New Delhi, Apr 9 (PTI) When Ahmad Alqadi from Cairo’s Al Azhar University rendered his Urdu translation of an Egyptian poet’s ode to the martyrs of his country’s revolution, a sense of gloom descended over the gathering of Delhi’s poetry lovers.
The country that overthrew the yoke of an autocratic regime through a landmark peaceful revolution did pay a price, losing 300 young men and women to bullets.
Alqadi, who studied Urdu at the Delhi University, now teaches Urdu at the Al Azhar University, and his presence at the annual Jashn-e-Bahar mushaira brought a taste of the Egyptian revolution to Delhi.
“For the cost of a bullet, we can buy a piece of bread…,” went out his translation of Egypt’s famous poet Farooq Juwaida’s verse that he wrote following the January 25 revolution.