WO KAALI RAAT JAB EK SHAAYAR KI HAZAARO SHAIR SO GAYE ZAMAANE KO BAAR BAAR JAGAANE KE LIYE ( SAHIR LUDHIANVI EK SO EK JANAM DIN PAR )... BY ALI PETER JOHN

I was visiting Abbas Saahab after several months and he had written a note to me saying' you big big journalist. I small small filmmaker and poor writer . Please find some time for me and see me' - Ali Peter John

I had never felt so small and had rushed to see him. It was October 24,1980. I saw him sitting with the great poet Sahir Ludhianvi who had fascinated me even when I was in school and who I was lucky to know well after I had first met at the Taj Mahal Hotel where the producers of a film called 1965" were celebrating the song he had written for the film.

He had spent a lot of time with me and had told me how I should drink my whiskey and how I should try my best to live a simple life because otherwise life could get very complicated.

I had literally had him for my dinner that night as I kept observing every movement and gesture he made. I was especially the way he was dressed in a trouser with his shirt tucked in, a Nehru jacket with chappals on his feet.

That was the time I was charmed by his entire personality and had decided to wear a jacket which I wear to this day.

That morning he told Abbas Saahab how he was angry with life and when Abbas Saahab asked him why he was angry again, he had said," Zamaane mein jab tak zulm hota rahega, Sahir ko gussa aata rahega, main kya Karu"? He also told Abbas Saahab how he believed that Abbas Saahab was the only true leftist and progressive and all the others including himself were all fakes and frauds.

He was drinking all day and going around meeting friends and when it was evening, he sent his driver home after he had parked the car ( old Fiat whose nameplate had the number 3825).

He took a taxi and drove to his old house in Seven Bungalows which he had giffted to his friend from his Lahore days, Dr R.P Kapoor who was the personal doctor of well-known film personalities like Lata Mangeshkar, B R Chopra, Ramanand Sagar and many others besides giving free treatment to all the poor in and around the Versova Village.

Sahir was still drinking when he reached his house in Seven Bungalows. He asked the driver to wait as he just wanted to meet his friend and would be back. He went in and had a round of his bungalow where Dr Kapoor had still kept his own room for him.

He came down to where Dr Kapoor was relaxing, placed his head on his lap and it looked as if he was trying to sleep. But , after a few minutes, the renowned poet of life,love and the voice of the people had traveled to another world where death would be kinder than life.

His body was taken to " Parchchaiyan" where it was placed till eleven O clock the next morning. I was completely broke that morning and borrowed a rupee from my best friend , the manager of the canteen, a where I had my tea every morning and rushed by bus and then walked to Parchchaiyan" and was told that the body of Sahir had left for the Santa Cruz Kabrastan.

I walked to the Kabrastan and was lucky to have a last glimpse of the face that had launched lakhs of poems, dreams and desires.

I saw Sahir's body wrapped in white sheet and lowered into the grave and being covered with mud and the words "dust you are and to dust you shall return " kept ringing in my ears that whole day and I wondered about the millions of poems, ghazals and nazms that must have been buried with Sahir.

Some weeks later, the Municipal Corporation of Bombay had erected a marble plaque in honour of Sahir along the well-known Linking Road with all the leading writers and poets attending the inaugural ceremony and making speeches and reciting poetry in praise of Sahir.

However, the same night some miscreants had vandalised the plaque beyond repair. The Corporation had promised to erect another plaque, but today forty years later there is not even any talk of that plaque.

And if I knew Sahir, he would have smiled his wry smile and would have again said, "YE DUNIYA AGAR MIL BHI JAYE TOH KYA HAI ...... JALADO JALADO ISSE, PHOOK DAALO YEH DUNIYA, Sahir would be hundred years old soon and I am looking forward to see how the zamaana today remembers and honours the poet who cannot die because he was born to be a poet for all time, for eternity, taqaayaamat.