Zehra Nigah is a prominent poet, one of the first two women poets to have achieved prominence in the 1950s in a predominantly male realm at that time. Besides her writing, she also became known for her spellbinding rendition in mushairas. She has published two books of verse titled Shaam ka Pehla Tara and Waraq. She has also been awarded the Pride of Performance for her contribution to literature.
Zehra Nigah writes both the ghazal and the nazm with the same involvement. The spontaneous use of everyday phrases and the colloquial idiom complement her direct and narrative style of writing, giving it a popular appeal that becomes even more pronounced in oral rendition. She has dealt with personal, social and gender themes very effectively in this manner.
| Justice
(for the blind girl who was sentenced under ‘Hudood’) |
انصاف (اُس اندھی لڑکی کے نام جسے حدود میں سزا سنائ گئ تھی) |
| Imprisoned, I am also free in this little room; the sun moves across a window in the ceiling before it sets; rays of light, sparingly enter; on the path they make, I walk home; my father, even now, returning from the city, brings along for me, a shawl, a comb, bangles and kohl, and so much more; both my brothers, study in the mosque, as they did; God’s edicts they read, memorise; my sister puts away in a basket, my share of bread; feeds it to the sparrows at dawn; my mother is kind of crazy, gathering stones or talking to sparrows as they pick the grain; she says: when the sparrows will fathom the truth, in their beaks and claws they would clutch the stones; then would rage a storm to ravage law-givers, tear down the pulpits; justice He would deliver Himself, the Supreme Lord, the same for one and all, the revered, the exalted. How should I tell my mother, |
مَیں اِس چھوٹے سے کمرے میں مِرا باپ ابھی تک میرے لیے میرے دونوں بھائ اب بھی وه کہتی ہے جب یه چڑیاں پھر وه طوفاں آجاٴے گا میں ماں کو کیسے سمجھاوٴں |
Tarique kamal 
