A tale of two Ludhianvis
October 26, 2011
There may have been more than one reason for Sahir Ludhianvi and Hamid Akhtar to be very close. They hailed from the same town, Ludhiana, espoused the same ideology and were both writers — one a poet and the other a journalist/writer. Both also grew up in an environment heady with the wine of expectation of a better future.
Born Abdul Hayee in 1921, Sahir Ludhianvi fell in love with a girl from his college and spent most of his time mooning over her while digging deep into the source of his inspiration. She was his muse and the love relationship flowered more in his poetry than in flesh and blood, but its echoes were heard far and wide, outside the four walls of the college through his irrepressible verses. Expelled from college (with a nudge from his love’s influential father), he came to Lahore in 1942 to study and try his luck at what he did best — editing and writing poetry.
Hamid Akthar (born Akhtar Ali in 1924) was a descendent of the Sufi saint Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiari of Ajmer. He became a ‘Hafiz-e-Quran’ at age ten. He met Sahir Ludhianvi and Ibn-e-Insha, both later major literary figures, while at school. He too came to Lahore, where he Hamid and Sahir Ludhianvi shared a house as well as their mornings, afternoons and late nights, weaving dreams from 1942 to 1945. They then went to Bombay, where Sahir wrote songs, Hamid Akhtar the dialogues, for “Azadi ki Rah Par”. But the film, made on the history of the Congress Party and advocating unity of India, bombed at the box office as it was released after August 1947. But it was during those years they became active in the set of the progressive writers of the city.
After Partition, Hamid Akhtar spent several months in a refugee camp before drifting back to Lahore; Sahir took an airplane. Hamid Akhtar got a house allotted for Sahir Ludhianvi on Abbott Road where they lived together and started their lives anew, along with Sahir’s mother — the only constant in his life.
He cared for her deeply, and she looked after him and his friends, extending the maternal lap by transforming the house into a home. As Sahir toiled to edit the progressive journals Adab-e-Lateef, Shaahkaar, and later Savera, trying to make ends meet on a meagre salary, Hamid Akhtar threw himself into the world of politics where taking the parliamentary road was not always considered to be the most desirable option. Despite the hard work and poverty, those were carefree times for the two young bachelors, who were both deeply committed to the struggle for justice in their own ways.
Sahir Ludhianvi and Hamid Akhtar both espoused the cause of the Left. Within the Indo-Pakistan context, they are more familiar with the nomenclature of being Taraqi Pasand (progressive) as writers affiliated with the Progressive Writers Association that mandated them to work for change through class consciousness.
Sahir’s unhappiness with the system stemmed at least in part from the lifestyle of his father, a zamindar (landlord) with a penchant for marrying and then divorcing and discarding his wives. Sahir was born out of such a union. As he became more aware he found himself being brought up by his mother, amidst squalor and poverty. She was his lifeline and he clung to her. Right from the start, it was clear that the education Sahir preferred was not the formal one imparted in the classroom — he breathed in a much wider environment. Before he knew what was happening his disposition forebode the emergence of a poet. Colours, seasons, women and social inequity held this attention rather than the discipline of the examination. He found himself ready to make a debut in life without the armour of academic degrees by choosing diction and a form that held an instant appeal for the common man. His initial poems were printed in an underground paper Kirti Lahar, published from Merat.
The going was tough, but the dreams were sweet and aplenty. The lack of resources and their ever-present poverty were overshadowed by the promise of a better tomorrow. Sahir Ludhianvi wrote and Hamid Akhtar toiled in the field, supporting each other. However, Sahir occasionally expressed the desire to return to India, staying in Lahore only on Hamid Akhtar’s insistence. At one point, Hamid Akhtar left for Karachi for a secret political assignment along with the Communist Party’s Sajjad Zaheer`. However, “due to circumstances” as Hamid Akhtar explained in a recent television interview with Farrukh Sohail Goindi (http://bit.ly/oTXJmP), they had to stay on for longer than initially planned.
Due to the secrecy of the trip, Hamid Akhtar was unable to write or call his friend to explain the delay. Sahir waited for him to return, bringing reassurance and an affirmation of their destiny — he himself was being hounded and harassed by various intelligence agencies. People told him that Hamid Akhtar had been arrested. Feeling vulnerable and alone, he quietly left for India in June 1948, and a few months later, sent somebody to escort his mother over as well.
When Hamid Akhtar returned to Lahore over a month after having left, he was shocked to find the house empty. Sahir and his mother were no longer there to shelter Hamid Akhtar and his friends. He lived in the house for a few days but found it increasingly difficult to cope with the loss to rationalise living in a house whose true occupants had left. He decided to leave it, and moved elsewhere in Lahore.
Sahir went to Delhi, then Hyderabad and finally to Bombay where he settled for good. The two did not meet again for the next thirty odd years — until Hamid Akhtar travelled to India, where he insisted on staying in the house of his bosom friend, Sahir Ludhianvi.
Theirs was truly a friendship and meeting of hearts and minds that transcended time and man-made borders.
The writer is a literary and music critic based in Lahore.
