Search engine giant Google has paid rich tribute to eminent Urdu writer Abdul Qavi Desnavi on his birth-anniversary today. The doodle is aesthetically appealing in black and white. Apart from being a writer, Desnavi was a critic, bibliographer, and linguist. During his lifetime, he had received several awards, accolades for his contribution. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Mirza Ghalib and Allama Muhammad Iqbal are some of his well-known works.
It has been learnt that Desnavi was born in a Bihar village named Desnavi. He was born to the family Muslim scholar Sulaiman Nadvi. Nadvi’s family claimed to be descended from historian and biographer of Muhammad. Muhammad was the last and final messenger of Allah. Desnavi’s father was Mohammed Saeed Raza. Raza was Professor of Urdu, Arabic and Persian languages in St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.
Desnavi had persued his Graduation and Post Graduation from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Subsequently, he had joined Urdu department in Saifia Post Graduate College in February 1961. Later he became Professor. He then went on to become the head of the Urdu department of Saifia College. Desnavi died on 7 July 2011 in Bhopal, India.
Designed by guest artist Prabha Mallya, the Google home page shows the bespectacled scholar in a black bandhgala at work against a stylised Google written in the manner of the Urdu script. Desnavi exerted powerful influence on the evolution of Urdu literature and academic thought in India, Google’s doodle page said. In the course of a literary career that spanned five decades, he authored a vast body of Urdu works covering fiction, biographies, poetry, and anthologies, it said.
