When I heard this song, “Main Pal Do Pal Ka Shaayar Hoon” and these lines, “Kal aur aayenge nagmon ki
Khilti kaliya chunne waale
Mujhse behtar kehne waale
Tumse behtar sunne waale!”
I used to think how true! Well, Sahir Ludhianvi was wrong on that account. We don’t have a genius like you till now. What lies in the womb of future, no one knows.
Recently I read this:
Zapping through television channels a few days back, I came across a programme on Urdu poet and Hindi film lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi, on a channel called E24.
The reason for suddenly remembering Sahir, nearly three decades after his death, was his 88th birth anniversary. He was born on March 8, 1921.
The programme showed the bad state of Sahir’s flats in this building called Parchaiyan that he had got built after demolishing a bungalow of the same name that stood on the same plot.
The camera panned into his flat which is in a state of absolute disrepair. There were dead pigoens lying all around and cobwebs all over the place. Most of his books and writings have been sold off as raddi. And of what remains, a majority have been eaten by termites. So many years of hard work, sold for a few rupees more or just turned into dust. How criminal.
Well, we are like this. Its our national trait. That’s how we treat our legends. Please bear with us Sahir Ludhianvi sahib and if possible forgive us. You are DEFINITELY NOT, “Pal Do Pal Ka Shaayar” but “Har Eak Pal Ka Shaayar.”