Tufail Hoshiarpuri

Hoshiarpur's lyricist — the heart's tales reach the lips only as sighs. Tufail Hoshiarpuri (1914–1993), born on 17 July 1914 at Hoshiarpur in Punjab, was a Pakistani Urdu poet and film song lyricist whose ghazals and whose film songs both travelled far beyond his own name. He began by reading patriotic poems at Muslim League gatherings, and wrote songs for films in British India before Partition; after 1947 he became one of Pakistan's best-loved lyricists — his words carried by the qawwali "Sanson Ki Mala Pe" in Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's voice, and by the breakthrough hit "Ni Suhay Chooray Waliye" from the film Shammi (1950). Alongside the film work he kept writing ghazals, dohe, rubai and naat, and his services to Urdu letters were honoured with the Pride of Performance. He died at Lahore on 4 January 1993, aged 78.