuelled the writing capabilities of both writers and brought the best out of them. In fact, after the death of Imam Baksh Nasikh in 1838, he stopped writing. He died 8 years later.    

Published: December 16, 2018

Updated: December 16, 2018