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S A H I R L U D H I A N V I - Biography

 
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AzgarKhan
post May 12 2007, 02:27 PM
Post #16


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Sahir Ludhianvi

Khuda-e-bartar teri zameen par
Zameen ki khaatir ye jung kyun hai
Har ek khat ho zafar ke daaman
Pe khoon-e-insaan ka rang kyun hai

Zameen bhi teri, hai hum bhi tere
ye milkiyat ka sawaal kya hai
Ye qatl-o-khoon ka riwaaj kyun hai
Ye rasm-e-jung-o-jadaal kya hai
Jinhe talab hai jahan bhar ki
Unhi ka dil itna tangg kyun hai

Ghareeb maon shareef behnon
Ko amn-o-izzat ki zindagi de
Jinhe ataa ki hai toone taaqat
Unhe hidayat ki roshni de
Sarron mein kibr-o-ghuroor kyun hai
Dilon ke sheeshe pe zang kyun hai

Kazaa ke raste pe jaane waalo
Ko bachke aane ki raah dena
Dilon ke gulshan ujad na jaye
Mohabbaton ko panaah dena
Jahan mein jashn-e-wafa ke badle
Ye jashn-e-teer-o-tafang kyun hai

Khuda-e-bartar teri zameen par
Zameen ki khaatir ye jung kyun hai
Har ek khat ho zafar ke daaman
Pe khoon-e-insaan ka rang kyun hai

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AzgarKhan
post Jun 29 2007, 06:35 AM
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Sahir Ludhianvi was only 23 when, in 1943, he published his first book Talkhiyan, arguably the best-selling work of Urdu poetry after the Deewaan-e-Ghalib.

Most of us know of Sahir as a successful lyricist for the Bombay film industry. His songs could be dark and melancholy (Ye duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai), or playful (Hum aap ki aankhon mein, iss dil ko basaa de to), or even full of charming buffoonery (Sar jo tera chakraaye, ya dil dooba jaaye, aaja pyare paas hamaare, kaahe ghabraae, kaahe ghabraae). It is Sahir, and others like him, who has kept Urdu alive in popular Indian culture through the medium of the film song.

But there is also another Sahir. One who has not circulated as widely among the masses. And this is tragic, because it is the ordinary people and their struggles that provided his poetry its breath of life.

In the years before 1947, Sahir lived in Lahore, editing a number of journals, including a fortnightly called Savera. In 1949, he was forced to flee. His critical articles had roused the ire of the Pakistani state, and an arrest warrant was issued in his name. Long before his hurried departure from the new nation, Sahir had asked: Chalo us kufr ke ghar se salaamat aa gaye lekin / Khuda ki mamlekat mein sokhta khaanon pe kya guzri (Thank God we arrived safe from the land of infidels; / But in God's own kingdom, what happened to the broken-hearted?).

In Bombay, the Sahir mystique was quick to take hold. His songs, lent voice by the best singers in the industry, would sail out from radio sets in shops and the open windows of homes in towns and cities all over the nation.

Little is known of Sahir's non-filmi work though. This was partly because Sahir rarely published his works. All of it, however, was powerful poetry. In 1956, for instance, Sahir wrote his long poem Parchaiyan (Silhouettes). A tribute to lost love, it was also a powerful antiwar manifesto. This mix of poetry and politics was Sahir's hallmark.

Sahir was a member of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA). But, we might ask, what did this mean in terms of his poetry.

The trend with poets had been to ascribe mystical origins to their work. For example, Ghalib had written: Aate hain ghaib se ye mazaameen khayaal mein / Ghalib, sareer e khaama, nawaa e sarosh hai (These ideas come to me from the void / Ghalib, the scratching of pen on paper is the flutter of angels' wings).

Sahir was not one for such airy metaphysics. His poetry, quite emphatically, had material roots. And so, on the frontispiece of his book "Talkhiyan" (Bitter Words), we read the following verse: Duniya ne tajrubaat o hawaadis ki shakl mein / Jo kuch mujhe diya hai, wo lauta rahaa hoon main (What the world, in the form of experiences and accidents / Bestowed upon me, I am returning).

