Ahmad Husain Mail

Hyderabad's craftsman — difficult metres made graceful, and the pen-name that bends every heart. Ahmad Husain Mail (1857/58–1914) was a poet of Hyderabad in the Deccan, praised in his own time for the technical mastery of his verse. He wrote in difficult metres that few others attempted, and he was best known for his rubais — four-line poems of wit and reflection — alongside his ghazals. Nineteen of his ghazals and nineteen of his rubais survive, and his collected verse appeared in his lifetime as Deewan-e-Doctor Mail (Agra, 1897); a later selection of his work, Bada-e-Sukhan, was gathered after his death and published in 1935. His best-loved lines turn on the play of his own pen-name — Mail, meaning inclination — making love itself the force that bends every heart. He died in 1914.