Where do our politicians get those Urdu couplets that they so confidently recite during their speeches and that seem perfectly tailored for a given situation? A senior minister recently admitted that he knew a shayar, or a poet, who supplied him with "original" couplets for key occasions without giving out the name of the shayar concerned. Politicians from the rival Congress party managed to figure out who that shayar was and contacted him with a proposal to supply them with Urdu couplets to suit political occasions. The shayar turned them down, leading the minister to comment that the shayar was way more faithful to his friends and causes than several career politicians were.
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