By Tauseefuddin Khan
Professional people apart from having sound skill, talent, knowledge and aptitude also possess some valuable tools that help them carry their trade smoothly. You cannot imagine a doctor without a stethoscope, a software engineer without some programs, a mechanic without tools and etc. similarly, a lyricist needs to have some sort of tools with him/her always which is very valuable.
Such tools include a dictionary, a thesaurus, a rhyming dictionary, collection of latest as well as old poems, etc. Although all these are not necessary for a poet for writing a piece of poem as the idea and thought flows naturally. But, it makes sense that people who practice poetry and are serious to to take it as their career must try to have these tools.
These tools help a poet or a lyricist to write better, to create a new thought so that its poetry/poems produce a magical effect on the readers mind.
The problem with Hindi lyricist is such tools are not easily available as compare to those of English lyricist. Another problem is that most of Hindi lyrics is a mixture of Urdu and Hindi. These lyrics are simple and most of the listeners can able to interpret the poem – it consists of neither tough word from Urdu nor Hindi – it’s sometimes called the common Hindustani language that which most of the people can understand.
Uses of a rhyme dictionary
In rhyming poetry, it is usually the last words of lines that rhyme. A rhyme dictionary allows the poet to choose a variety of rhyming words to create a poetic line. The more the choices a poet has the more the chances of creating a good line increases. Although, it’s a time consuming process but it’s worth doing if the poet wants to have a wider appreciation of his poems. Sometimes, using different and unique rhymes renders the poem distinct and unique from other poems. This increases the creditability of the poet.
Apart from it – a poet must possess a vast reservoir of poetry of different authors which should be readily accessible to him. He should read lot of poems daily so that the mind gets addicted to think every thing in terms of poetry so that its start reflecting in its own poems. Practice is the key for poets. A poet to be successful must practice poetry writing as seriously as he can.
Such tools and practice helps him to become a professional poet but it’s not enough – the poet must engage himself in poetical environment - should be an online member of poetry forums, discussion forums, should live participate in Mushairas/poetry symposium etc. so that he can spread his poetry to the people for which it’s meant. Most of the poets are introvert and are victims of too much self indulgence which affects their career dangerously – a poet can avoid this harm from ruining his career by seeking appropriate opportunities and by doing and improving his public relation skills which can give him the real benefit.