Profile of Adil Mansuri
Pen Name : 'Adil'
Real Name : Adil Mansuri
Born : 18 May 1936 | Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Died : 06 Nov 2008 | USA
bismil ke taḌapne kī adāoñ meñ nasha thā
maiñ haath meñ talvār liye jhuum rahā thā
bismil ke taDapne ki adaon mein nasha tha
main hath mein talwar liye jhum raha tha
Farid Mohammad (1936-2008), who acquired the name Adil Mansoori as a poet, was born in Ahmedabad. He spoke Gujarati at home but also got educated in Arabic and Urdu. Although he migrated to Pakistan with his family following the Partition of India, he returned eight years later. He finally migrated to the United States of America at a much later stage in his life where he lived all through and died with his name around as a fine calligrapher, painter, playwright, and a poet in Urdu and Gujarati.
Mansoori acquired his reputation as a high modernist who experimented with form and language together. His poetry is a rich repository of his socio-political consciousness which is well represented in his collection called Hashr ki Subah Darakhshan Ho. He drew upon contemporary history as much as he drew upon the past and the Islamic tradition to discover if they could bear upon one another. He brought life close to poetry and the fine arts, and the fine arts close to life, by drawing parallels and seeking meaning beyond the obvious. A typical avant-garde poet and artist, Mansoori stayed in splendid isolation as a poet-artist from all other contemporary poets as he evolved his own ways and manners of expression at the verbal and non-verbal levels. By obliterating the distinction between art forms, he assigned a new meaning to both life and art. Mansoori is best known as a bold experimenter with his medium as he obliterated the distinction amongst them whether they be the word or the colour, the shape or the size.