At a cultural soiree in New Delhi in 2013 dedicated to poet-lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, Pakistan’s then envoy to India, Shahid Malik, found no place, although he had arrived well on time. He had to be accommodated on the stage, behind one of the wings. Sahir Ludhianvi, like Faiz Ahmed Faiz who influenced him greatly, belonged to both India and Pakistan – and wherever poetry in Hindi/Urdu is appreciated.

Both cult figures, they lived different lives. While Faiz living in Pakistan went into self-exile for long years, Sahir, born in downtown Ludhiana (a city from where he derived his moniker), studied in Lahore, moved after the Partition to Mumbai (then Bombay) to make a career in cinema. Both were drawn to and articulated the left-leaning literary-cultural movements of the ‘progressives’ in their respective countries.

Unsurprisingly, while the protestors at Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh and elsewhere opposing the Modi government’s citizenship laws virtually adopted Faiz’s “Hum Dekhenge” as their anthem, the farmers currently protesting three controversial laws and their supporters chant Sahir’s lines. There cannot be a greater recognition of their relevance in the current troubled times.

Sahir lived among those cultural activists on the Indian side meeting at Preet Nagar, set up close to the border between Lahore and Amritsar, by Gurbaksh Singh Preetlari. This “link of love” between the two Punjabs, just a flicker though, continues to burn to this day, defying political and military vicissitudes.

Although no known celebrations are there in Bollywood beginning March 8, the start of his centenary year, Sahir is the flavour of this Covid-hit summer.   

 ‘Sahir’ was the  taqullus (nom de plume) the poet gave himself. He stuck to his Ludhiana roots as identity despite bitter memories of quarrels between parents, of a landlord father who deprived his mother Sardar Begum. She took young Abdul Hye with her. Sahir bore a deep grudge against the father. His mother was the only woman he really loved, it is said, despite his supposed liaison with singer Sudha Malhotra and poet Amrita Pritam. He was rumoured to marry Amrita, but did not. Yet it evolved into a lasting relationship on which at least one movie is currently being planned.

 Sahir died young at 59 in 1980, when he was very much read and listened to. His composer-partners S D Burman and Roshan had departed and Ravi and Khayyam had slowed down. In literary terms, however, his own departure was, perhaps, timely. The “golden age of Indian cinema”, when verse and melody reigned, was over.

He went a decade ahead of the end of the socialist thought that collapsed with the break-up of the Soviet Union and in India, with the introduction of economic reforms. These changes impacted the thought processes had never been so significant since independence and the Partition. The capitalist whom Sahir and other ‘progressives’ targeted as the exploiting villain in their writings is now the job-giving benefactor calling all the shots.

Yet, Sahir Ludhianvi’s relevance becomes greater and urgent in the present times for promoting an inclusive society and religious harmony. His ditties “Tu Hindu banega na Muslaman banega” (Dhool Ka Phool) and “Mandiron mein shankh baaje masjidon mein ho azaan” (Mujhe Jeaene Do) seem to belong to another era.     

 Sahir was different from most of his contemporaries in that he did not invoke God, praise feminine beauty and express his love for liquor in his lyrics. He was at ease with both Urdu and Hindi. A bright example of the latter is “man re tu kahey na dheer dhare.”   

His lyric produced one of the best Qawallis in Hindi cinema, “Na toh karavaan ki talaash hai” (Barsaat Ki Raat) and arguably, the only Qawwali sung by two men (“Jo bore karey yaar jo us yaar se tauba” on Raj Kapoor and Rehman in Phir Subah Hogi).

He was an iconoclast. His “aasmaan pe hai khuda, aur zameen pe hum” (Phir Subah Hogi) would perhaps raise heckles today.  An internationalist who shared Jawaharlal Nehru’s world vision and dream of a better tomorrow for the common man, he contrasted the dream with reality at home: ‘’Chin-o Arab harama, Hindustan hamara, rehne ko ghar nahin hai, saara jahan hamara.”

Film analyst Gautam Kaul recalls that Sahir annoyed Nehru/Indira Gandhi acolytes during the Emergency  of 1975-79. They ordered a review of his poetry and this song was banned from being broadcast by All India Radio (AIR).

Between the rich and poor, Sahir sided with the poor, the worker. The angst of the poet in Pyaasa (yeh duniya agar mil bhi jayey toh kya hai?” was very much his own. He wanted even his beloved to meet him without invoking grand, romantic visions of a Taj Mahal.

 When the world continues to praise the beauty of Taj Mahal, he sympathised with the poor workers who built it. He mocked at Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for giving the world a symbol of love for his wife in the shape of Taj Mahal  (“Ek Shahenshah ne banwake hasin Taj Mahal”). His counter was “Ek Shahensha Ne Daulat Ka Sahara Lekar, Hum Gharibon Ki Mohabbat Ka Udaya Hai Mazaq”. The emperor had used the Taj as an imagery to belittle the world’s poor.  

Sahir did not mind being controversial. He insisted on charging a rupee more than Lata Mangeshkar against whom he promoted Sudha Malhotra as a singer. He wanted the lyricist to be duly credited.  

For all his passion for poetry that was rewarded in terms of fame and money, Sahir was modest and called himself “pal, do pal, ka shayar”, a poet who would be heard momentarily and forgotten by a busy world that will move on to someone better than him. But he continues to resonate.

He loved life and his ever-lasting message is taking life in one’s strides. My most memorable moment of Sahir’s muse is of Dev Anand, dressed in all-black, responding to thundering ovation, furiously waving at the audience as he rose to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest in Indian cinema. Playing in the background was the film clip of Hum Dono showing him lip-syncing “main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya”. 

It was celebration of life by Sahir Ludhianvi, the poet, Jaidev the composer and Dev Anand the actor. All took their respective lives in their strides for the world to remember them by.

While that was Sahir’s life, the irony of his death is that his grave in Mumbai was destroyed in 2007, along with many others, including Meena Kumari and Madhubala, to make way for other graves. Now, only Sahir’s songs live on.   

(The writer is President, Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA). The views are personal. He can be contacted at mahendraved07@gmail.com)