Haraarat: How One Urdu Word Travels from Love to Labour | Urdunama Podcast

While ‘haraarat’ literally means heat or temperature, poetry gives the word a far richer and tender life.

As another summer pushes temperatures to record highs, darja-e-haraarat, meaning 'degree of heat', has become part of our daily vocabulary. We hear it in weather reports, worry about it when a child feels warm, and increasingly experience it in a world shaped by climate change.

On this week's Urdunama, we explore the Urdu word haraarat. While it literally means heat or temperature, poetry gives the word a far richer and tender life. It can signify warmth, affection, vitality, conviction, and even the spark of resistance.

Through verses by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Muztar Khairabadi and Majaz Lakhnavi, Fabeha Syed traces the many shades of haraarat in Urdu poetry and reflects on how a word associated with heat can also illuminate the warmth that binds, heals and moves us to action. Tune in.