UPHESC Assistant Professor Urdu 2025 PYQs

Concept: Altaf Husain Hali wrote the essay "Akhbar-navisi aur uske Faraiz" (the journalist and his duties).

1. It is part of Hali's collected essays (Maqalat-e-Hali).
2. Hali stressed truthfulness, public welfare and responsibility of the press.

Short trick: Hali = reformer → duties of a journalist.

Concept: "Aadam ki Sarguzasht" is an essay by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, published in Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq.

1. Sir Syed's moral-reformist essays include Umeed ki Khushi, Guzra hua Zamana, Bahs-o-Takrar and Aadam ki Sarguzasht.
2. Azad's allegorical essays are in Nairang-e-Khayal.

Short trick: Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq essays = Sir Syed.

Concept: Sheesh Mahal is a collection of humorous pen-portraits (khake) by Shaukat Thanvi.

1. Rashid Ahmad Siddiqui wrote Ganha-e-Giranmaya; Manto wrote Ganje Farishte; Fikr Taunsvi was a satirist-columnist.

Short trick: Sheesh Mahal — Shaukat Thanvi; Ganje Farishte — Manto.

Concept: Akhtar-ul-Iman's autobiography "Is Abad Kharabe Mein" was serialised in Saughat, the Bangalore journal edited by Mahmood Ayaz.

1. It was later published as a book (after his death in 1996).
2. Saughat was a leading modernist magazine.

Short trick: Saughat (Bangalore) → Akhtar-ul-Iman's life story.

Concept: Khatuniya is a character of Ilyas Ahmad Gaddi's novel Fire Area (1994), set in the coal-mines of Jharia (Dhanbad).

1. The novel depicts the exploitation of mine workers; its characters are local labourers and their families.
2. Udas Naslen (Abdullah Hussain) and Khuda ki Basti (Shaukat Siddiqui) have urban/Partition settings.

Short trick: Coal-belt rural name → Fire Area.

Concept: Habib Tanvir's play Agra Bazar, on the life and poetry of Nazir Akbarabadi, was written and first staged in 1954.

1. It used real street people and folk performers of Okhla/Delhi.
2. It is a landmark of modern Urdu/Hindustani theatre.

Short trick: Agra Bazar 1954 — Nazir's bazaar on stage.

Concept: Mere Bhi Sanam Khane (1949) is Qurratulain Hyder's first novel.

1. Then Safina-e-Gham-e-Dil (1952), Aag ka Darya (1959), Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai (1977–79), Chandni Begum (1990).

Short trick: First = Mere Bhi Sanam Khane (1949); masterpiece = Aag ka Darya (1959).

Concept: The protagonist of Manto's "Toba Tek Singh" is Bishan Singh, a Sikh inmate of the Lahore asylum.

1. He is called "Toba Tek Singh" after his village; he dies in the no-man's land between India and Pakistan.

Short trick: Bishan Singh = "Toba Tek Singh".

Concept: "Grahan" is a famous story of Rajinder Singh Bedi (and the title of his collection, 1942), not of Manto.

1. Thanda Gosht, Toba Tek Singh and Namrood ki Khudai are Manto's stories.

Short trick: Grahan — Bedi; Thanda Gosht — Manto.

Concept: Dilaram is the jealous rival of Anarkali in Imtiaz Ali Taj's drama "Anarkali" (1922).

1. She exposes Anarkali's love for Prince Salim to Akbar.
2. Yahudi ki Larki is Agha Hashr's; Aseer-e-Hirs is also by Agha Hashr.

Short trick: Anarkali's rival = Dilaram.

Concept: Syed Agha Hasan Amanat's Inder Sabha, the first popular Urdu stage play (musical), was composed in 1853 in Wajid Ali Shah's Lucknow.

1. Characters: Raja Inder, Gulfam, Sabz Pari, Kala Dev, Lal Dev.
2. It is written in verse with songs, thumris and ghazals.

Short trick: Inder Sabha 1853 — four years before 1857.

Concept: Ibn-e-Insha, the humorist, jokingly called Mumtaz Mufti's huge autobiographical novel "Ali Pur ka Aili" (over 1000 pages) the "Granth" of Urdu.

1. Mumtaz Mufti and Ibn-e-Insha were contemporaries in Pakistan's literary circle.
2. The others are Indian humorists (Mujtaba Husain, Yusuf Nazim, Nusrat Zaheer).

Short trick: Big book + Pakistani humorist friend = Ibn-e-Insha.

Concept: Both titles belong to the qasidas of Mirza Rafi Sauda; Tazheek-e-Rozgar is his famous satirical qasida on a starving, broken-down horse.

1. Mirza Rafi Sauda is the master of Urdu qasida and hajv (satire).
2. Mohsin Kakorvi is known for the na'tiya qasida "Simt-e-Kashi se chala".

Short trick: Horse satire (Tazheek-e-Rozgar) = Sauda.

Concept: Zauq's famous couplet: "In dinon garche Dakan mein hai bari qadr-e-sukhan / Kaun jaaye Zauq par Dilli ki galiyan chhor kar".

1. "Par" here means "but" — though poetry is honoured in the Deccan, who would leave Delhi's lanes?
2. Zauq declined an invitation to Hyderabad out of love for Delhi.

Short trick: "garche … par" = "although … but".

Concept: Critics group the themes of the Urdu marsiya into three categories.

1. (1) narrative of the events of Karbala (waqiat), (2) heroic/martial themes — rajaz, jang (razmiya), (3) lamentation — bain and shahadat (grief).
2. These themes are spread over the structural parts (chehra, sarapa, rukhsat, aamad, rajaz, jang, shahadat, bain).

Short trick: Themes 3 (story–battle–lament); parts 8.

Concept: Mirza Rafi Sauda is the greatest qasida-writer of Urdu; he enriched the language with new compounds and vocabulary.

1. His qasidas cover praise, satire, nature and social conditions — showing Urdu could handle every theme.
2. Nusrati and Ghawwasi were Dakhni poets; Shah Mubarak (Abru) an iham-go ghazal poet.

Short trick: Qasida = Sauda (then Zauq).

Concept: Like classical masnavis, Sehr-ul-Bayan opens with hamd (praise of God).

1. Order: hamd → na'at → manqabat → praise of the patron (Asaf-ud-Daula) → the story.
2. Ta'alli and complaints are not the opening.

Short trick: Masnavi opening = hamd first.

Concept: Rajab Ali Beg Suroor prepared Shabistan-e-Suroor, an abridged Urdu version of Alf Laila, at the request of Munshi Shiv Narayan (Aram) of Agra.

1. It belongs to Suroor's later period, after Fasana-e-Ajaib (1824).
2. Wajid Ali Shah was not the patron of this work.

Short trick: Shabistan-e-Suroor → request of Munshi Shiv Narayan.

Concept: Nasir Nazir Firaq Dehlvi (1865–1933), a prose-writer and poet, rendered Mir's masnavi Shola-e-Ishq into Urdu prose.

1. Firaq Dehlvi wrote many prose works and retold classical stories.
2. Zauq, Momin and Sauda were poets who did not do such prose renderings.

Short trick: This "Firaq" = Firaq Dehlvi (prose), not Firaq Gorakhpuri.

Concept: Syed Waqar Azeem, the critic of Urdu dastan and fiction, described Mir Amman's prose in Bagh-o-Bahar as "zinda nasr" (living prose).

1. Mir Amman wrote in the everyday spoken idiom of Delhi, which keeps the prose fresh.
2. Waqar Azeem wrote Hamari Dastanen and studies of Fort William prose.

Short trick: Dastan critic Waqar Azeem → "zinda nasr".