Saghar Siddiqui

Muhammad Akhtar "Saghar" Siddiqui (1928–1974), remembered as the Shaair-e-Dard (Poet of Pain), was born in Ambala in British India's Punjab and began writing poetry as a child. He first wrote under the pen name Nasir Hijazi before becoming known as Saghar. After Partition in 1947 he migrated to Pakistan and settled in Lahore, where his melodious ghazals made him a beloved mushaira voice. He wrote for films and founded a literary magazine that won critical praise but failed commercially. Disappointment, financial ruin and addiction followed, and in his later years he lived on the streets of Lahore, still composing verse and still holding mushairas by candlelight on the footpaths. In July 1974 he was found dead on a street corner in Lahore, aged 46, and was buried at the Miani Sahib graveyard. Much of his later work is lost or unpublished, which is part of why the voice that survives — pain stated plainly, without ornament — still moves readers so directly.