Qateel Shifai

Qateel Shifai (1919–2001), born Muhammad Aurangzeb Khan on 24 December 1919 at Haripur in the Hazara Division, was Urdu's great lyrical poet — a ghazal writer whose lines travelled, without losing their literary shape, into the mouths of millions through film. His father's death in 1935 cut short his education; small businesses failed, and in 1946 he was called to Lahore as assistant editor of the monthly Adab-e-Latif. He showed his early verse to Hakim Yahya Shifa Khanpuri, from whom he took "Shifai", and then became the disciple — and neighbour and friend — of Ahmad Nadeem Qasmi. From Teri Yaad (1947) he wrote film lyrics for over five decades, more than two thousand songs, while publishing some twenty collections of ghazals and nazms — Guftagu, Bargad, Amokhta among them — in a diction deliberately simple, musical and close to ordinary speech. He received the Adamjee Literary Award (1964) and the Pride of Performance (1994); his autobiography Ghungroo Toot Gaye appeared posthumously. He died in Lahore on 11 July 2001; Haripur and a Lahore street now carry his name.