Originally posted on 10 Jan 2011 :

The first collection of poems entitled “Talkhian” (bitternesses) written by Sahir Ludhianvi was published in 1944. It received critical acclaim, but the Urdu used by Sahir was so stiff that the lay Indian could not appreciate the work. Many years later, at the instance of Guru Dutt, the poet rewrote some of the poems as lyrics for Pyasa in 1957 and with that movie a ‘star’ was born. Like many young men, I became a fan of Sahir Sa’ab.

Recently I discovered that in the years that followed, this versatile genius produced songs in ‘shudhha’ Hindi. It came to me as a surprise that some of the lyrics for the film, “Chitralekha” (1964) were written by Sahir. Permit me to share a clip of the song, “Sansar se bhage phirte ho” Two of its stanzas are absolute gems,

“Yeh paap hai kya ye punya hai kya, reeton par dharm ki mohren hain

 Har yug mein badalte dharmon ko, kaise aadarsh banavoge??”

Ye bhog bhi eik tapasya hai, tum tyaag ke maaro kya jaano

Apmaan rachayata ka hoga, rachna ko jo tum thukravoge!!”

(rachayata is the Creator and rachna is the creation)

For those who may like to know, the music is set to Raag Kalyan (Yaman) on which some of the most endearing songs have been set and the ‘tabla’ beats to ‘dadra’