Mirza Jan Tapish

Mirza Jan Tapish (?-1814) is the pseudonym of Mirza Mohammad Ismail, a writer and poet who composed in the urdu and persian languages. Tapish means warmth.

Tapish's father Mirza Yusuf Begh came to India from Bukhara and settled in Delhi where he joined the army. Tapish also started his career in the army. Later, on the lookout for a job, he went to Murshidabad and came close to Shamsuddowlah, the nawab of Dhaka. Hosted by the nawab, he lived in Dhaka for some time.

Tapish, along with Shamsuddowlah, was imprisoned in 1799 for his involvement in a conspiracy to unsettle the British and was sent to jail in calcutta. After his release, Tapish took the job of a scribe of Persian documents and manuscripts at the fort william college.

As a mark of friendship, Tapish inscribed the name of Shamsuddowlah in the title of his first volume Shamsul Bayan fi Mustahalat-e-Hindostan (1792). This is a book in Persian on Urdu idioms, proverbs, and technical terms. The book was published from Kolkata in 1839. He translated a volume of Persian poems by Enayetullah Bangali, Masnabi Bahar-i-Danish, into Urdu in 1801. His volume of poems written in Urdu, Kulliyat-i-Tapish, was published from the Fort William College in 1812. He died in Kolkata in 1814. [Wakil Ahmed]