No dearth of standard literary magazines in Urdu: Dozens of monthlies, periodicals published in India

These are just a few Urdu magazines lying on my study table.

Among them, the four literary magazines include 'Shair' published from Mumbai, Rang-o-Bu from Hyderabad, Kitabnuma from Delhi, Abjad from Araria (Bihar) and Bebak from Malegaon.

Also, visible are [non-literary] weekly Gawah and Span. In fact, for someone interested in literature, these are wonderful times in India.

Right now, there are at least, 30 standard literary Urdu magazines. I am not talking about the non-literary magazines i.e. social, political, women's digests or other periodicals.

I often hear people complaining about lack of magazines or fewer readers. The fact is that if you are interested, if you buy magazines, if you have a circle where people read, then you will have ample magazines and periodicals to satiate your literary thirst.

But, if you aren't interested in reading, you will repeat he same old lines, 'where are the magazines, who reads these days?'.

There are unique magazines like one that fits in your palm, and another which is too big that you need both hands to hold it.

Now take a look at the other photo that shows another group of 'adabi' magazines.

This has magazines like Imkan, which is published from Lucknow, Takmil [Mumbai], Zehn-e-Jadid [Delhi], Sabras [Hyderabad].

All these are magazines of high standard and are well-known across the Urdu speakers in India and also in Pakistan.

In fact, I haven't talked about the main and most popular literary magazines in the language as yet. 

They are Ajkal, Aiwan-e-Urdu, Kitabnuma, Naya Daur, Urdu Dunia, Naya Waraq, Esbat, Sabaq-e-Urdu, Aamad, Intesab et al.

The third photograph shows magazines that are equally important. Terhiri-e-Nau, Tarseel and Insha [Kolkata].

And I haven't mentioned the names of half of the literary magazines even now.

There are dozens of Urdu magazines published from Delhi, Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh (UP), Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, even Gujarat and Haryana.

The scene in Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka and Orissa is also quite encouraging.

Also, the Urdu Academies in most states publish their own magazines too.

Mind you, I am talking about just literary magazines. Compared to many other languages in India, the situation is much better in Urdu.

Doesn't the Urdu publishing scene rocks? Surely, it does. There is no question of any pessimism at all.