A Tribute to Sahir Ludhianvi 1921 - 1980
Mini Biography
A colossus among film lyricists,
Sahir Ludhianvi was slightly different from his contemporaries.
A man unable to praise Khuda (God),
Husn (beauty) and/or Jaam (wine), his pen was at its best pouring out bitter but sensitive lyrics over the declining values of society, the senselessness of war and politics, and the domination of materialism over love. Whenever he wrote any love songs, they were tinged with sorrow, due to the realization that there were other, starker concepts more important than love. He could be called the underdog's bard; close to his heart were the soldier gone to fight someone's war, the woman forced to sell her body, the family living on the street and other victims of society.
Born in March 8
1921 as
Abdul Hayee, Sahir was the only son of a zamindar. The separation of his parents and the event of partition caused him to shuttle between
India and
Pakistan...and also brought him face to face with the struggles of life. He made a living as a journalist and editor in Pakistan, but an arrest warrant from the
Pakistani government of the day after publishing some unflattering articles caused him to flee to
Bombay in
1949, where he began to write film songs.
Sahir made his debut in film lyrics with Naujawan (
1951). His first major break came the same year when he wrote the lyrics for
S.D. Burman's music in
Baazi (1951). The movie, directed by
Guru Dutt, and its music was a success and together S.D. Burman and Sahir went on to create some of their work in
Jaal (
1952),
House Number 44 (
1955),
Munimji (1955) and the immortal classic
Pyaasa (
1957). And although they parted ways after Pyaasa (), Sahir was now a stalwart in Bollywood and during the
1960s and
1970s he wrote outstanding lyrics for films like
Hum Dono (1961) and
Taj Mahal (
1963). However, he mostly composed lyrics for the
Chopra brothers, before and after they separated, and some of his best work was in
Kabhi Kabhi (
1979), which went on to break all records.
He died in
1980 of a heart attack, in the midst of a card game. It was ironically appropriate; while the poet's heart bled for others, he never paid enough attention to his own life, and had a card-player nonchalance about life and death. He will be remembered along with
Kaifi Azmi, as the poet who brought
Urdu literature to
Indian motion pictures.
From:
IMDb Mini Biography By: Q. Leo
Rahman