Dev Mani Pandey is my old acquaintance. He is a poet and also conducts kavi sammelan. Conducting a kavi sammelan is almost like ring master in the cage with lions sitting on stools, but this manichey ringmaster is not provided with a hunter, still tame them well.
But I never knew that Dev also writes ghazals. To my mind writing Ghazal is a challenge because in each and every Sher ( Couplets), you have to give independent thought but still all the shers(couplets) are interwoven seamlessly. Normally other form of poetry is written but sher are spoken first then scribed. Dev came to my house last week and presented me his latest Ghazal collection 'Apna To Mile Koi'. I flipped through its pages, read and re-read the Ghazals. Frankly I enjoyed because his shayaree do talk about poverty, struggle, break in relationship, but still the shayar in Dev never loose hope and optimism