Golden Era of Bollywood: Remembering Sahir Ludhianvi on his 36th Death Anniversary

Sahir, like his name, was a "magician" of words. He painted fascinating images in songs and ghazals, Spellbinding his listeners and readers for decades. For about thirty years, he remained associated with the Hindi film industry. He composed hundreds of songs for Hindi/Urdu films. Most of his songs became hugely popular and are even today sung and hummed by people of all generations.
Sahir Ludhianvi was born on March 8th, 1921 in Karimpura locality in Ludhiana, Punjab. His real name was Abdul Hayee (alternate spellings Haie or Hayi). He was born in a wealthy family of zamindars.
Sahir made his debut as a lyricist with the film "Azadi Ki Raah Par" in 1948. The film had four songs written by him. His first song was "badal rahii hai zindagii". However, it was the year 1951 that would bring him fame and recognition. Two films, released in 1951, had songs that sky-rocketed in popularity and are hummed even today. First was "Thandi hawaayen lehraa ke aayen" from Naujawan. The second was a landmark film, marking the directorial debut of Guru Dutt - Baazi. Both films, coincidentally, had music by S. D. Burman.
After Baazi Sahir was then considered part of Guru Dutt's team.
S.D. Burman and Sahir Ludhianvi went on to compose music for 18 movies,Some of the well-known films are characteristic of Burman-Ludhianvi team: Devdas, Jeevan Jyoti, Jaal, Society, Armaan and Taxi Driver.
The last film Sahir made with Burman was Pyaasa. In Pyaasa, Guru Dutt played a poet named Vijay. After Pyaasa, Sahir and Burman went separate ways due to artistic and contractual differences.
Sahir did work with other composers including Ravi, Roshan, Khayyam and Datta Naik. Naik, a Goan, admired Sahir's poetry and their collaboration produced the score forMilaap (1955). Sahir also worked with music director Laxmikant-Pyarelal in the films like "Man Ki Aankhe", "Izzat", "Dustan" and Yash Chopra's "Daag" all have fabulous songs. From about 1950 until his death, Sahir collaborated with Baldev Raj Chopra (1914 - 2008), a film producer and director. Sahir's last work for Chopra was for Insaaf Ka Tarazu.Yash Chopra, an independent director and producer, also engaged Sahir.

Sahir ludhianvi has written about 700 songs for 30 music composers in his 32 years career as lyrics writer ( 1921 to 1980 )
Sahir won a Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist for Taj Mahal (1963). He won a second Filmfare Award for Best Lyricist for his work on Kabhie Kabhie (1976) and he was awarded the Padma Shri in 1971
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Sahir was considered a *romantic*: personal romance and the resultant disillusionment, followed by universal romance and the resultant frustration with *the way it is*. He never minced the words, did not sublimate emotions. He expressed thoughts clearly and directly.

A bachelor to the end, Sahir Ludhianvi fell in love with writer Amrita Pritam and singer Sudha Malhotra, relationships that never fructified in the conventional sense and left him sad. Ironically, the two ladies' fathers wouldn't accept Sahir, an atheist, because of his perceived religion.

During the last years of his life, Sahir suffered from alcoholism and underwent a radical personality alteration marked by moodiness and despair. Sahir Ludhianvi passed away at the age of 59 (25 October 1980) from heart attack. A bungalow named Parchaiyaan in Andheri, Mumbai became Sahir’s abode from 1970s till his last days.

A TRIBUTE TO SAHIR