Captured Gazelle, The

Every moment it seeks to slip from the mind& 39;s nook Fresh poetic meaning is a gazelle to be captured The Captured Gazelle is an elegant and lucent translation of the poems of the seventeenth-century Persian poet Mulla Tahir Ghani, better known as Ghani Kashmiri. Eulogized by poets such as Mir and Iqbal, Ghani is an outstanding representative of sabk-e-Hindi or the& 39;Indian style& 39; in Persian poetry, which became a hallmark of the Mughal-Safavid literary culture. The introduction situates Ghani against his unique background in which Iranian and Indian poetic cultures came together to create a glorious literary age in Kashmir, while the translations capture Ghani in his wide spectrum of moods-satirical, playful, self-pitying, pessimistic, mystically resigned-bringing alive his wit and ingenuity in a modern idiom without losing hold on the tone.