Sahir's poetry was a departure from the classical traditional of Urdu poetry or the funoon-e-lateefa (the delicate arts). He wanted his poems to walk among the people, and that is why they seem to have the dust of the common roads on them.

Sahir was aware that such a radical departure invited dismissal from the pure aesthetes. This did not overly trouble him; he had only contempt for those who wanted anything different of his works. His aesthetic manifesto was delivered in these ringing words: Mujh ko is ka ranj nahin hai, log mujhe fankaar na manein / Fikr o sukhan ke taajir mere sheron ko ash-aar na manein (I do not regret that people do not consider me an artist / That the traders of thought and words do not consider my poems poetic).

To call a critic a crass trader is a time-honoured practice among Leftist poets. It continues to this day. Javed Akhtar, for instance, has unfurled his own banner in the following verse: Jaanta hoon main tum ko, zauq e shaairi bhi hai / Shaqsiyat sajaane mein, ek ye maahiri bhi hai / Phir bhi harf chunte ho, sirf lafz sunte ho / Un ke darmiyaan kya hai, tum na jaan paaoge (I know you appreciate poetry / After all, it is a personality-building skill / But you just pluck letters, hear words / What lies between them, you shopkeepers will never know).

But, there is a profound difference between a proclamation like Akhtar's, and the one by Sahir. And it lies in the fact that Sahir actually used his poetry to explain why he consciously repudiated the dominant forms of Urdu poetry - and his words carried a stinging awareness of why he himself would, in turn, be rejected by those who defended the status quo.

Sahir's triumph, of course, is that his finest poetry is as fine-grained as the ghazals of Ghalib and Meer, as lyrical as Faiz's nazms, and as inflected with philosophy as musadddas by Hali or Iqbal. Such poetry is a repudiation of all worn-out arguments against progressive, politically-inflected writing. However, despite the fact that Sahir's poems are hummed on the streets, his songs are keeping an idiom alive, and his non-film poetry is sold out, Sahir has received little critical attention, especially in commentaries written in English.

In his famous analysis of Urdu literature, Mohammed Sadiq, after a chapter on Ghalib, Iqbal, and even Akbar Ilahabadi, dismisses Sahir in one paragraph. It is true that several Urdu journals have devoted special issues to Sahir's work, and Urdu critics like Intizar Husain have lauded him as a literary giant. Indeed, his songs continue to inspire many Urdu writers. But, there is no critical appreciation of his work in English. Barring a critical and empathic analysis by Carlo Coppola, most of Sahir's critics in English dismiss him as a pamphleteer or an ideologue. In the narrow world of Urdu criticism in English, there appears to be an implicit agreement that the works of PWA writers, while they may be lauded as devices of public organising, are aesthetically inferior, and even harmful to Urdu poetry's classical traditions.

Why have these progressives been given such short shrift?

I believe that their fate is not unique to Urdu writers. It is not unusual for the defenders of the canon in any field of literature to be wary of aesthetic experiments, and to regard the outcome of such experiments as aesthetic failure.

Thus, in the present literature on Urdu poetry, poets like Sahir Ludhianvi remain forgotten, very much like the workers who built the Taj Mahal, about whom he wrote with such indelible passion: Meri mehboob, unhe bhi to mohabbat hogi / Jin ki sannaa'i ne bakhshi hai ise shakl e jameel / Unke pyaaron ke maqaabir rahe be naam-o-numood / Aaj tak un pe jalaai na kisi ne qandeel (My love, they too must have loved / Whose craft has given the Taj its beautiful visage / Their loved ones lie in unmarked graves / Where no one even lights a candle).

At this point in history, though, Sahir's touching appeals against war are strongly brought to mind. In 1956, following the Suez Canal crisis, he wrote Parchaiyan, which focused on the domestic fallout of war.

Us shaam mujhe maaloom hua, kheton ki tarah is duniya mein
Sahmi hui doshezaaon ki muskaan bhi bechi jaati hai
Us shaam mujhe maaloom hua, is kaargah e zardaari mein
Do bholi bhaali roohon ki pehchaan bhi bechi jaati hai

On that evening, I learned that in this world, like fields
The smiles on the nervous faces of beauties are also traded
On that evening, I learned that in the marketplace of capital
The intimacy of two innocent souls is also traded.

