On Instagram and TikTok, where brevity is the currency of relevance, poetry has become a staccato of rhyming couplets divorced from meaning. Gone are the delicate meanderings of Ghalib’s existential ruminations or Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s revolutionary fervor. Instead, we have “truck shayari” — banal, often humorous couplets that seem tailor-made for a brief chuckle rather than deep contemplation.

When Everyone Becomes a Poet

The democratization of art through social media is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it grants a platform to voices historically pushed to the margins; on the other, it dilutes the rigor of artistic creation. Where poets once spent lifetimes refining their craft, we now see an influx of self-styled bards who mistake rhyme for resonance. Anyone with a smartphone and a modicum of rhythm can accumulate thousands—sometimes millions—of followers, turning what was once an intricate tradition into a fast-food version of literary expression.

Take, for instance, the bastardization of Ghalib’s verse. His poetry, once a labyrinth of melancholy and metaphysics, is now repackaged as bite-sized heartbreak aphorisms. An entire generation is growing up under the false impression that Jaun Elia wrote cloying, grammatically questionable couplets that never belonged to him in the first place. Social media, with its insatiable appetite for content, has become a breeding ground for misattributions and misinterpretations.

The Rise of "Truck Shayari" 

Once an intellectually rigorous contest, bait-baazi has degenerated into a performative game of linguistic juggling, where depth is sacrificed at the altar of instant gratification. In the past, it was a means of testing one's mettle in the expanse of classical Urdu poetry; today, it is little more than a parade of hollow rhymes, designed to amuse rather than evoke.

Truck shayari, meanwhile, has evolved from an amusing roadside tradition into an internet phenomenon, its influence bleeding into mainstream discourse. What was once confined to the backs of rickety lorries now graces millions of screens, devoid of the playful irony that once defined it.

The Era of Lyricists as Poets

Then there is the curious case of the film lyricist-turned-poet, a phenomenon that further muddles the already blurry lines of Urdu literature. While the great lyricists of Bollywood’s golden age—Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri—were genuine poets in their own right, today’s commercial wordsmiths are often mistaken for the torchbearers of Urdu verse.

Compare Sahir’s delicate existentialism—“Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya”—with today’s lyrical output, designed for mass consumption rather than literary legacy. The shift is evident. Poetic brilliance has given way to catchphrases set to music, consumed and discarded at the pace of a 30-second reel.

The Erosion of Nuance and Depth

Urdu poetry, historically, has thrived on ambiguity and layered meanings. Ghalib’s ghazals demanded an intellectual engagement that social media simply does not afford. Poetry was once a site of philosophical inquiry, existential musings, and subtle critiques of socio-political landscapes. Today, it is reduced to an easily digestible commodity, stripped of its complexity.

Beyond poetry, language itself is suffering. Urdu’s rich lexicon, its ability to articulate emotions with precision, is fading as poets cater to an audience that has neither the time nor the patience to decode metaphor. This dilution is not simply a shift in preference but a fundamental loss of literary culture.

Fake Attributions and the Rise of Misquotations

A particularly damaging trend is the rampant misattribution of poetry. Social media has created a culture in which profound-sounding couplets are carelessly credited to literary giants to lend them false credibility. Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s radical verses, once a beacon for political resistance, are now repackaged as generic love poetry. Jaun Elia, a poet of unparalleled intellectual depth, is routinely misrepresented as a purveyor of heartbroken lamentations.

The consequences of this misrepresentation are dire. The new generation of readers is growing up with a distorted understanding of these poets, their themes, and their historical significance. This cultural amnesia is not accidental but a byproduct of the relentless need for content that is quick, viral, and shallow.

The Commodification of Urdu Poetry

Poetry has always had an element of performance, but there was a time when mehfils (poetic gatherings) were spaces of literary engagement. Today, those spaces have been replaced by algorithm-driven feeds that reward engagement over elegance. In this ecosystem, the poet is no longer a thinker but an entertainer.

Publishers and commercial entities have capitalized on this shift, churning out books filled with what can best be described as "Instagram poetry"—collections of aesthetically formatted but intellectually barren verses. These books sell in large numbers, often outpacing works of genuine literary merit. The market, rather than quality, is dictating what is celebrated as poetry.

An Elegy for Urdu Poetry

If this decline were a temporary phase, perhaps there would be little cause for concern. But the sheer ubiquity of social media ensures that these trends are more than fleeting—they are the new normal. Poetry, once a medium of defiance, of longing, of acute philosophical inquiry, is now a disposable aesthetic.

The question remains: Is this truly the death of Urdu poetry, or merely its forced evolution? For now, it stands at a precipice, teetering between irrelevance and reinvention. And if we fail to reclaim its legacy, we risk consigning one of the world’s most profound literary traditions to the past tense.

Urdu poetry may be in decline, but its death is not yet written in stone. For those who care, the time to act is now.