Sheen Kaaf Nizam

Born Shiv Kishan Bissa into a Pushtikar Brahmin family in Jodhpur, he became one of the most respected Urdu poets of his time under the name Sheen Kaaf Nizam. In 2025 he was named for the Padma Shri in the field of literature and education, from Rajasthan ^[1].

Two traditions

Nizam was born on 8 November 1946 in Jodhpur and grew up with a grounding in Sanskrit classics ^[2]. He largely taught himself Urdu, learned Persian from a local teacher, and refined his Urdu through letters with the critic Mahir-ul-Qadri ^[2]. His poetry flows where the Arabic-Persian and Hindi-Sanskrit traditions meet, and he is read and loved on both sides of many divides ^[2].

Poet and critic

He has written more than a dozen books of poetry and criticism, including Lamhon Ki Saleeb (1971) and Dasht Mein Dariya (1984), and edited Devanagari editions of poets such as Nida Fazli and the Diwan-e-Ghalib ^[2]. He has recited at more than a thousand mushairas in a dozen countries ^[2].

His collection Gumshuda Dair ki Gunjti Ghantiyan won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010, and he received the Rajasthan Ratna in 2022 ^[2].