Poet of a Few Moments: Sahir Ludhianvi at 100 - I

Before he was Sahir Ludhianvi, Abdul Hai (1921-80) was born in a family of Punjabi landowners a hundred years ago last month on the 8th of March and passed away on the 25th of October 1980 in Bombay. He was the only son of a rich landowner, who had divorced Sahir’s mother. According to Ehsan Danish, Sahir Ludhianvi declared his decision before the court to go with his impoverished mother rather than the rich father. From this very place, the rights of women became the foundation for human rights for Sahir Ludhianvi, so much so that the social exploitation of his mother also affected his sorrow of the beloved. He remained a bachelor all his life.

His anger at his class position led to his expulsion from college. However, even before he turned 25, he had published Talkhiyan (Bitterness), a bestseller to date. Sahir, of course, is known in the public imagination for his incredible career as a film lyricist. A partial collection of his film lyrics titled Gaata Jaaye Banjara (And the Gypsy Sings On) outsells most poetry books in serious bookstores. Sahir has been credited with recasting class-rebellion as romantic rebellion in film songs to shoehorn his politics into the filmi idiom. One can say that the popularity of Sahir Ludhianvi was due to film music but that is not so. The poems which had found fame through his collection Talkhiyan, reached the non-Urdu-speaking classes years later through the film Pyaasa. However, he was strangely ignored by the intelligentsia. For example, in his analysis of Urdu literature Mohammed Sadiq, after a chapter each on Ghalib, Iqbal, and even Akbar Allahabadi, dismisses Sahir in one paragraph. His analysis begins thus: ‘Though deficient in imagination, Sahir has a strong intellectual approach.’



But despite being ignored by some of the intelligentsia, the poet lives on in the public imagination. In this crowded field, let me declare that despite all his flaws, Sahir is my favourite poet, and his Parchhaiyan (Silhouettes) my favourite poem. It has to do with a variety of personal reasons, and I will not be aghast if this surprises some readers.



Sahir Ludhianvi’s fame was worthy of the envy of even the most popular Urdu poets, but Sahir’s fame was different to the fame attained in mushairas. His poetry possesses neither joy nor colour; it does not even have embellishment. In fact, his poetry attained the wings of music but the structure of words by itself does not possess musicality. Owing to romantic themes, Sahir’s poetry had the bitterness of reality rather than the bitterness of love which affected the heart of everyone high and low; and within modern poetical beauty, it was the form of diction in poetry where words are extremely simple but meanings are not. Actually his sympathy was the real interpreter of human deprivation. By saying the truth in a plain manner, Sahir Ludhianvi did not just remain a famous poet of the 20th century, but became a singular poetic manifestation.

His anger at his class position led to his expulsion from college. However, even before he turned 25, he had published Talkhiyan (Bitterness), a bestseller to date

Sahir stepped into the field of poetry at the time when Faiz’s poem Mujh se pehli si mohabbat, meri mehboob na maang (My love, do not ask me for that old love again) was echoing in the air. So this couplet has been entered as a letterhead in his poetic collection Talkhiyan:

“Abhi na chhed mohabbat ke geet ae mutrib

 Abhi hayat ka mahol khushgavar nahi”

(Do not touch the song of love O minstrel

The surrounding of love is yet not so congenial)

One finds traces of a raw mind in his early poems and in the terminology of Kalimuddin Ahmad,  it is the illustration of the feelings of a man who has not yet passed B. A. So the last couplet of the poem Yaksui (Single-Mindedness) is this:

“Tum mein himmat ho toa duniya se baghavat kar do

Varna maan-baap jahan kehte hain shadi kar lo”

(Rebel against the world if you have any courage

Otherwise do as your parents say and arrange your marriage)

Sahir is neither the poet of the intelligentsia like Faiz nor the poet of the assembly of workers like many others. His appeal is towards the ordinary educated youth of the middle class

But elements of poetic spontaneity and versification are found in Sahir’s temperament since the very beginning. Some of his verses are among the better ones of that period:



“Tujh ko khabar nahi magar is saada-lauh ko

 Barbad kar diya tire do din ke pyar ne

Main aur tum se tark-e-mohabbat ki aarzu

Deevana kar diya hai gham-e-rozgaar ne

Ab ae dil-e-tabah tira kya khayal hai

Hum toa chale the kakul-e-geeti ko sanvaarne”

(You do not know but that simpleton

 Who your temporary love led to destruction

 Me and my wish for a break-up with you

 The sorrow of sustenance has driven me to desperation

 Now O ruined heart what do you think

To adorn the tresses of life is our destination)

“Phir na kijiye meri gustakh nigahi ka gila

Dekhiye aap ne phir pyar se dekha mujh ko”

(Do not then about my irreverent glance complain

See you cast a loving look at me again)

“Khud-dariyon ke khoon ko arzaan na kar sake

Hum apne joharon ko numaayan na kar sake

Ho kar kharab-e-mai tire gham toa bhula diye

Lekin gham-e-hayat ka darmaan na kar sake

Har shai qareeb aake kashish apni kho gayi

Voh bhi ilaaj shauq-e-gurezaan na kar sake”

(We could not make the blood of self-respect abundant

We could not make our qualities apparent

Spoiled by wine, I did forget your sorrows

But could not remedy the sorrow of life, I lament

Everything lost its attraction in proximity

For the perverse wish, they could not even provide medical treatment)

“Ye kis maqam pe pohancha diya zamane ne

Ke ab hayat pe tera bhi ikhtiyar nahi”

(Time has made you reach such a position

That life is no longer a matter of your discretion)

This poetic spirit has created a bloom and elegance in the tone of Sahir and like Majaz his poems too – while not bearing very profound experiences and consciousness – carry an appeal within them and this too is the secret of their popularity. Sahir’s poetic collections have probably been the most read among Progressive poets. The reason for this is that Sahir is neither the poet of the intelligentsia like Faiz nor the poet of the assembly of workers like many others. His appeal is towards the ordinary educated youth of the middle class. His style neither has modern innuendo and the illustration of imaginary conditions nor roughness. It has a purity, spontaneity and sweetness which directly influences ordinary youth. His most popular poem is Taj Mahal, which despite being the product of a crude consciousness about a cultural and civilizational asset is a successful example of its individualistic reaction and there is no dispute about its impact.

(to be continued)

All translations are by the writer.

Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and award-winning translator and dramatic reader, currently based in Lahore, where he is also the president of the Progressive Writers Association. He is currently working on a book  ‘Sahir Ludhianvi’s Lahore, Lahore’s Sahir Ludhianvi’, forthcoming in 2021. He can be reached at razanaeem@hotmail.com