… Guzishta jang mein ghar hi jale, magar is baar
Ajab nahin, ke ye tanhaaiyaan bhi jal jaayen
Guzishta jang mein paikar jale, magar is baar
Ajab nahin, ke ye parchaiyan bhi jal jaayen


In the last war, homes were burned, but this time
Even the loneliness may burn away
In the last war, only bodies burned, but this time
Even the silhouettes may burn away

(Raza Mir teaches at Monmouth University, New Jersey and helps edit the magazine SAMAR.)

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AzgarKhan
post Jun 29 2007, 06:41 AM
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Sahir wrote Jashn-e-Ghalib (Ghalib's Celebration) after the Indian government suddenly decided to mark the 100th anniversary of Ghalib's death in 1968. There could be no more scathing critique of the treatment meted out to Urdu by the bureaucratic policies in India:

Jin shehron mein goonji thhi, Ghalib ki navaa barson
Un shehron mein aaj Urdu, benaam-o-nashaan thehri
Aazaadi-e-kaamil ka elaan huaa jis din,
Maatoob zabaan thehri, ghaddar zabaan thehri

Jis ahd-e-siyaasat ne ye zinda zubaan kuchli
Us ahd-e-siyaasat ko marhoomon ka gham kyon hai
Ghalib jise kehte hain, Urdu hi ka shaayar thha
Urdu pe sitam dhha kar, Ghalib pe karam kyon hai


In those cities, where Ghalib's voice echoed for years
In those very cities now, there is no trace of Urdu
The day we announced our independence
It became an oppressed language, a traitor language

The political will that crushed this living tongue
Why does that very politic mourn Urdu's dead
The one who you call Ghalib, he was a poet of urdu
Why bury Urdu and then praise Ghalib?

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AzgarKhan
post Aug 7 2007, 08:52 PM
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This song, "Jinhe Naaz Hai Hind Par Wo Kahan Hai" is the simplified version of Sahir's 'Chakley'. The song was written for the movie 'Pyaasa', starring Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman and Mala Sinha. The music was given by S.D. Burman and the song was sung by Mohammed Rafi. The major difference, if you will compare this with the original nazm 'Chakley' is that this version was a simpler version, modified version of 'Chakley' for the masses. Sahir accomplished this masterfully by replacing 'sanaa-Khwaan-e-taqdees-e-mashriq kahaaN haiN' to 'jinhe naaz hai hind par vo kahaaN haiN'.

Ye kooche ye nilaam ghar dilkashi ke
Ye lut-te huwe karvaan zindagi ke
Kahan hai, kahan hai muhafiz khudi ke
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hai
Kahan hai, kahan hai, kahan hai

Ye purpaich galiyan, ye badnaam bazaar
Ye gumnaam raahi, ye sikkon ki jhankaar
Ye ismat ke sauday, ye saudon pe taqraar
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hai
Kahan hai, kahan hai, kahan hai

Ye sadiyon se be-khauf sehmi si galiyaan
Ye masli hui adh-khili zard kaliyaan
Ye bikti hui khokli rang-raliyaan
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hai
Kahan hai, kahan hai, kahan hai

Wo ujle darichon mein payal ki chann chann
Thaki haari saanson pe tablay ki dhan dhan
Ye be-rooh kamron mein khaansi ki than than
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hai
Kahan hai, kahan hai, kahan hai

Ye phoolon ke gajre, ye peekon ke cheentay
Ye be-baak nazrein, ye gustaakh fitrein
Ye dhalke badan, aur ye beemar chehre
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hai
Kahan hai, kahan hai, kahan hai

Yahan peer bhi aa chuke hain, jawaan bhi
Tan-o-mand bete bhi, abba miya bhi
Ye biwi bhi hai, aur bahen bhi hai Maa bhi
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hai
Kahan hai, kahan hai, kahan hai

Madad chaahti hai ye Hawwa ki beti
Yashoda ki hum-jins, Radha ki beti
Payambar ki ummath, Zulekha ki beti
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hai
Kahan hai, kahan hai, kahan hai

