Ada Jafri

Ada Jafarey was born on 22 August 1924, in Badayun, U.P., British India. Her birth name was Aziz Jahan. Her father, Maulvi Badrul Hasan, died when she was three, and her mother reared her. She started composing poetry when she was twelve years old, under the pen name of Ada Badayuni. She spent her early life within impassable social bounds.

She married Nurul Hasan Jafarey on 29 January 1947, in Lucknow, India. After her marriage, she took her pen name Ada Jafarey. Her husband, Nurul Hasan, was a top-ranking civil servant of the Federal Government of India. Ada Jafarey also moved with her husband to Karachi after the independence of Pakistan in 1947. Her husband was a littérateur himself who wrote columns for both English and Urdu newspapers. He also served as the president of the Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu. Nurul Hasan, a major inspiration to her writing, died on 3 December 1995.

She had been residing in Karachi, Pakistan. She used to frequently travel between Karachi and Toronto, playing an active role in promoting Urdu.

Ada Jafarey and Nurul Hasan Jafarey had three children, Sabiha, Azmi and Aamir. Sabiha Jafarey is married to Zubair Iqbal and is settled in Potomac, Maryland, US. They have three children: Sabah Iqbal, Yusuf Iqbal and Sameer Iqbal. Azmi Jafarey and his wife Shua Jafarey are now settled in Andover, Massachusetts, US. They have two sons, Faaez Jafarey and Aazim Jafarey. Ada Jafarey lived with her son, Aamir Jafarey, his wife, Maha Jafarey, and their daughter Asra Jafarey in Karachi until her death. Ada Jafarey has two great-grandchildren, Sabine Rana and Rizwan Rana, children of Sabah Iqbal Rana and her husband Fawad Rana.

Ada Jafarey died in the evening of 12 March 2015 in a hospital in Karachi where she was being treated, at the age of 90. The Pakistani Minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage, Pervez Rashid, the Governor of Sindh, Dr. Ishratul Ebad Khan, the Pakistani Prime Minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, Dr. Muhammad Qasim Bughio, Chairman PAL, and Zahida Parveen, Director-General PAL, expressed sorrow over the death of Jafarey. They praised her work in the field of Urdu poetry and prayed for her soul. Her funeral prayer was held in Al-Hilal Mosque, Karachi. She was buried in the PECHS graveyard, Jamshed Town, Karachi on 13 March 2015. • Illustration — Ada Jafri in 1940

Ada Jafarey was part of a traditionally conservative society where women were not allowed to think and express independently. But she was bold enough to express herself. Despite having traditionality ingrained in her personality, she took part in modern art. As early as 1950, she was recognized as the First Lady of Urdu Poetry. Her mother, and her husband Nurul Hasan Jafarey, encouraged her to keep on her literary activities in spite of social difficulties. She was the student of great poets like Akhtar Sheerani and Jafar Ali Khan Asar Lakhnavi and used to get her poetry checked and corrected by them.

Ada Jafarey writes in a gender-neutral mode, though her works include feminist themes like discrimination and dehumanisation of women and of them being viewed as sexual objects. Her personality seems absent from her poetry. Ada Jafarey wrote of her experiences as a wife and mother in a modified traditional idiom, but also noticed the lack of fulfillment that accompanied these relationships.

Ada Jafarey's works are mostly Ghazals, but she also experimented with, as well as Urdu Haiku. She had mastered both genres of Urdu poetry, and ghazal. In her ghazals, she took the pen name,. She has also written a few.

Ada Jafarey's first ghazal was published in Akhtar Sheerani's magazine, in 1945. Ada Jafarey published her first collection of poems, "Maiṉ Sāz Ḍhūṉḍtī Rahī" in 1950. Her book, G̲h̲azal Numā, containing short essays with short biographies and brief commentaries on the work previous Urdu poets was published in 1987. Besides, she published five collections of Urdu poetry (S̲h̲ahr-i Dard, Safar Bāqī, and Mausam, Mausam), in addition to her autobiography, and forty research papers. She also published her collection of Urdu Haiku, Her ghazal, Hoṉṭoṉ pih kabhī un ke merā nām hī āʾe was sung and popularised by Ustad Amanat Ali Khan. The first couplet of that ghazal is: • ur — ur • ur Transliteration: • Hoṉṭoṉ pih kabhī un ke, merā nām hī āʾe • Āʾe to sahī, barsar-i ilzām hī āʾe

Ada Jafarey was a supporter of feminism. She expressed her views thus:

• Maiṉ Sāz Ḍhūṉḍtī Rahī — Download Ada Jafri's autobiography (in Urdu)