The Magician” whose songs live on reverberating with love and life

 

Tu Hindu Banega Na Mussalman Banega,

Insaan Ki Aulad Hai, Insaan Banega,

Maalik Ne Har Insaan ko Insaan Banaya,

Humne Usey Hindu ya Mussalman Banaya,

Kudrat ne toh Bakshi thi Humein Ek Hi Dharti,

Humney Kahin Bharat, Kahin Iran Banaya”

[You shall neither be a Hindu nor a Muslim,

You were born a Human and a Human thou shall remain,

The Almighty created only Human Beings,

But Humans created Hindus and Muslims,Mother Nature created Earth,

Humans tore it into different countries]

Sahir Ludhianvi’s lyrics for the eponymously titled song in BR Chopra’s 1959 film – ‘Dhool ka Phool’ seemed as relevant for post-partition India as prescient for present-day India, where something as innocuous and personal as a meal or a marriage can incredibly, either land you in jail if you are lucky, or get you lynched if you aren’t.

 2021 is the birth centenary of one of India’s finest ever poet-lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi who was born on March 8, 1921. His untimely death, four decades ago in 1980, leaves a vast majority of Indians who do not have more than a fleeting acquaintance with the genius whose lyrics illuminated our cinema screens and our homes for almost three decades.

Abdul Hayee was born in Ludhiana and took the ‘pen name of ‘Sahir’-literally meaning ‘magician’ and metaphorically – ‘enchanting’. In consonance with the then-existing trend, he appended ‘Ludhianvi’ to his name to signify his place of origin.

                                      

Sahir didn’t have a very happy childhood. His mother, Sardar Begum, was the 11th of 12 wives that his feudal landlord father Chaudhary Fazl Mohammad had. His parents were estranged and later divorced and his father’s vindictiveness meant emotional and economic crises for the young impressionable poet. It was famously said of Sahir, that all his life, the great poet really loved only one woman (his mother) and really hated only one man (his father)!

During his formative years, Sahir was influenced by a veritable AAA-list of Urdu Poetry:- Allama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Majaj Lucknawi (maternal uncle of another famous poet-lyricist Javed Akhtar) and Josh Malihabadi.

The Partition of the country circa 1947, his aversion for communalism and his association with the then fledgling Progressive Writers Movement (PWM) meant that he decided to settle in secular India (Bombay) rather than the freshly minted Islamic Republic next door, as did most of the leading poets-writers of the PWM.

The PWM was a left-leaning, staunchly anti-imperialistic collection of the finest collection of writers-poets under any single roof. Saadat Hasan Manto, Munshi Premchand, Mulk Raj Anand, Ismat Chugtai,  Krishan Chander, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Firaq Gorakhpuri, Jan Nisar Akhtar, Kaifi Azmi, Amrita Pritam, and Sahir himself were the leading lights of this movement, which wanted to strive for societal equality and give a voice to the millions of underprivileged and poor through their literature and poetry. Many poets of PWM tried their hand at writing lyrics for the Bombay Film Industry, which post-partition, was the unrivaled, undisputed centre for movie-making in the sub-continent.

 

A chance introduction with the great SD Burman led Sahir to pen the lyrics for his first hit song – “Thandi Hawayeein, Lehra Ke Aayein” sung by Lata Mangeshkar for ‘Naujawan’ (1951).

SD “Dada” Burman had a keen eye for talent and could easily spot the genius in Sahir, whose anthology of poems – ‘Talkhiyaan’ (Bitterness) was already published in 1944 when Sahir was merely in his early twenties. A consistently remarkable feature of Sahir’s writings over his career was that his lyrics were invariably central to the film and its plot.

{ With input from news agency language)

 

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