What is "ASAD"?

ASAD, short for A Sher A Day, was a series of articles posted by Abhay Avachat on the USENET newsgroup rec.music.indian.misc (a.k.a RMIM) in the 1995-1998 timeframe. These articles were very well received by the RMIM population of those years.

Was everything rosy for the ASAD series while it ran? Not by a long shot. We must understand that RMIM is, by published charter, a group for the discussion of Indian music, and the the ASAD series, by its overt concentration on Urdu sh'er-o-shaa'iri (Urdu poetry) possessed only a very tenuous link, if any, to the charter of RMIM. The ASAD series never claimed to, nor did (at least during the initial part), relate to music in any manner. It was just a series that presented a viewpoint on couplets taken from Urdu poetry. During the early part of 1997, there was a serious discussion on the relevance of the ASAD series to RMIM and, for a brief period, the series went completely 'off air.' It was eventually revived after a hiatus of several months, and continued until it ran to its (abrupt) end -- presumably because Abhay had too many things on his hands and could not afford to spend time on ASAD.

This blog archive is an attempt to recreate some of the 'magic' of the ASAD series. I will be posting, one by one, Abhay's original articles, with minor edits and corrections, at the frequency of one article a day, or less. In some cases, I will follow up the articles with my own comments.

Hope you enjoy your visit here ...