Saghar Siddiqui: poet of pain and the wandering mystic

On July 19, 1974 a man died on a footpath in Lahore, Pakistan.

On July 19, 1974 a man died on a footpath in Lahore, Pakistan. He had no money, no home, no family and no blanket to keep him warm. The only thing that was with him when he died was a dog. This man was Muhammad Akhtar. People in the literary world knew him as Saghar Siddiqui. He was one of the gifted poets in the history of Urdu literature. Saghar Siddiqui’s life was very strange. He went from being a poet to having nothing at all. This happened because he was very sensitive and society did not understand him.

He was born in 1928 in Ambala, British India. He was very shy when he was a child, however, liked to write poetry. By the time he was ten years old, he was writing poems. When Saghar Siddiqui was nineteen years old, he had to leave his home and move to Lahore. This was a sad time for him. He saw a lot of violence. It affected him deeply. Saghar Siddiqui only had his notebooks with him when he moved. The things he saw during this time stayed with him and changed the way he wrote. In the 1940s and early 1950s, Saghar Siddiqui became very famous in Lahore. People loved to hear him read his poetry. He had a voice and his poems were very deep. He also wrote songs for movies and edited magazines. He was a star.

“Zindagi jabr hai, aur jabr ka dastoor yeh hai

Raat jitni bhi sangeen ho, subah zaroor aayegi.”

(Life is very hard. This is the rule of life:

No matter how bad things are the morning will always come.)

Saghar Siddiqui’s success did not last long. Some people took advantage of him and stole his work. They would buy his poems, remove his name and sell them as their own. He could not trust people anymore. So, he decided to leave the world and live on the streets. Saghar Siddiqui would write poems on pieces of paper as well as empty cigarettes packs and sell them for a little money. He had to do this to survive. He also took drugs to forget his pain. People thought he was crazy. He liked to be around animals because they were loyal. He did not like to write about love because he thought it was not poetry. Saghar Siddiqui believed that poetry should be honest and hurt a little.

Even though Saghar Siddiqui had nothing, he still had a lot of self-respect. One famous story about him is when Pakistan’s military ruler, President Ayub Khan, wanted to meet him. The President wanted to give Saghar Siddiqui money and a place to live but the poet said no. He did not want to owe anyone anything. He wanted to be free to write what he wanted. Saghar Siddiqui thought that suffering was what made a poet good. He did not want to be a wealthy poet because he thought it was a contradiction.

Today, Saghar Siddiqui is remembered as the Poet of Pain. His poems are still loved as they remind people of a man who felt too much for this callous world. Saghar Siddiqui’s poems are still a reminder of the genius that he once was!