The Banjaranama (بنجارانامہ, बंजारानामा, Chronicle of the Nomad) is a satirical Urdu poem, written by the eighteenth-century Indian poet Nazeer Akbarabadi.[1] The poem's essential message is that pride in worldly success is foolish, because human circumstances can change in a flash, material wealth and splendor is always transient, and death is the only certainty for all men.[2] The poem quickly captured the popular imagination, and achieved fame in the Indian subcontinent that has lasted for over two centuries. Critics have observed that, despite the deliberate simplicity of its language, the poem's idioms and imagery were dazzling in their span, and portrayed lives of wealth and power as ultimately subject to a nomad's whims (an allusion to death).[2][3] The poem continues to be hailed as distilling "the teachings of thousands of years into one summary form."[4]
- ^ Akbar Naqvi, National College of Arts (Pakistan). Research and Publication Centre, Shahid Sajjad's sculpture: collected essays, Research and Publication Centre, National College of Arts, 2007, ISBN 978-969-8623-21-0,
... He had necklaces round his neck worn by the sadhus of India. As late as the sixties, beggars sang his immortal poems in the kingdom of Urdu on the Subcontinent. School children recited verses from his immortal 'Banjaranama' ...
- ^ a b A history of Urdu literature, Sind Sagar Academy, 1975,
... His allegories, in beautiful verses, strike a note at once ennobling and enthralling. His pictures about the 'all conquering death' and his Banjara-nama, plead for a renunciation of pride in ...
- ^ ʻAbdulḥalīm Sharar; Abdul Halim Sharar; Rosie Llewellyn-Jones; Veena Talwar Oldenburg, The Lucknow omnibus, Oxford University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-19-565329-8,
... His natural and simple poetry is expressed in commonplace words. Banjara Nama is ...
- ^ सब ठाठ पड़ा रह जावेगा जब लाद चलेगा बंजारा ('All your splendor will lie useless, when the nomad packs-up and leaves'), CINE Manthan,
... गीत कई हजार वर्षों की शिक्षाओं को एक सार रुप में सामने लेकर आता है ... इंसान अकेला आया है अकेला ही जायेगा। खाली हाथ आया था और धरती पर जमा की हुयी हर एक चीज हर एक सम्पत्ति यहीं छोड़ कर जायेगा (The poem distills the teachings of thousands of years into one summary form ... Man comes alone and will leave alone. He comes empty handed and every little thing in all the material collections he makes in this world will be left behind when he leaves) ...