Bismil Azimabadi

Bismil Azimabadi (1901–1978) was an Indian freedom-fighter poet from Patna, born Syed Shah Mohammad Hasan into a zamindar family of Azimabad. He took "Bismil" — the wounded one — as his pen name and became a disciple of Shad Azimabadi, frequenting the Qutub-khana Anjuman Taraqqi Urdu Library in Patna. He took part in the independence movement and is reported to have recited his poem "Sarfaroshi" at the Calcutta Congress session of 1920. Most of his poetry was lost; what survived was compiled after his death as *Hikayat-e-Hasti* (1980), and he left a short memoir, *Yaraan-i-Maikadah* (1976). He died in Patna on 20 June 1978. The Bihar Urdu Academy's Bismil Azimabadi Award keeps his name alive.