Zara mulk ke rehbaron ko bulao
Ye kooche ye galiyaan ye manzar dikhao
Jinhe naaz hai hind par unko lao
Jinhe naaz hai Hind par wo kahan hai
Kahan hai, kahan hai, kahan hai

Glossary:
Kooche = Streets
Nilaam Ghar = Auction Houses
Muhaafiz Khudi ke = the protectors of pride
Ismat = pride, honour
Takraar = fights, arguments
Zard = yellowing
Be-rooh = soul-less
Peer = old, wise
Tan-o-mand = healthy, fit
Hum-jins = breed
Payambar = prophet
Ummat = race
Rehbaron = leaders

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simplefable
post Aug 21 2007, 08:07 AM
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Thankyou all...for such a wonderful insight into the poet and his works..got no words to explain the efforts you all have put in...if i delve in this corridors, i will definitely pick up the finer nuances of Urdu...i am sure. :-)
With all humility, i would say that no two persons can be compared...ever. It is for us, to enjoy what we like at our own pace. :-)

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley



"Waqt ne kiya...Kya haseen sitm...Tum rahe na tum..Hum rahe na hum.."



geetadutt

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Krish786
post Aug 27 2007, 05:21 AM
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All my love and respect goes to Sahir ji..

Thanks Azgarbhai sahib.. Irshad..farmayiye..

( thanks to Apritam ji) wub.gif

and btw.. who is shaqil ppl talking about? chota shaquil? I never heard he is/was poet also?

laugh.gif

Feel Free to add me to your email id krish786.nAThotmail.com
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anjvajay
post Aug 27 2007, 10:40 PM
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QUOTE(Krish786 @ Aug 27 2007, 05:21 AM) *


and btw.. who is shaqil ppl talking about? chota shaquil? I never heard he is/was poet also?

laugh.gif

Hi Krish,
Agar aap Shakeel ko chhota kar ke Sahir ko bada saabit karna chahte hain to behad galat kar rahen hain.
Shakeel Badayuni,Majrooh Sultanpuri,Prem Dhavan,Shailendra aur Kaifi Azami ye saare log ek hi raah ke humsafar the.Ye saare lyricist zindagi bhar Progressive Writers Association se jude rahe. Mujhe hairat hai ki Kaifi Azami ka Forum gayab ho gaya hai.
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Krish786
post Aug 27 2007, 11:34 PM
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QUOTE(anjvajay @ Aug 27 2007, 01:10 PM) *

QUOTE(Krish786 @ Aug 27 2007, 05:21 AM) *


and btw.. who is shaqil ppl talking about? chota shaquil? I never heard he is/was poet also?

laugh.gif

Hi Krish,
Agar aap Shakeel ko chhota kar ke Sahir ko bada saabit karna chahte hain to behad galat kar rahen hain.
Shakeel Badayuni,Majrooh Sultanpuri,Prem Dhavan,Shailendra aur Kaifi Azami ye saare log ek hi raah ke humsafar the.Ye saare lyricist zindagi bhar Progressive Writers Association se jude rahe. Mujhe hairat hai ki Kaifi Azami ka Forum gayab ho gaya hai.



No sir.. it was just a simple Joke.. But truth is I rate Shair Way above others.. IMHO...I have yet to see SB's shayari to the level of SL, Pyasa.. Kabhi Kabhi.. and some non filmi are mind blowing from SL.. SB i am not sure.. was a good poet, like others, Shailendra is over rated to me as well..

Well its all in ones own perception.. so, joking was not to push SL up above SB at all I am no body to do it.. and SL does not require that push even. He is already high up there..

smile1.gif

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AzgarKhan
post Aug 28 2007, 12:51 PM
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QUOTE(Krish786 @ Aug 27 2007, 05:21 AM) *
All my love and respect goes to Sahir ji..

Thanks Azgarbhai sahib.. Irshad..farmayiye..

( thanks to Apritam ji) wub.gif

and btw.. who is shaqil ppl talking about? chota shaquil? I never heard he is/was poet also?

laugh.gif


Cant believe people dont know Shakeel Badayuni, one of the greatest Indian poets who penned songs for Mother India, Moghul-e-azam, Ganga Jamuna, Mere Mehboob, Chaudhvin ka chand, Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam to name a few.

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