DID YOU KNOW ?

The moon that appears from the first to the seventh day of a month is called ‘Hilaal’, afterwards, it’s called ‘Qamar’, and finally, the full moon is known to be as ‘Badr’. The moon has other names, too, like ‘Mah’, ‘Maah’, ‘Mah-Taab’, and ’Maah-Taab’ which radiate the court-yard of Urdu poetry with their moon-light.

Parwin Shakir’s Kulliyat, or complete works, is titled ‘Maah-e-Tamaam’. In this title, the word ‘Maah’ is Persian, and ‘Tamaam’, which means completed of finished off, is Arabic. Uncommonly, Parwin, aged just 34, had published her Kulliyat in 1994. Unfortunately, the tide of time saw her die in a car accident the same year. Two years into this tragedy, her last collection of poems named ‘Kaf-e-Aaina’ was published under the observance of her elder sister. Parwin was compiling this collection right before her death and its name was proposed by her, too.