The legendry poet and film lyricist ruled people’s heart for a long time and is still remembered after his death in 1980. Sahir who primarily wrote in Urdu, also deeply influenced the Hindi cinema with his lyrics. During his lifetime he wrote 718 songs in a career spanning around 30 years. His writings featured complex emotions of love and separation. Today marks his birth anniversary.
It is pertinently said that a writer or poet’s creativity can be assessed and contextualized better when pitted against someone belonging to his/her ilk and writing on similar themes and issues. Latin poets Horace and Virgil are often pitted against each other because of their similar views on the subject of love and separation. In quite a similar fashion, Sahir and Pakistan’s Juan Elia often appear to be on the same page because somewhere, both felt that the culmination of love lies in separation. ‘ Behichak tu mere saath chal/ Na hoga shikwa ‘gar jaaye tu badal’ (Juan Elia). Almost in the same vein, Sahir wrote, ‘ Shikayat karna mera sheva nahin/ Tu chhod de mujhe zeva nahin’ (zeva: complaint). Sahir and Juan fell in love several times but they remained clear about the outcome of love. ‘ Judna aur bichadna/muhabbat ka faqat itna-sa fasana, ‘ Sahir wrote to Elia and Elia wrote back, ‘ Muhabbat se pahle andesha hai/ Mil ke raahon ko juda hona hai’. This fatalistic predestination of love makes both the stalwarts similar in an uncanny manner.
Sahir is undoubtedly acknowledged and esteemed as a cynosure in the realm of the romantic poetry of the post-independence era but it is not only the pangs of unrequited love in his oeuvre that resonate with the readers. He had in fact a perfect knack and special predilection for depicting the seamy side of life. Even in his love poetry his humanistic concerns are quite palpable and can be conspicuously noticed when he articulates “Tumhare gham ke siwa aur bhi toh gham hain mujhe…
Najaat Jinse main ek lamah paa nahi saktaa”.
Here the poet indeed rises to the level of an avowed and impassioned socialist who does not choose to merely wallow in his personal grief and stay in his ivory tower. Such articulations in his poetry aptly bring him near to his another contemporary and a fiery poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz who comments almost in a similar vein “Aur bhi dukh hain zamane mein mohabat ke siva, Raahten aur bhi hain vasl ki raahat ke siva”
When Sahir was in his hay day of writing, India was going through a post -independence tumultuous and traumatic phase. Undeniably the nation had managed to get liberation from the brutal and barbaric thraldom of the British government, but the common people were miserably grappling horns with the grinding poverty and smothering starvation. The ever-widening chasm between the haves and have nots instantly drew the attention of the revolutionary writers like Kafi Azami, Saadat Hasan Manto, Josh Malihabadi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz and many more who are fittingly acclaimed as the Renaissance men of the Progressive Writers’ Movement of India. Similarly, the deeply sensitive soul of Sahir could not resist the strong pull of the terrible times. Therefore, rising above the stature of a mere film lyricist, the acerbic and acidic tongue of this renegade and iconoclast berated the rampant corruption and took potshots at rabid capitalism which breed poverty in a society. His lines “Sansar ki har ik besharmi, Gurbat ki god mein palti hai” perfectly cock a snook on the widespread menace of poverty that has even the threatening potential of turning an otherwise innocent man into an abominable monster. Thus, the fact cannot be refuted that Sahir had vociferously and vehemently championed the cause of the marginalized, neglected and downtrodden with a burning desire to ameliorate the festering social fabric.
Inarguably, Sahir is remembered as a rare poet who sternly refused to capitulate to the whims of cinema, but moulded the medium to his own will. From his soul-stirring poems against religious fanaticism, parochial patriarchy, to almost anarchic communism, Sahir contributed to Hindi cinema the lyrics that would add a political profundity and edge to a medium largely consigned to as entertainment. Hence, on this birth centenary, It would not be hyperbolic to state that his renditions will live on and on till eternity and this heartthrob of the millions will remain immortal as he deserves plethora of adulation for bringing Urdu literature so mesmerizingly well to Indian motion pictures. In a nutshell, Sahir is the dormant volcano of a poet. The lava of his angst flows through his arteries and veins to manifest itself through poetic masterpieces that bespeak the pains and pathos of the proletariat.
Professor Dr. Shiv Sethi is a freelancer columnist and literary critic from Ferozepur, Punjab