Woh Bulayen Toh Kya Tamasha Ho
Hum Na Jayen Toh Kya Tamasha Ho


You can read the rest of this poem here

http://www.urdupoetry.com/siddiqui12.html

Superb Poetry of a Poet who died in Penury at the young age of 46.

He was born in 1928 in Ambala and died in 1974 at Lahore.

He was Muhammad Akhtar more popularly known to us as Sagar Siddiqui or simply Sagar

You can read more about him here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saghar_Siddiqui

Here's another wonderful article on him

Saghar Siddiqui: A man, his demons and his dog

http://www.dawn.com/news/1110922

What touched me about this article is how it ended showing us how this great poet's life ended.

Here it is and I quote:

A fan of his once wrote how (in 1966) while he was driving down Lahore’s Circuit Road, the radio in his car began to play a ghazal written by Saghar.

As the fan was quietly revelling in the power of Saghar’s words, his eyes caught a fleeting glimpse of a thin man with unkempt long hair and in tattered clothes walking aimlessly on the side of the road. It was Saghar.

As the world abandoned this genius, Saghar abandoned the world.

For years he could be seen walking and sleeping on the streets of Lahore, living on the food given to him by those who took him to be a beggar or a fakir.

Amazingly, he continued to write powerful poetry in spite of the fact that he could hardly utter a single coherent sentence anymore.

At times he would write brilliant poems, read them out loudly with a vacant look in his eyes, then tear the papers he’d scribbled these poems on, make a heap and set the heap on fire.

Over the years he befriended a stray dog with whom he shared whatever food that was handed to him by the shopkeepers. The dog would follow him and sleep beside him on any street corner Saghar would choose to sleep on.

After 15 years of morphine addiction, depression and living on the streets, in early 1974 Saghar was found dead in one such street corner of Lahore. Exposed to the cold winter of the city, he passed away in his sleep. He was just 46.

The dog that was with him for more than six years never left the spot where Saghar died. Finally, one year after Saghar’s death, the dog too died — almost exactly at the same spot where Saghar did.


That's my sharing for now.

Love...
Aparna


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