Biography

Mirza Yaas Yagana Changezi (Urdu: مرزا یاس یگانہ چنگیزی ), was one of the most important Urdu poets of the twentieth century and indeed among the masters of Urdu poetry. Real name was Mirza Wajid Hussain (chronological name Mirza Fazl ali Baig).

Early Life and Education

Yass Yagana Chengezi was born in Azeemabad, now Patna (Bihar) in 1884 (according to some sources 1883). He was a bright student and always won scholarships but he couldn’t go beyond entrance examination that he passed from Calcutta University. At an early period of his life he shifted to Matyaburj, in Calcutta, where he became the tutor of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah’s grandson Mirza Muqeem and his children. But the climate of Matyaburj did not suit him and he returned to Azeemabad and later shifted to Lucknow. In the beginning he used the pen name 'Yaas' meaning despair, and addressed himself as Yaas Azeemabadi, but changed it later on to 'Yagana' (meaning unique), and became Yagana Lackhnawi and finally Yagana Changezi. He considered himself from the Changezi mughal lineage. He was sixth in the generation of his ancestors who migrated from Iran during Mughal era. According to author of the foreword to his first poetry collection Nashtar-e-Yaas, two brothers Hasan Ali Baig Chughtai and Murad Ali Baig Chughtai came from Iran, and became part of Mughal court, one of whom got the jagir of Azeemabad and settled there. He was in the lineage of Mirza Hasan Baig Chughtai.

He was an iconoclast and rebellious by nature. Seeing Ghalib's extreme veneration, he took to demolishing Ghalib's iconic status and that earned him hostility of his contemporaries in Lucknow and elsewhere. He was ostracized and harassed for his views and writings. Finally he was declared apostate and went through extreme kind of humiliation at the hands of people in Lucknow. The place and people he had so fondly adopted that he changed his Name from Yaas Azeemabadi to Yagana Luckhnawi. He himself writes:

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