Wajid Ali Shah Akhtar

Wajid Ali Shah 'Akhtar' (1822–1887) was the last Nawab of Awadh. He ascended the throne of Lucknow in 1847 and ruled for nine years, until the British East India Company annexed his kingdom in February 1856 and removed him. He spent the rest of his life — over three decades — in exile at Matiya Burj (Metiabruz) near Calcutta, where he died in 1887. A poet, playwright, dancer and composer, he was one of the great patrons of the arts: he nurtured the Lucknow gharana of Kathak, staged magnificent rahas, and wrote over forty works in Urdu and Persian — poems, prose and thumris. His most famous couplet — "dar-o-diwar pe hasrat se nazar karte hain / KHush raho ahl-e-watan hum to safar karte hain" — was his farewell to Lucknow, and it lives on in every Urdu speaker's heart.