To successfully search the site for a given word or phrase, please make sure that the word is typed according to the transliteration scheme that I use. Otherwise the search engine will not be able to find the word you are looking for. Example, if you are looking for ghazals and nazms that contain the word 'arzoo', you should type "aarazuu". However, if you are looking for the poet Arzoo Luchnawi, you should search on "Arzoo".

Names of poets and singers are not transliterated since they are proper nouns. The commonly written form is used. For example, if you are looking for "Mirza Ghalib", you should type "Ghalib" and not "Gaalib". If you are looking for 'Jagjit Singh', you should type 'Jagjit' and not 'jagajiit' or even 'Jagjeet'.

By default the search engine tries to locate pages which have exact matches for all of the words entered in your search query. If that fails, it then tries to locate pages which contain any words in your search query. If that happens a short message is displayed at the top of the search results indicating this has been done.

The default search behaviour mentioned above can be modified with the use of the following modifiers:

• * wildcard
  If a query word ends with a * all words on a page which start the same way as that query word will be returned as a successful match. Searching on 'ra*' will return pages with 'raat', 'raag', 'rang', 'Rafi', 'raastaa', 'raah', etc.
• ? wildcard
  If a query word contains a ? any character will match that position. Searching on '?ab' will return pages with 'aab', 'dab', 'jab', 'kab, 'lab, 'rab', 'sab', 'tab' and so on.
• + and - qualifiers
  If you prepend a word with + that word is required to be on the page. If you prepend a word with - that word is required to not be on the page

If you are looking for ghazals and nazms by a particular poet, you should use the individual index pages for each poet which are available through the Index of Poets.

If you know the 'matlaa' (first sher) of the ghazal or the first line or the first few words, you should use the alphabetic indexes available through the Index of Poems.

If you are looking for ghazals and nazms by a particular singer, you should use the individual index pages for each singer which are available through the Index of Singers.

If you know the 'matlaa' (first sher) of the ghazal or the first line or the first few words, you should use the alphabetic index available through the Index of Songs.

If you are looking for track listings of a specific album, consult the album listings available through the Index of Albums.