Email tnslhr@gmail.com
Caption: Two friends, two countries, one vision for peace and justice: (Above) Sahir Ludhianvi (file photo) and Hamid Akhtar (still from 2010 television interview with Farrukh Sohail Goindi)
Born Abdul Hayee in 1921, Sahir Ludhianvi fell in love with a girl from his college and spent most of his time mooning over her while digging deep into the source of his inspiration. She was his muse and the love relationship flowered more in his poetry than in flesh and blood, but its echoes were heard far and wide, outside the four walls of the college through his irrepressible verses. Expelled from college (with a nudge from his love’s influential father), he came to Lahore in 1942 to study and try his luck at what he did best — editing and writing poetry.
Hamid Akthar (born Akhtar Ali in 1924) was a descendent of the Sufi saint Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiari of Ajmer. He became a ‘Hafiz-e-Quran’ at age ten. He met Sahir Ludhianvi and Ibn-e-Insha, both later major literary figures, while at school. He too came to Lahore, where he Hamid and Sahir Ludhianvi shared a house as well as their mornings, afternoons and late nights, weaving dreams from 1942 to 1945. They then went to Bombay, where Sahir wrote songs, Hamid Akhtar the dialogues, for “Azadi ki Rah Par”. But the film, made on the history of the Congress Party and advocating unity of India, bombed at the box office as it was released after August 1947. But it was during those years they became active in the set of the progressive writers of the city.
After Partition, Hamid Akhtar spent several months in a refugee camp before drifting back to Lahore; Sahir took an airplane. Hamid Akhtar got a house allotted for Sahir Ludhianvi on Abbott Road where they lived together and started their lives anew, along with Sahir’s mother — the only constant in his life.
He cared for her deeply, and she looked after him and his friends, extending the maternal lap by transforming the house into a home. As Sahir toiled to edit the progressive journals Adab-e-Lateef, Shaahkaar, and later Savera, trying to make ends meet on a meagre salary, Hamid Akhtar threw himself into the world of politics where taking the parliamentary road was not always considered to be the most desirable option. Despite the hard work and poverty, those were carefree times for the two young bachelors, who were both deeply committed to the struggle for justice in their own ways.
Sahir Ludhianvi and Hamid Akhtar both espoused the cause of the Left. Within the Indo-Pakistan context, they are more familiar with the nomenclature of being Taraqi Pasand (progressive) as writers affiliated with the Progressive Writers Association that mandated them to work for change through class consciousness.
Sahir’s unhappiness with the system stemmed at least in part from the lifestyle of his father, a zamindar (landlord) with a penchant for marrying and then divorcing and discarding his wives. Sahir was born out of such a union. As he became more aware he found himself being brought up by his mother, amidst squalor and poverty. She was his lifeline and he clung to her. Right from the start, it was clear that the education Sahir preferred was not the formal one imparted in the classroom — he breathed in a much wider environment. Before he knew what was happening his disposition forebode the emergence of a poet. Colours, seasons, women and social inequity held this attention rather than the discipline of the examination. He found himself ready to make a debut in life without the armour of academic degrees by choosing diction and a form that held an instant appeal for the common man. His initial poems were printed in an underground paper Kirti Lahar, published from Merat.
The going was tough, but the dreams were sweet and aplenty. The lack of resources and their ever-present poverty were overshadowed by the promise of a better tomorrow. Sahir Ludhianvi wrote and Hamid Akhtar toiled in the field, supporting each other. However, Sahir occasionally expressed the desire to return to India, staying in Lahore only on Hamid Akhtar’s insistence. At one point, Hamid Akhtar left for Karachi for a secret political assignment along with the Communist Party’s Sajjad Zaheer`. However, “due to circumstances” as Hamid Akhtar explained in a recent television interview with Farrukh Sohail Goindi (http://bit.ly/oTXJmP), they had to stay on for longer than initially planned.
Due to the secrecy of the trip, Hamid Akhtar was unable to write or call his friend to explain the delay. Sahir waited for him to return, bringing reassurance and an affirmation of their destiny — he himself was being hounded and harassed by various intelligence agencies. People told him that Hamid Akhtar had been arrested. Feeling vulnerable and alone, he quietly left for India in June 1948, and a few months later, sent somebody to escort his mother over as well.
When Hamid Akhtar returned to Lahore over a month after having left, he was shocked to find the house empty. Sahir and his mother were no longer there to shelter Hamid Akhtar and his friends. He lived in the house for a few days but found it increasingly difficult to cope with the loss to rationalise living in a house whose true occupants had left. He decided to leave it, and moved elsewhere in Lahore.
Sahir went to Delhi, then Hyderabad and finally to Bombay where he settled for good. The two did not meet again for the next thirty odd years — until Hamid Akhtar travelled to India, where he insisted on staying in the house of his bosom friend, Sahir Ludhianvi.
Theirs was truly a friendship and meeting of hearts and minds that transcended time and man-made borders.
The writer is a literary and music critic based in Lahore.
Email tnslhr@gmail.com
Caption: Two friends, two countries, one vision for peace and justice: (Above) Sahir Ludhianvi (file photo) and Hamid Akhtar (still from 2010 television interview with Farrukh Sohail Goindi)
